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.

There is no party line. Should you let your kids have screen time when they're younger? How young is too young to give them their first phone? What about sugar and processed foods? Should they get an allowance? Should you make them get a job? Do they have to clean up after themselves or can the parents help? Should they do their own laundry? Being a parent is, in a sense, just an endless stream of

questions. We don't know, so we ask, or we are asked by their teachers, by the state, by fellow

parents, an endless stream of policy questions. Can they watch our rated movies? Are you okay with

this or that? Is it safe to do this or that? It would be wonderful if there was clarity on this,

if there was one central authority that had all the answers. But you have to have suspected by now

that that is not true. In fact, really coming into your own as a father requires a realization

like the one that Alan Ginsberg had on his path to becoming a great poet.

He was 28 and had a job as a market researcher.

He told his psychologist that he was considering quitting his promising career to make his way

into the world to become a writer.

Well, why not?

His psychiatrist said.

What would the American Psychoanalytic Association say, Ginsburg, replied, and the therapist said,

there is no party line. That's what you realize as a father. There is no party line. There is no clear

answer for having kids, not for having kids, not even for one kid versus the other. As we've

talked about, every situation, every child, every age is different.

You have to figure it out as you go.

That doesn't mean winging it, but it does mean you will have to answer these questions.

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