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 never know. You're busy. You've got so much work stuff going on. It's not their birthday. It's an ordinary

Tuesday, so you don't have time to make this moment special. You can't indulge every request,

fulfill every passing fancy. But maybe you should try, though. On April 10th, Abraham Lincoln

wrote to Edwin Stanton, his secretary of war. Tad wants some flags. Can he be

accommodated? That same day he wrote to Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy, let Master Tad have a

Navy sword. Lincoln and his 12-year-old son had just returned from a boat journey having visited

the Army at City Point, Virginia in the final days of the war.

It had no doubt spurred the boy's curiosity and requests.

A few days later, Lincoln would give Tad another special experience,

allowing him to go to the theater to see Aladdin in his wonderful lamp.

The two had always had a close relationship,

especially in the aftermath of the loss of Willie, his brother,

who had died of typhoid fever a little over three years prior. Lincoln had often gone to

Tad's room to comfort him at night. He had gone out of his way, we said recently, to be patient

with the boy's progress in school. He had tried to be a loving father, but also a generous, even doting one, which is good

because he did not know how much time he had left. On the night of the 14th, Lincoln went to a

different theater with Tad's mother, Mary Todd. Father and son would never see each other again.

It's a tragedy, a tragedy only slightly mitigated by those final

moments of sweetness, sweetness which happened in total ignorance of what the future foretold.

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