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.

You don't want a doll. Sometimes it feels like it would be a little easier if they just did what we wanted.

If they could sit there for a second as we try to handle something,

if they could just pose for the photo, if they would play the role we hoped for,

fulfill the dreams we have for them, go to the school, get the job we pick,

have the wedding we plan for them in our fantasy.

As we wrote recently, there is this tendency

in all parents to treat their kids, no matter their age, like dolls. That was Joan Didion's

big regret, realizing that she had been raising her daughter as if she was a precious little toy,

perfect and proper. But of course, no kid actually is that, nor would we actually want them to be.

Because dolls are fragile, dolls are lifeless, dolls are creepy. They give nothing back. They have to be

taken care of. They are nothing but what we pretend they are. They do nothing but what we make them do.

In real life, your sons and daughters eventually grow up. There will be expectations

and responsibilities, the difficulties of reality. Are you still going to want to be doing

everything for them? You're going to want to worry that they'll break? Are you going to want to be

projecting onto them every emotion and interest directing their every move? No, you don't. We're not raising dolls. We're

not even raising kids. As I say in the introduction of the Daily Dad, what we're actually trying to

do is raise adults, self-sufficient, real-life, human adults. And by the way, the Daily Dad is now out everywhere. Thanks to everyone who

preordered it. It's been wonderful to hear from all of you who are reading the book. But if you

haven't grabbed it, I'd love for you to grab it. You can get the Daily Dad, 366 meditations

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