By now, you’ve almost certainly lost count of how many questions you’ve been asked by your kids. From the moment they can talk, that’s what fatherhood is—answering questions. Some you can’t wait for them to ask, some you hope they’ll never ask (or ask their mom), some so absurdly, brilliantly child-like you never could have guessed they were coming in a million years. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 22, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1151
In 1940, as Nazi bombs rained down on London, an observer noted the contrasts between the “natural splendor and human vileness.” This idea (which inspired Erik Larson’s wonderful book The Splendid and the Vile ) would be born out over the next several months–not just the bombs falling in one of the world’s great cities, but also the human resilience and heroism in response to such villainy and evil. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Faceb...
Sep 21, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1150
In the moment, it seemed like a big deal . In the moment, you just needed them to understand your concerns. In the moment, the phone was ringing. In the moment, you were overwhelmed. In the moment, you were worried something might happen. In the moment, you had other plans. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 20, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1149
Wouldn’t it be nice if everything was simple and straightforward? That’s what we’d like the job of a parent to be. We’d like there to be a blueprint that laid out exactly what we have to do and when we have to do it in order to guarantee that all our parental i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. Of course, life isn’t remotely like that. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 19, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1148
There are parents who pay for music lessons so their kids can play an instrument. There are parents who tutor their kids in a foreign language. There are parents who teach their kids how to do all sorts of things–to start a campfire, to change a flat tire, to sew a button. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 18, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1147
On this episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan talks to Paul Kix about enjoying the time we do have with our kids, while being self-conscious of what we call work during family settings. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 16, 2023•12 min•Ep. 1146
F. Scott Fitzgerald knew the long term damage of being spoiled rotten. Not only was he a prime and painful example himself— as we’ve written about —but as he observed and studied the rich men and women of the Jazz Age, he saw how indulgent people quickly became the “careless” monsters that he portrayed in The Great Gatsby . ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 15, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1145
Your kids ask for a lot. Money. Patience. They ask for toys and games and attention. They demand chicken nuggets after you hand them the hamburger they told you they wanted. They ask for forgiveness , and they ask for trust. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 14, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1144
Study any great leader, artist, athlete, or parent, and you’ll find that they had a hero, a mentor, or a model. Some were lucky enough to study directly under that person. But for most, this studying happened remotely—by reading books, watching documentaries, listening to interviews, and so on. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 13, 2023•5 min•Ep. 1143
They’re scared there’s something under their bed or in their closet. They tell you they don’t want to go to school today. They tell you they feel depressed. They tell you that they think somebody hates them. They tell you that they hate playing this sport or practicing that instrument. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 12, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1142
They were traveling with their three-year-old son. They boarded their flight in Boston. They were heading back to Los Angeles after visiting family in Cape Cod. They could not have anticipated that just 49 minutes into the trip, their plane would be hijacked and driven into the south tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 11, 2023•5 min•Ep. 1141
On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on experiencing parenting versus taking the advice and understanding the phases of parenthood. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 09, 2023•17 min•Ep. 1140
As we’ve said before, each of us as parents have to try to give what we didn’t get as kids . The attention. The support. The understanding. Whatever it is, we have to try our best to be better for our kids. That can be encouraging them to become who they are –even if you don’t agree or understand. Or making sure to give them space to fail, while showing them support and encouragement to try again. Or maybe it’s choosing to be an ancestor , not a ghost. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDa...
Sep 08, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1139
Before, you were a glutton for punishment. You were tolerant. You were accepting. If the boss wanted it, if the customer needed it, if it could help you in your career, you were up for it. Long hours. Long flights. Calls at 2 a.m. Quick trips into the office on the weekends. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 07, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1138
“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.” It’s scary. It’s especially scary for women, whose careers are almost invariably set back by having kids in their prime working years. But it’s scary for men too. Because when we say “work/life balance” what we’re really talking about is tradeoffs. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 06, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1137
“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.” Even a hundred years ago, it was an argument at plenty of dinner tables. They didn’t have TVs then, let alone iPads, but families were still fighting about what was happening at meal time, what was allowed to happen at the table. Parents were still comparing themselves against what they thought the neighbors were doing, what kind of behavior they were letti...
