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 can't do this.

Unlike your own parents, you actually spend time with your kids. You get down on the ground

and you enter their world. You're fun. Your house has joy in it. Good for you. But you have to understand

that this is not enough. And more than that, being the fun parent can be a form of selfishness too.

As Josh Ireland details in his fascinating book, Churchill and son,

Winston Churchill was infinitely more available and loving than his own father. He loved to play with

his kids, but he still struggled with how to actually be present and truly think about things

from their perspective. He was an extravagant builder of sandcastles who had always delighted in playing with children,

Ireland wrote. He was able to shrug off the cares and worries of adult life and plunge into

games playing gorilla, where he would drop out of trees onto unsuspecting youngsters or a bear

where a growling Winston chased them through woods or a tunnel made from a painting propped against

a wall. The games lasted, though,

only as long as he wanted them to. All too soon, he would disappear into that adult world and was

unreachable. Somebody else would always have to deal with the over-excited, disappointed children he left

in his wake. This is so easy for us to do. We play, but then flip the switch to go back to the real

world. We come home from a long day, riling them up instead of calming them down for bed.

We show them adult, they're mature things, which is great, but we're too busy to actually

use that opportunity for real connection. We take our teenagers places, but we're only available in spurts

because work is always coming up. You can't do that. You have to do more than spend time with

...