There Are Things Better To Just Not Think About
The Daily Dad
Daily Dad
4.6 • 629 Ratings
🗓️ 12 December 2019
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emily Oster is a writer and a thinker after our own heart. Frustrated with all the bad parenting advice—most of which seems to be based on old wives’ tales and ridiculously bad data—she set out to apply her economist training to the subject of parenting. What kind of sleep training is best? Formula or breastfeeding? Screen time, good or bad?
The result was her book Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting from Birth to Preschool, which is worth reading and recommending to anyone with young kids. But what’s so interesting about the book is where it ends, which is not with some data driven insight but something completely anecdotal, and yet totally true. Oster, about to take her daughter on an international trip, anxiously asked the pediatrician what would happen if her daughter was stung by a bee while they were away. What if she’s allergic? What if something bad happens? You know the script, what if, what if, what if?
The doctor’s reply: “I’d just try not to think about that.”
As Emily explained in an interview:
I think about that advice all the time because it’s pretty broadly applicable to a lot of things in parenting. We can get caught up in every tiny decision and miss the enjoyment of parenting and the part of this that’s supposed to be fun. It just pushed against some of my worse instincts as a parent to just obsess over everything. Sometimes you just have to accept that you cannot control everything. That’s hard, but it’s part of the fun. Also, the kid was eventually stung by a bee, and it was totally fine.
Selective ignorance seems like a dangerous parenting strategy, and, of course, if practiced all the time, would be. But there is no way you’re going to be a good dad if all you do is worry about everything that could possibly happen. There’s no way you’ll be present or fun or attentive if your mind is constantly running through worst case scenarios. There’s no way you’ll get the big decisions right if you’re sweating every tiny decision.
There are some things it’s better not to think about. There are some times when we just need to accept that we’re winging it. There are some problems we’ll just have to solve when we get to them--if we even have to get to them. In the meantime, we’ve got plenty of other things to do...so go do it!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 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. |
| 0:14.7 | I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from |
| 0:23.4 | parents just like you all over the world. Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps. |
| 0:35.2 | I was very excited when this came in the mail, not just as an investor, but as a fan of Magic Spoon |
| 0:42.3 | cereal, which I have eaten so many boxes of over the years. They just rolled out these new |
| 0:47.7 | cereal bars, which you can check out. There's a cookies and cream one. And when I got them, the first |
| 0:52.7 | thing, not only did I eat one and |
| 0:54.3 | my kids eat one, but then we had to save some for my father-in-law who also loves Magic Spoon, you know, when you were a kid, you loved eating sugary cereal, and you knew it probably wasn't good for you when it was called something like Cookie Crisp, or it had a picture of your favorite candy bar on it. I wouldn't give my kids that stuff today, but I do give them magic spoon, |
| 0:55.3 | because healthy breakfast doesn't have to be... had a picture of your favorite candy bar on it. I wouldn't give my kids that stuff today, |
| 1:11.6 | but I do give them MagicSpoon because Healthy Breakfast doesn't have to be boring. |
| 1:15.6 | MagicSpoon has amazing flavors. You'll love, they'll love without the bad stuff. |
| 1:20.7 | You can go to MagicSpoon.com slash Daily Dad to grab a custom bundle of cereal and be sure to |
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| 1:42.5 | slash DailyDad. use the promo code Daily |
| 1:44.5 | Dad to save five bucks off and try these cereal bars, man. They're really good. Thank you to |
| 1:49.0 | Magic Spoon for sending them to me and for sponsoring this episode. There are things better |
| 1:55.6 | to just not think about. Emily Oster is a writer and a thinker after our own heart. Frustrated with all the bad |
| 2:02.8 | parenting advice, most of which seems to be based on old wives' tales and ridiculously bad data, |
| 2:08.6 | she set out to apply her economist training to the subject of parenting. What kind of sleep |
... |
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