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.

The most important decision you make.

When you're in a bad mood, you know what they think?

Your kids think it has something to do with them.

Even though you know the truth and you might even try to explain it to them,

they don't actually believe it has anything to do with the stress that is on your shoulders or that coworker whose stupidity you had to put up

with all day, or your boss's short temper and unrealistic expectations.

Those are all complex emotional issues that are hard for a young kid to understand,

especially when they are abstracted from their own living experience.

In his memoir, Bruce Springsteen talks about how his father's mood

and emotions affected him as a child. I knew something was being communicated, he writes.

As a boy, I just figured it was the way men were distant, uncommunicative, busy within the currents

of the grown-up world. As a child, you don't question your parents' choices.

You accept them. They are justified by the godlike status of parenthood. If you aren't spoken to,

you aren't worth the time. If you're not greeted with love and affection, you haven't earned it.

If you were ignored, you don't exist. And I sensed what was being said that I was an intruder,

a stranger, a competitor in our home,

and a fearful disappointment. My heart broke, and I crumpled. It breaks our heart to hear that.

We can grant that his parents probably had it hard, that they were struggling, that their parents

were flawed, that their childhoods weren't what they would have chosen.

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