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. You are making withdrawals. We each have a bank account for our kids.

We put their allowance in it, perhaps,

or saving for college. And some of us are fortunate enough, even perhaps, to have a trust fund for our children, extra money that will support them in life. Parents spend a lot of time

thinking about this balance that they keep for their kids. What we all think less about,

though, is the bank account we keep with our kids. You see, each parent-child relationship is

itself a kind of ledger. There's a sort of natural deposit that goes at birth, funded by our

biological connection. Deposits are made when we love them,

when we support them, when we protect them, being there, helping them, nurturing them, cheering

for them, giving them space to make mistakes and grow. This is how we fund that account. But we also

have to understand that this balance can shrink as well as grow. Every time you get

angry at your kids, every time you get frustrated with them, every time you speak to them out of that

frustration, what you're doing is taking a withdrawal from that relationship. Every time you miss

something because you're busy at work, every time you ignore them for television, every time you project

your own crap or your

own expectations on them, you're chipping away at the principle. Some of this inevitable, of course,

there is an inherent conflict in the parent-child relationship that stems from our divergent

interests, from our understanding of what's best, and their desire for what's expedient or easy.

We're also liable to simply make honest mistakes and mess up, which is why it's so essential that

while we're in command of ourselves that we do a good job picking our battles, is the pile of

shoes at the door worth making a withdrawal over? You've not been taking care of yourself,

...