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. We corrupt our children.

We say we're trying to raise kids who are kind, who help others, who are generous,

who are not selfish, who are not cruel, who treat everyone equally, who hold themselves to high

ethical standards. We say that virtue, that doing what's right is more important than anything

else than money or success we're getting ahead. But what do we show? What do we show? Our children see this and learn to imitate it,

Thomas Jefferson wrote of slavery back in 1787. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the

linements of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives aloose to his

worst passions, and thus nursed, educated,

and daily exercised in tyranny cannot but be stampeded by its odious peculiarities.

The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.

He knew that this institution was not only unjust, but that it was a bad influence on his

children. And he said this while he was having illegitimate children with one of his slaves.

It's an astounding bit of hypocrisy that is astounding only in the sense that he was willing

to commit it to print

on the very same page that he said his famous line about trembling for his country because he

knew it would one day pay for his sins. But the reality is that we are not that much better than

Jefferson. All those values mentioned above fairness and kindness and honesty, doing the

right thing no matter the cost, how aligned are your political and economic decisions truly

with those ideals? You don't ever let the allure of low taxes affect your judgment. You don't

push from your mind how that cheap t-shirt you're wearing was made, how you treat your assistant,

...