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's not easy to be your kid. You don't mean to be. You try really hard.

You love them so much and you want everything to be wonderful. But you know it's not easy to be your kid, right? It's not easy to be anyone's kid. It's not easy for lots of reasons. Gay Talis, who knew the Diddian family well, we've been talking about her a lot recently. He speculates in Evelyn McDonald's biography of Joan Didien

what it must have been like to be Quintana Rue, their adopted daughter. Often they had their

daughter with them at restaurants, Tilly said. I knew the daughter to speak of, and she was a little

daughter. I mean, he said, can you imagine being the daughter of Joan and John? My own daughters have a little problem,

so I can identify with how she must have felt with those well-known people. People go vying for

their attention all the time, and you're the little daughter, and you're getting no attention

at all because your parents are spending time talking to some Oscar-winning actor, some Nobel

prize-winning writer. I mean, Jesus, it must be terrible. Now,

terrible is a strong word, but the flip side of their success and notoriety must have been

tough on a little girl. The entertaining they did, their lifestyle of fancy dinners and exotic

trips, it must have been so fun, but also so stressful, even alienating for a kid. And the point isn't to judge this specific

choice or that specific child, that it's to get you to consider what makes it hard, even terrible

to be your kid? Where are your choices stressing them out? What are the flip sides of the privileges

you've provided them? What must it be like to be them? And we have to think about

these things. We have to be considerate. We have to be understanding because it's because it's hard to

be a kid generally and being your kid is extra on top. I actually just had Evelyn McDonald

on the Daily Stoag podcast. I'll link to that shortly.

But check out her new book.

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