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 where to be a competitive parent.

Way too many parents are competitive. They see the car their neighbor is driving and they want to get a better one. They hear their friend's kid got into a fancy school and they think, my kid is smarter. I've got to get them in there too. We want to make more money than other parents. We want our kids to beat other kids in sports. We want our kids to be cuter than other kids. We want our houses to be

cleaner. Needless to say, this is mostly toxic and negative. But that competitive urge is hard

to get rid of. So where shall we channel it? We've told you about Jeannie Gaffigan before,

whose haunting story of a surprise, pear-sized tumor changed her and her family's life. She found a good outlet.

She explained that during her recuperation from the surgery, her husband brought out a new

side of himself and created a healthy, positive dynamic in their relationship. She said,

I noticed that Jim started learning all about the day-to-day stuff out of necessity, but I feel like

in my recovery, he has a whole different level of appreciation for me. He'd do things like my son

was going to all these bar mitzvahs every weekend because everyone was turning 13 and I'm bad at

tying ties, but I would do it because Jim wasn't home. And then Jim would be like, when he does

something better than me, he brags about it. He said, who ties the better tie? So there was a lot of

this kind of fun competition about who made eggs better. And it was a different level of our relationship

because before he was not doing that stuff. Don't compete with other dads or other families.

Compete with your spouse. Compete with their mother. Who can use the phone less? Who can get them

down to bed fastest? Who can convince their kids to do the thing they hate doing the least amount of

arguing? Who can pick up the most slack? Who can get up earliest and start breakfast, who can complain the least.

You'll both be better and happy for it. Your kids might not notice, but they'll be better and happier

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