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 Holliday, 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.

Maybe you were saved.

If you're one of those kids who didn't get everything you needed from your parents,

and let's face it, pretty much everyone is, you probably carry something with you as an adult today.

Maybe you're angry or sad, wounded, or resentful. You can wonder what could have been, who you'd be if they'd been around more,

been more patient, or more patient or loving,

or understood you. And while there is no doubt this experience was tragic, perhaps there is another

way of looking at it. For instance, Robert F. Kennedy had it hard among the Kennedy kids. Not as hard

as his sister Rosemary, who was lobotomized and shipped off to an institution,

but he was not thought of as having much potential,

who's not considered a prize to his father.

He was not seen as being everything a young Kennedy should be.

Yet, as one later Kennedy aide observed,

to be overlooked was a privilege in the Kennedy family.

Bobby was the only one who was truly in touch

with his emotions, who was able to feel. The others were cut off from theirs, made to be adults,

required to be stilic. Kennedy's biographer Evan Thomas would go further. Kennedy had been

saved by neglect. What you went through wasn't fun, but what if we could see it this way, that it made us better people and better parents, because we had to do this work on ourselves, because we felt what it was like to not get something important. We know what it will mean to our children if they go without, and we will not fail to give it to them.

You were saved by it, and now you can save them.

Hey, thank you for listening to The Daily Dad Podcast.

...