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.

It doesn't happen all at once.

No one is the parent they want to be. That's the bad news. The good news is that most of us are better parents than we were. We talked a lot about the big choice we all

have to make. Are we just somebody who has kids or are we a parent? And while this is a choice,

it's also more of an aspiration. You don't magically suddenly

become the perfect parent. How could you? There's so much you don't yet know. So many lessons you

haven't learned. So many gifts you haven't been given yet. So much stuff hasn't happened yet.

In the Velveteen rabbit, the toy rabbit asked the old worn and wise toy horse how to become real, how to be more than

just one of those mechanical, trendy toys that get worn out and broken and tossed aside.

The rabbit wants to know what he's supposed to do, whether it's something he commits to or asks for

or what, and he wants to know also, is this something that happens suddenly or little by little?

It doesn't happen all at once, the horse replies, you become. It takes a long time. It has to do with opening yourself up,

he explains. It's about a willingness to be hurt. It takes resilience, he says, the easily broken toys,

they never make it. You have to accept being worn down and used up. It's a day-to-day thing,

but once it happens, you're changed forever. And so it goes for us. We make our choice,

and then this choice, the love of our kids, given and received, it makes us, little by little,

day by day

it takes a long time that we become

look the whole point of parenting is to be around for your kids, to watch your kids grow up.

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