Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you with your

most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical

wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Don't let them dislike themselves.

One of the more vulnerable moments of Pete Buttigieg pioneering campaign for president as a front-running openly gay man came in South Carolina.

At a town hall, Mayor Pete talked about what it was like to be young and struggle with this identity, this part of his sexuality.

His answer should be read

by every father out there. When I was younger, he said, I would have done anything not to be gay.

When I began to halfway realize what it meant that I felt the way I did about people I saw in the

hallway at school or the dining room at college, it launched in me something that I can only describe as a kind of

war. And if that war had been settled on the terms I would have wished for when I was 15 or 20,

or frankly, even 25, I would not be standing here. If you had offered me a pill that could make me

straight, I would have swallowed it before you had time to give me a sip of water. It's a hard

thing to think about now. It's hard to face the truth that there were times in my life when,

if you had shown me exactly what it was inside me that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a

knife. We've talked before about the things you'd never want your kids to feel and that paragraph belongs at the top of

every list whatever your religion whatever your politics whatever plans or hopes you have for your

kids no father ever wants to hear that their kid would like to cut a part of themselves out

no one wants to hear that their son or daughter is at war with themselves. Because what you want

is for them to be happy, to know that they are good, that you love them, that you're proud of them,

that whatever happens, whatever choices they make, they'll always be your child. Of course,

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