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 where they get you.

The author, Sebastian Younger, does not own a stroller, even though he has two kids.

And when we had him on the Daily Stoic podcast recently explained that he doesn't really need one

because he can carry both kids or carry one while the other walks. It makes for good exercise.

But this is also a philosophical issue for him, he said. Although he levies no criticism of other

parents' choices, Younger said it hit him one day that it nearly every opportunity society seeks to put

distance between kids and parents. Why? So that it can sell them more things. If parents are told

not to let their kids sleep in their bed with them, then parents will need to buy them their own bed, plus a video monitor. If moms are told not to let their kids sleep in their bed with them, then parents will need to

buy them their own bed, plus a video monitor. If moms are told that nursing is deficient,

as they've been told for many years, then they'll have to buy formula and bottles and so much

else. If parents don't carry their kids, they'll have to buy a stroller or two, one for home and one

for travel, and both are often very expensive.

There's no need to argue with the specific parenting choices that Younger is discussing to see that the larger point stands.

The business term for this is actually intermediation. Successful companies manage to insert themselves

between customers and legacy brands or insert themselves between customers and the way things have always been done.

That's what intermediation is.

But some of the best companies of our time practice disintermediation, they get rid of these pointless intermediaries.

They foster a more direct communication and connection. And that should be our strategy as parents,

too. Cut out the middleman where there doesn't need to be one. Connect directly. Be there,

...