As Claire Tomalin writes in her book Jane Austen: A Life , we can trace the beginnings of Jane Austen’s greatness to her father’s library. “Their father’s bookshelves were of primary importance in fostering her talent,” she writes, “given that the first impulse to write stories comes from being entertained and excited by other people’s.” And her father had quite a library, **some 500 volumes. It’s a crime, we’ve said, to raise a kid in a house without books . Our job is to surround our kids with...
Mar 15, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1302
All that did happen. It shouldn’t have. It’s not ok that it did. But before you do anything, can you try this? Can you say to yourself, as Dr. Becky writes in Good Inside (a great book!), “Ok, one second. Let me take a breath. Let me see if I understand what’s happening here…” In a sense, can you be a Stoic about it? Can you put your first impressions to the test , as Epictetus tells us, not be overwhelmed by the moment , as Marcus Aurelius said, and see what’s really happening? Because what’s r...
Mar 14, 2024•2 min•Ep. 1301
It doesn’t matter how driven you were. It doesn’t matter how much money is on the table. Having kids humbles you. We said recently that having kids changes you because it brings you up close and personal with something that actually means something and all your other worldly stuff naturally pales somewhat in comparison. As the writer Stephen Marche describes ( he has a great little book on writing and life ), “the physical changes that occasionally transpire with women after birth—eczema disappe...
Mar 13, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1300
Why is your house so stressful? Why is everything such a fight? It doesn’t need to be. Sure, school is important. Rules and respect and basic cleanliness matter. But these things aren’t that important. Indeed, most conflicts that pop up while getting ready for school or sitting down to dinner or finishing household tasks aren’t that important. Here’s a magical phrase worth thinking about as a parent. It’s from that great Lionel Richie song (and Faith No More cover ): Easy like Sunday morning… Wh...
Mar 12, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1299
It had been a long day. He was tired. He just wanted his teenage step-daughter Tegan, from the indie pop duo Tegan and Sara, to stop blasting the same album over and over. Besides, he hated Nirvana, which was just then about the biggest band in the world. So he told her to turn it off. He told her the music was driving him insane. He was well within his rights…up until the point that he made a joke about Kurt Cobain’s sexuality. He should have known better. As Tegan explains in her fascinating b...
Mar 11, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1298
On this episode of the Daily Dad podcast, best-selling author and renowned stoic philosopher, Ryan Holiday, shares an insightful and heartwarming story about a profound parenting conversation he had with a driver on his way to the San Diego airport. In this engaging narrative, Holiday reflects on the importance of being your child's biggest fan. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Mar 09, 2024•12 min•Ep. 1297
“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.” Dr. Becky (read Good Inside already!) says she tries to repeat it to get kids as often as possible: “You’re the only one in your body, so only you could know what you like.” She probably repeats it as much for her kid’s benefit as theirs. Because of course, they know what they like . The problem is that we tend to assume that we know better. And how could t...
Mar 08, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1296
There’s a story about Queen Elizabeth, told in Discipline is Destiny . After a long day of travel with her late husband, Prince Philip, the Queen found him worked up and in an argument with someone who was organizing an event. What wouldn’t have worked in that situation with Prince Philip was the Queen coming over and telling him to get control of himself. It wouldn’t have helped for her to come in and pile on or take over the situation either. He was stuck in a loop, and she helped pull him out...
Mar 07, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1295
“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.” In his fantastic book Outlive , Peter Attia ( we carry the book at The Painted Porch and did a fantastic 2-hour interview with him on the Daily Stoic podcast ) looks at this idea literally and figuratively. Will you want to be able to go skiing with your adult children? Will you want to be able to travel to see your grandkids? Will you want to live long eno...
Mar 06, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1294
As she writes her memoir Suffragette , these incidents illustrate to her “the fact that the impressions of childhood often have more to do with character and future conduct than heredity or education. I tell it also to show that my development into an advocate of militancy was largely a sympathetic process.” The lesson, which we built the whole first month of The Daily Dad book around, is a simple one: Children learn by example. It doesn’t matter so much what adults tell them, what ideology they...
