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.

They shouldn't have to earn this.

Lyndon Johnson was a bright young boy, taking after his mother who had always loved literature.

At an early age, he would do performances of some of her favorite poems with a level of

comprehension and mastery that stunned people who got to see it, including his mother who struggled

out in the lonely, often uncultured Texas Hill country.

I'll never forget how much my mother loved me when I recited those poems, Johnson later said.

The minute I finished, she'd take me in her arms and hug me so hard, I thought sometimes I'd be strangled to death.

Do you have something like that with your kids, something they do that warms your heart that makes you so proud because they're picking up where you left off because they're showing so much

promise?

Wonderful.

But be careful.

As Johnson recounts, it was not such a dream to be Mama's special boy.

The expectations were unfair.

It made him feel like he had to earn her love that her pride for him was conditional.

Because while things were wonderful when he was succeeding, they felt terrible when he failed,

like when he decided to stop playing the piano or dancing.

For days after I quit those lessons, he remembered, she walked around the house pretending I was dead.

And then I had to watch her being

...