They Don’t Want This
The Daily Dad
Daily Dad
4.6 • 629 Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2024
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bruce Springsteen’s childhood was a strange one. His mother worked to support their family. His father was distant and harsh. He spent a lot of time with his grandparents, who spoiled him, in part because they were grieving the loss of their own daughter years earlier.
“His Majesty, the Baby,” is how his childhood is described in the fascinating book Deliver Me From Nowhere (incredible book, by the way). Springsteen would admit that this kind of attention and celebration “seems to a kid like a great thing, but it’s exactly what a kid doesn’t want. Very problematic, it caused me a lot of trouble. To this day. It destroyed me and it made me. At the same time.”
As we said before, nobody likes a spoiled child…especially the spoiled children. It warps their sense of reality. It makes them both entitled and strips them of pleasure—because they come to take it for granted. The attention ceases to have meaning because it feels like a birthright. It suffocates and isolates. They are deprived of skills they need, confidence and character they need.
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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. |
| 0:16.8 | 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. |
| 0:28.4 | Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps. |
| 0:33.0 | They don't want this. |
| 0:35.7 | Their royalty to us, the most special, wonderful people on the planet. |
| 0:39.6 | We love them so much, we want to give them everything they want. We want to make them the center |
| 0:42.8 | of everything. But we know, we know we shouldn't, right? Bruce Springsteen's childhood was a strange one. |
| 0:50.5 | His mother worked to support their family. His father was distant and harsh. He spent a lot of time |
| 0:55.1 | with his grandparents who spoiled him, in part because they were grieving the loss of their own |
| 0:59.7 | daughter from years earlier. His Majesty, the Baby, is how his childhood is described in the |
| 1:06.1 | fascinating book, Deliver Me from Nowhere. It's an incredible book, by the way, you should grab it to |
| 1:10.3 | paint a porch. Springsteen would admit that this kind of attention and celebration seems to a kid like a great |
| 1:16.5 | thing, but it's exactly what a kid doesn't want. He said it was very problematic and it caused him |
| 1:22.1 | a lot of trouble. To this day, he said, it destroyed me and it made me at the same time. |
| 1:28.1 | As we've said before, nobody likes a spoiled child, especially the spoiled children. |
| 1:33.5 | It warps their sense of reality. |
| 1:35.6 | It makes them both entitled and strips them of pleasure because they come to take it for granted. |
| 1:40.8 | The attention ceases to have any meaning because it feels like a birthright. It suffocates and |
| 1:46.2 | it isolates. They're deprived of the skills they need, confidence and character they need. It seems like |
| 1:51.6 | it would be great to get all your love, all your affection, all the resources you want to shower them |
| 1:55.4 | with. But it isn't. And you can. You know that, right? |
| 2:05.7 | Yeah. And you can. You know that, right? Hey, you're listening to the Daily Dad podcast, one meditation a day inspired to help you do your |
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