Mar 05, 2024•5 min•Ep. 1293
As we said recently, no parent has ever successfully shielded their child from negative feelings or distress. No parent has done it and no grown adult has ever looked back at their childhood and been grateful that their parents tried. “ I’m so glad Mom and Dad kept me in a bubble of sunshine and kittens, that really set me up now that I’m on my own.” Gaslighting someone about their feelings is not, and never has been, a service. Dr. Becky Kennedy writes In Good Inside, her wonderful book about p...
Mar 04, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1292
On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan shifts to the basketball court as he attends both of his son's game, unveiling profound lessons about team sports for kids and the essential role of adults in shaping their experiences. Amidst the cheers and competitive spirit, Holiday reflects on the delicate balance required in fostering a positive environment. He observes that, while skill development is crucial, the paramount lesson lies in the importance of having fun. As an engaged par...
Mar 02, 2024•13 min•Ep. 1291
Look, we get it: the iPad is a magical device. It can quiet even the craziest kid. It can take them into a world of learning and exploration that is literally miraculous. Best of all, most of this content is free! Books on the other hand are not free and they take up so much space. Lugging them around can be a pain. You’re a grown-ass person. Do you really have to read about why dragons love tacos again? Or what Frodo is going to do with that stupid ring? And read it with the excited tone of a v...
Mar 01, 2024•2 min•Ep. 1290
We all have our issues. We had trauma from childhood . We have bad habits we picked up in college. We have scripts we learned, patterns we’ve repeated, coping mechanisms we’ve developed. We prefer not to die with them, to carry them always. But when exactly are we planning on dealing with them? In a perfect world, we would have gotten serious about it before we had kids. In the next best world, we’d deal with them now. “All I know is that as we age the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heav...
Feb 29, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1289
In her book Good Inside , Dr. Becky Kennedy shares something that a mom wrote to her. “I feel guilty for all those years I punished my daughter and gave time-outs,” the woman wrote. “I always thought, ‘It’s too late, I messed up my kids forever.’” But of course, as we’ve been talking about , it’s never too late—never too late to change, never too late to repair . That mom decided she wasn’t just going to feel guilty, she was going to talk to her kids about it. “I told my 8-year-old that I’ve lea...
Feb 28, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1288
There’s even an expression (one we’ve rebutted before) about how a stroller in the hall is the enemy of great art . Parenting comes with so many obligations, so many stresses—it is so all-consuming, it can’t help but be a distraction. But the writer Stephen Marche ( who has an amazing little book on writing ), once explained that “Being a writer and being a parent, I have found, are in conflict but not for the reasons most believe—the loss of time, the sleeplessness, the responsibility for anoth...
Feb 27, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1287
Only when it’s over will we realize it. Only when it’s all been stripped away will we be able to see. How not present we were. How much we took it for granted. How often we prioritized the wrong thing. How needlessly strict or harsh we were. For Joan Didion, whose beautiful (but haunting) books A Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights , we have been learning from and talking about , this came when she lost her husband and her adult daughter in short order. The books she wrote were about grief ...
Feb 26, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1286
On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks to creator, author, designer, and the founder of ConvertKit Nathan Barry on having kids earlier in their career, their interest in farms and outdoors, the process of Emotional Vaccination and applying stoicism in our parenting routine. IG, and, X, ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Feb 24, 2024•13 min•Ep. 1285
When we say “our own” we don’t think Americans or whatever country we live in, we think race. Or we think our blood relatives. That’s awful. This system we live in demands that we think of ourselves as more than just parents to our own kids. We have to think generationally. We can’t just think about getting ours, or protecting ours. We have to think like a village , like a group. The Stoics remind us that we are “made for each other.” Marcus Aurelius spoke dozens of times about the “common good....
Feb 23, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1284
Seneca knew from experience. In one of the most dreadful periods of his life, he lost his livelihood, his home and then his young child. He was exiled on false charges . He buried an infant. Fortune…she can be cruel. As Seneca wrote to Marcia, the daughter of a prominent Roman historian, in his beautiful and moving “ Consolations ” essays: “Snatch the pleasures your children bring, let your children in turn find delight in you, and drain joy to the dregs without delay; no promise has been given ...
