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.

This is what you wanted.

Any parent who has had young kids takes a minute to remind younger parents with babies of this.

Yes, you want them to start crawling, but as soon as they do, you'll miss being able to set them

down and not having to worry, they'll move. The funny thing is, the more you think about it,

pretty much all phases of parenting are some version of this. You just want some peace

and quiet from the same kid that you just spent all this time trying to teach their first words to.

You're exhausted from chasing down the kid you were worried with slow in taking their first steps.

You're cleaning off the walls drawn by the kid you wanted to be

left-handed just like you, the one you bought the special pencil grip for. You're frustrated by the

attitude of your teenager who is expressing the independence you craved when they were clinging all over you,

and now you're pacing your empty nest recently left by the kid you thought would never grow up

and get their act together. We have to understand that what we want as parents is paradoxical.

We want things to be easy and yet we know that all the good developments will be hard.

We have to anticipate there's going to be pain in all the phases of this job we signed up for. We have to

understand that even our successes are going to be slightly bittersweet and sometimes just plain

bitter. When we get it, we have to remind ourselves, this is what I wanted. We have to remember

that it's better than the alternative, that we'd rather be chasing

them than not being talked back to than not, having them be independent than not. It won't be

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