Sep 05, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1136
The pressure to do is one that rests heavy on all parents. We plan that big family vacation to Disneyland. We put everyone in the car and drive like a madman through traffic to make it to that special dinner on time. We put everyone in their least comfortable clothes and pose them for that awkward photo. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 04, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1135
On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on men having the conversation and creating the proper space for fatherhood. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 02, 2023•15 min•Ep. 1134
You send them to great schools. You make sure they do their homework. You drill them on their flashcards. You are saving for college. You are not going to let them set their sights low like you did, or maybe you won’t accept them getting into anywhere less prestigious than you did. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Sep 01, 2023•2 min•Ep. 1133
There are a lot of things that don’t age well . Tattoos done late at night, on impulse. Trendy haircuts. Lots of things we think are important, that we chase hard will turn out not to matter much to us later. Things we fought about, argued about will seem silly in retrospect. Fears, you find, don’t age well either–the things we worry about will become smaller the further we get from them. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTu...
Aug 31, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1132
The house is noisy . It is messy. It is expensive, and not easy to maintain. It’s filled with toys, and sharp Legos that you step on in the middle of the night. It’s dirty. It’s got one obligation after another. And yet it’s wonderful…so, so wonderful. The whole job of it. The whole mess of it. “We must think of ourselves as ministers and priests in our own house as in a temple,” the Stoic philosopher Hierocles once said, “chosen and consecrated to nature itself.” ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad em...
Aug 30, 2023•2 min•Ep. 1131
Your career used to be the only thing you had. It was just you. You had your ambitions. You had as many hours as there were in the day. And you were willing to work–incredibly hard, do anything–to get ahead. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 29, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1130
If you had an early flight, you’d get up no problem. If you had a chance to go see old friends or your favorite band, you’d stay up late without even thinking about it. But your kids wake you up early or cut into sleep? Ugh! You’re full of complaints. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 28, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1129
“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.” Visit mylifeforce.com and receive $200 off your membership today. On this episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan talks to Casey Neistat about the discipline you have after having kids and building better parenting routines through stoicism. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 26, 2023•23 min•Ep. 1128
Each of us, no matter how old or successful, has things we wish we knew how to do. We wish we could speak another language, or change the oil in our own car, or play the guitar. It’s not that we aren’t up for learning these things now—more so even than when we were young—but it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, as they say, even when the dog wants to learn. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 25, 2023•5 min•Ep. 1127
“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.” Yes, it’s not good to be late. Yes, you’ve got places to go. You’ve got emails to respond to. You were hoping to get a workout in today. You were hoping to have a few minutes to relax on the couch. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 24, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1126
After having kids, every parent quickly realizes just how much less freedom they have . Your schedule is different. Your sleep is different. What you can watch on TV is different. Where you can live is different. Kids are, as we’ve said, a dose of unavoidable reality –a reality where you are indisputably, almost laughably not in charge. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 23, 2023•3 min•Ep. 1125
You hear people talk about “mom guilt”–the feeling that moms get for not being perfect, not measuring up to their own impossible standards, or the impossible standards they think other moms have. Of course, there’s dad guilt too–all good parents feel like they’re falling short, like they’re not doing enough, like they’re not good enough. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 22, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1124
Visit mylifeforce.com and receive $200 off your membership today. We talked recently about the Spartan who pointed out that it wasn’t right to say that “the better man won” at the Olympic Games. The better wrestler had won, he said. And it’s an important point: there are lots of winners out there who are actually losers. A lot of achievements that turn out to be costly victories because of the means used to achieve them. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitt...
Aug 21, 2023•4 min•Ep. 1123
On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on the skill set that comes with exploring curiosity, and teaching our kids how to build courage. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Aug 19, 2023•9 min•Ep. 1122
