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 this intention, this choice that matters.

There are a lot of kids out there.

There are fewer parents.

Not just because most families have more than one child, but because unfortunately,

tragically, not everyone who has a kid decides to be a parent.

In a recent podcast, Richard Reeves, who wrote the fascinating book of boys and men,

talked about a study that found that adopted children often do as well or even better than kids who are raised

by their biological families. His point was not just that people who adopt are angels, but he was

making the same point that we've made here many times. It's the decision, it's the choice to raise a child that is everything.

Whether you're choosing that to do with a kid that is biologically yours or a bonus kid from a

spouse's previous marriage or one that you and your partner have adopted, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that you decide to become a parent. Legal status, the shared DNA? No. What matters is the choice

to assume the responsibility, to step up, to identify with and as, to give everything you have to this

new job. Unfortunately, tragically, too few people do this. Worse, too many people who decide not to do this,

decide to have

kids. We don't control that. All we control is that every day, whatever our circumstances,

the past happens to be that we choose to be the exception, that we choose to do something beyond having

kids. We have to choose to be parents.

Of all the packages that get dropped off at my door, actually the door of the painted porch,

...