Feb 22, 2024•2 min•Ep. 1283
We talked about Lincoln recently, who used to bring his “brats” to the office , in the words of William Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner. As much as he hated the noise, Herndon actually seemed to admire Lincoln’s ability to deal with this. “The boys were absolutely unrestrained in their amusement,” he noted. “If they pulled down all the books from the shelves, bent the points of all the pens, overturned inkstands, scattered law papers over the floor or threw the pencils into the spittoon, it never...
Feb 21, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1282
Nobody likes it when their kids are sad. It breaks our hearts when they feel lonely , ashamed, or frustrated. We’d like to just make this all go away, to protect them from all this, so they can feel happy all the time. But that’s not possible (nor is it, as we’ve talked about, actually a recipe for happiness ). In Good Inside , the great Dr. Becky writes, “I don’t know one adult who has ever said, ‘Wow, my parents really got all those uncomfortable feelings out of me! The disappointment and frus...
Feb 20, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1281
It’s hard to be a kid , as we’ve said many times. It’s hard to make transitions between worlds . It’s hard to come home after a long day of behaving and not misbehave. They want personal space. They want some freedom. What they need is some empathy and understanding . You want and need these things and you’re an adult who has a lot more practice, has a lot more resources and a lot more maturity. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook ...
Feb 19, 2024•2 min•Ep. 1280
Ryan speaks with his longtime friend fellow father Austin Kleon during a stop along his book tour for The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids . They discuss the life habits that they maintain in order to help fuel their creative success, why the most effective form of parenting is indirect, what parenting skills they are working on right now, how adopting a daily journaling habit vastly improved their lives, and more. Austin Kleon is a writer, author, artist, sp...
Feb 17, 2024•11 min•Ep. 1279
When we think teacher, we think classroom. When we think leader, we think the corner office or the lectern or a general in front of their troops. But the truth is that a teacher can do their job anywhere and in many forms, just as a leader can. Plutarch would say of Socrates that he “did not set up desks for his students, sit in a teacher’s chair, or reserve a prearranged time for lecturing and walking with his pupils. No, he practiced philosophy while joking around (when the chance arose) and d...
Feb 16, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1278
Bruce Springsteen’s childhood was a strange one. His mother worked to support their family. His father was distant and harsh . He spent a lot of time with his grandparents, who spoiled him, in part because they were grieving the loss of their own daughter years earlier. “His Majesty, the Baby,” is how his childhood is described in the fascinating book Deliver Me From Nowhere (incredible book, by the way). Springsteen would admit that this kind of attention and celebration “seems to a kid like a ...
Feb 15, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1277
Marcus even wrote a testament to his love for his wife and their life together in a letter to his tutor Fronto. “I call the gods to witness,” he wrote, “that I would I were now living in exile with [Faustina] rather than without her on the Palatine.” Sure, the palaces were nice and so was power. He had an important job. But none of it was better than spending time with his lovely partner . It’s a wonderful sentiment, but is it true ? Marcus Aurelius spent years away from Rome, fighting wars, vis...
Feb 14, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1276
It’s not easy for lots of reasons. Gay Talese, who knew the Didion family ( who we’ve been talking about a lot recently ), speculates in Evelyn McDonnell’s biography of Joan Didion ( signed copies here ) what it must have been like to be Quintana Roo, their adopted daughter. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Feb 13, 2024•3 min•Ep. 1275
These are the Cardinal Virtues , which Zeno laid down in the 3rd Century B.C. as: Courage Discipline Justice Wisdom We need these virtues and we need to teach these virtues to our children. Their life…and the future hinges on it. So memorize these four virtues. Act on them. Live them. Parent by them. And keep them close to your heart always. If you want to carry the Four Virtues around like a compass,, over at Daily Stoic, we created the Four Virtues Medallion . INSERT 4V MEDALLION PIC The front...
Feb 12, 2024•4 min•Ep. 1274
While on tour for his new book The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids , Ryan met up with his longtime friend and occasional running partner Casey Neistat for a live interview at Barnes & Noble in Union Square during which they shared the story of how they met, reflections and wisdom they have gleaned from their journeys through parenthood, the work and life habits that have led to their success, their advice for new parents, and more. Casey Neistat is a YouTube...
Feb 10, 2024•9 min•Ep. 1273
