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.

There is a last time to all of it.

There is a meme that features the characters from the movie The Sandlot that says at some point in your childhood,

you and all your friends went outside to play together for the last time, and nobody knew it.

It's not a quote that's actually in the movie, but it's a line that parents should understand

just as well as their kids.

It may be hard to imagine right now when they are small and vulnerable, but there will be a last

time for every moment you share in their childhood. There's the stuff we love doing with our kids,

hide and seat, going to concerts, watching them hit a home run, and there's the stuff you love less,

the diapers, the arguments over curfew, the screaming tantrums, the stuff you love less, the diapers, the arguments over

curfew, the screaming tantrums, the good and the bad, the mundane and the wonderful alike. None of it

lasts forever. There is the last time they wet their bed and you have to wash the sheets. There's the

last time you have to remind them for the last time to do their homework or put their shoes away.

There's the last time they run into your arms. There's the last time they run into your

arms. There's the last time they try to sneak out of the house. The fact that there is a ticking

clock to all of this should inform everything that we do, though each situation is different.

It should mean we sweat little things less and also soak up the little things more. It means

that we should enjoy those few chances we'll ever get to be woken up by them in the middle of the night, to be their chauffeur, to be their homework sidekick, to be up waiting for them to come home, to be the one they call. The days are long, but the years are short, as they say, and at some, before you know it, you and your kids are going to

have your last day together. Before then, try to make the most out of every mundane and wonderful

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