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.

Whose voice are you interiorizing? The hard part of this parenting thing is how much you're on your own.

Yes, of course, you may have a spouse or a co-parent.

You might have grandparents to help or even hired help.

And of course, there are also schools and neighbors and doctors.

But much like they say with death, even when you're surrounded by loved ones who care about you,

it's only you who are

doing the dying. Indeed, even then, you are still on your own. You are cooking meals. You are getting

them ready for school. You are having the hard conversations. You are struggling to prepare them for

the real world. You're struggling with your own unique problems, in your own unique way, in your own

unique family. But even more than that, it's only you with your own unique problems in your own unique way, in your own unique family.

But even more than that, it's only you inside your own head when everyone has gone to bed,

wondering, am I doing this right? Am I doing any of it right? And who can guide us in moments like that?

Who can we turn to? We've talked before about the concept of ancestors as

opposed to ghosts, the people whose wisdom, whose prior experiences can serve as a North Star for you now

many years later. As Marcus Reelius writes in meditations, himself apparent of more than a dozen

children, one should constantly remind oneself of someone from

earlier times who practiced virtue. His translator, Robin Waterfield, explains that a philosopher

was expected to have interiorized his teacher's voice and to be able always to ask, what would

Epictetus think of what I am doing? What would Zeno think of this

...