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.

What does this say about school? A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the implications of the belief that kids have about adulthood,

that the most defining thing about it is that you don't have to go to school anymore.

In one sense, this is revealing about how we as adults portray adulthood through our behavior.

Our kids don't see us learning. They don't see us seeking out

or studying things, and they rightly assume that education and school are the same thing,

a thing that inevitably ends at some point before your early 20s, if not earlier. But the other

far more serious part of this perspective is what it says about school. While school isn't exactly

supposed to be fun,

it's sad that we make it such a grind, such an obligation, such a nightmare in some cases,

that most kids think the best thing they can do when they get older is to get as far away from school as possible, as soon as possible.

And we should see this as a scorching indictment. Indeed, one parent recently explained that the blessing of the

pandemic was that their daughter got to do eighth grade, an unusually cruel year for many kids,

from home, away from the misery of the classroom and the schoolyard and the cafeteria.

This is not our kid's fault. It is our fault. It is all of our faults. That school or Scolet in Latin

is the root word of leisure, and yet has drifted so far in modern times from that concept,

is a tragedy for which we are all to blame. It would be one thing if schools were tough but effective.

They were a crucible for the real world for real life, but we all know that's not true

either. School has somehow become a factory for disaffection and in curiosity. It has made learning

not fun and childhood a chore, and this has sent our kids sprinting towards adulthood without

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