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.

Here's what matters.

Rich Cohen loves hockey.

He loves watching his kids excel at it. Like any parent, the last thing he wants to

see is for them to struggle, or worse, to not get their fair share, whether it's playing time or

respect. In his lovely new book, Peewee's Confessions of a Hockey Parent, Rich tells one story about a

conversation he had with his son's

coach. His son wasn't being given the time on the ice that Rich thought he deserved, so he tried to

make a case for it. The coach, on the other hand, had no patience. Let me ask you this. Is Mika happy?

He told him, yes, Rich replied. Is Mika having fun? Yes,

Rich had to admit. And that's where the coach got him was something that all parents ought to be

reminded of. He just said, then why do you care? If our kids are having fun, if they're happy,

if they're learning, if they're building bonds with teammates, then nothing else matters. Winning doesn't matter. Playing time doesn't matter. Maybe even grades

and SAT scores and college admissions don't matter. Our job is not to optimize our kids for success.

It's not to fight for every advantage and opportunity like the world is running out of them.

Our job is to give our kids what we didn't them. Our job is to give our kids what we

didn't get. Our job is to set our kids up for life, to teach them out to be present, how to find

things they love, how to be a good person, how to respond to the situations that we find ourselves

put in. That's it. Everything else, what do we care?

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