Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from parents just like you all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

You are not a babysitter. The late ESPN broadcaster and father of two girls, Stuart Scott,

was once sitting in a restaurant with some friends and their respective children.

Everyone was having fun, and it was one of those delightful scenes where you see parents bonding with their kids.

The kids were behaving, the dads were present, all was well.

Until a mom walked by and recognizing

Scott tried to pay him a compliment for babysitting the kids. She did not realize that this was an

insult to Scott, and in fact, to all fathers, because dads don't babysit. It's impossible. Babysitting

is something somebody else does for your children on your

behalf. A babysitter is by definition a non-parent. These were Scott's kids. He couldn't babysit on his own

behalf. It'd be like calling a homeowner a security guard every time you see them lock their house

when they leave for work. They're not

protecting someone else's property. They're just being a responsible homeowner. They're doing

their job. Scott was doing his job. He was being a dad, no more, but certainly no less. As his friend

would observe after Scott's tragic death from cancer, we didn't see ourselves as an occasional

parental figure who might take the kids off mom's hands for a couple hours. See what you do is important

because it is. You're not a babysitter. You're not some lesser figure in your kids' lives. When you are

with them and when you are not with them, you're their

father. That matters. It's an important job, one that you should take seriously and never

demean and not let others demean either. You are doing it because you love it, because you get

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