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.

They need windows. There's been a big push recently for diversity and inclusion in books and television.

The argument is that it's important for kids to see characters that look like them.

This was certainly part of the mission of my book, The Girl Who Would Be Free,

which tells the story of epicetus through the lens of a female character.

The goal was to make the fable slightly more accessible to young girls and women,

a group that Stoic philosophy has often ignored.

Obviously, any system that excludes voices is an unjust one.

But we should also realize, as parents and consumers,

that we can learn from all sorts of people.

We don't need for everything to look like us or be tailored to us. As George Packer wrote in a recent

piece in the Atlantic, the best way to raise a reader is to give them a chance to read great books.

He said, we sell our kids insultingly short in thinking that they won't read

unless the subject is themselves. Mirrors are ultimately isolating. Young readers also need

windows, even if the view is unfamiliar, even if it's disturbing. The ability to enter a world that's

far away in time or place to grapple with characters whose stories might initially

seem to have nothing to do with your life, to gradually sense that their emotions, troubles,

and revelations are also yours. This collection through language to universal human experience

and thought is the reward of great literature, a source of empathy and wisdom. Whatever your children's

gender, they should be able to learn something about themselves in the story of Marcus Aurelius,

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