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. Their faults are your faults. They don't listen. They make

bad decisions. They don't give their best effort. Your kids

can drive you nuts. But after all, isn't mimicry pretty aggravating? I love him very dearly,

I guess, because of his faults, which are my faults, the novelist John Steinbeck would write of his

young son. I know where his pains and panics come from. And of course, these flaws really came from Steinbeck would write of his young son. I know where his pains and panics come from.

And of course, these flaws really came from Steinbeck himself. Our kids have our vices and our

virtues. That's what makes this thing so hard. But it's also what makes parenting such a wonderful

opportunity. Steinbeck, for instance, would note as he wrote east of Eden that his son,

Tom, was at a particularly critical juncture, one that Steinbeck had been at himself.

He can be ruined or made strong in exactly this little time Steinbeck wrote in his journal,

and now is the time when I must help him, not only by bolstering him up, but by forcing here and making him

learn balance there. And that's what we're here for, to help them, to become like us in the good

ways and to prevent them from becoming too much like us in the bad ways. This is our chance,

our time, to help them, to bolster them, to seize this second chance, to give what we didn't get,

to help them overcome flaws that maybe we never quite got over ourselves.

It's a chance to understand.

To be an ancestor and not a ghost, to love, to appreciate, most of all, to be patient with.

I think one of my favorite things about being a parent is sort of made me a kid again

in a weird way.

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