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.

Show them what's what and who's who.

We told the story a while back about Richard Feynman's father,

who took pains to show his son, usually by their photo in the newspaper, Who was worthy of respect or not?

He didn't want his son to be fueled by appearances or titles or fancy clothes. He wanted him to know

what a good man was like and what actually made someone

worth admiring. This is something we have to do too on our own way because it's so easy for

kids to learn the wrong lesson or be distracted by the wrong role models. Your job when you see

the president lying on television is to let your kids know that this is what a liar looks like.

Your job when you see some shameless reality start debasing themselves for attention is to

explain to them what desperation looks like and how it's the opposite of dignity.

Your job when you see someone cheating in sports is to tell your kid that cheating is not something that you respect.

By the same turn, your job is also to point out heroes when they walk by or when they appear in

our culture. Tell them about Pat Tillman. Tell them about Harriet Tubman. Take them to Washington

to see the Lincoln Monument or London to Parliament Square and explain why this American

who never stepped foot in England earned a statue there too. Walk a few steps over and show them

Millicent Fawcett and Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and Winston Churchill. You can talk to them about the

gray area too for no hero and no villain exists without shades of gray, but you

have to talk to them about these things.

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