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.

Regular kids can do great things.

It is obvious in retrospect why some of the towering figures of the 20th century

were who they were, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, even Churchill, they had formative, even horrible

childhoods that propelled them to seek power, made them ruthless and cunning, ambitious, and even

the worst of them, brilliant at times. Is it true that all leaders are broken this way at childhood?

Is it actually a perverse handicap to raise children as we are trying to do with love and

understanding? Maybe Franklin Delano Roosevelt can provide some contrast. As the author explains in the

fascinating book, The Lion and the Fox, a biography of Roosevelt's political life, he says,

Roosevelt was no product of a broken home or of a ruined land. He knew nothing of family strife, physical want, contemptuous glances.

His father never laughed at him. He adored his parents. And as an only child, he never suffered even the common experience of dethronement by

younger children taking over the center of the family circle. His environment laid no stress

on competitive achievement in business or politics. He was to be a gentleman. The point is

that kids given an ordinary childhood can accomplish extraordinary things. Of course, Roosevelt was privileged in many ways,

but the greatest gift he was given were precisely the gifts that you were able to provide.

He was cared for. He was made to feel that he was enough. He was encouraged. His parents believed

in him. And that was what made him great. Everything else was extra. And so when we look at the

greatness of Churchill, who was fueled by

his abusive and painful childhood, and the evil of Hitler and Stalin, who were formed by the

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