The Daily Dad

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This is a Fresh Start Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

We were all deprived or hurt in our childhoods. Even the best parents left something to be desired. Maybe we were ignored. Or maybe we were pressured too much. Maybe Mom’s insecurity was a burden to us. Or Dad’s sense of humor cut too deeply. Maybe our family was poor. Maybe our family was too rich, too materialistic.

We wished then that things would be different. We wished that they could just understand. That they could just give us what we needed. It didn’t happen. And that hurt.

But now we have a second chance. Now we are the parent. You are Dad. The question then is what are you doing to do it differently? How are you going to handle this second chance?

The past can’t be undone. But we can heal old wounds by being for someone else what we needed ourselves. And we can make a better world by being for our kids, what our parents were not for us.

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Practice the Pause Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

In her famous and controversial book Bringing Up Bébé, the author Pamela Druckerman talks about Le Pause—The Pause—as the secret to French parenting, and their sleep-trained infants. Basically, instead of rushing in as soon as their kids start to cry, French parents pause. They wait a few minutes, understanding that newborns often cry between sleep cycles, and that if you disrupt them (even to comfort them) you are actually preventing them from learning how to sleep.

Sleep training is a polarizing and controversial topic among parents, so let’s not even go there. Instead, let’s take a minute to consider that le pause can actually be a great strategy for dads in all facets of their kids life.

When you son trips and falls, do you need to rush over as if it was a life or death emergency? Or can you pause, and let him figure out how hurt he is first, whether he wants or needs to cry?

When your daughter comes over and starts to tell you something, do you have to try to help her explain what she is saying? Or can you pause and let her struggle with the words, and learn how to say it on her own?

When your teenager explains why they want to quit the track team, why start arguing right away? Can you pause and let them propose what they want to do instead?

When your wife messes up or scratches the car or is rude, what if you didn’t get upset? Can you pause and consider all the things on her plate? And how it almost certainly wasn’t intentional?

If one of your kids calls to tell you that they are gay or getting a divorce or are in some kind of trouble, do you need to say anything at all right away? Or can you pause? Can you suspend judgement and just listen? And just be there?

Practice the pause.

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Blow Their Nose, and Your Own Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

Because women can seem so much better at this parenting stuff, because historical gender roles have often decided for them that most household duties are their responsibility, there is a secret strategy that father’s have been relying on for generations: Pretend to be bad at something and your wife (or your mother or a well-meaning neighbor) will take care of it for you.

Feign like you can’t figure out the car seat? Here, I’ll do it.

Make a couple really bad dinners. Here, I’ll do it.

Act really overwhelmed. Here, I’ll hire a babysitter to help while I’m out of town.

Any dad can tell you, this works. Deep down, they also know it’s incredibly manipulative and unfair. It’s a violation of a basic principle of adulthood, too, because instead of stepping up for ourselves and our commitments, we’re letting someone else do it for us.

The Stoics said that we are responsible for blowing our own noses. We are. And when we became dads, we signed up to blow our kids noses until they were old enough to do it themselves. We can’t just pass these responsibilities onto our spouse or their mother or even hired help. We have to do a lot of it ourselves. Because we signed up for it. Because it sets a bad example if we don’t. Because we’ll be better and more confident if we get some wins under our belt.

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Punishment Should Make Them Better Dec 03, 2019

Show notes

Punishments aren’t supposed to be fun. They’re suppose to deter bad behavior. That’s why kids get grounded or sent to their room. That’s why we take away their toys or iPad privileges. It’s supposed to send a message: Listen or you lose out.

Randall Stutman is probably one of the most influential coaches you’ve never heard of. Basically every Wall Street bank and hedge fund of any significance has hired him as an advisor at one point or another. A lot of the CEOs and executives ask him about parenting. He has one piece of advice relating to consequences for bad behavior: Punishment should make them better.

It’s pretty fitting advice coming from a coach too. Think about it: A basketball coach who is disappointed in someone’s effort, makes them go do sprints, or pushups. It’s not fun and it makes the kid stronger. A football player who didn’t make their GPA has to go to extra study sessions. An athlete who gets in trouble off the court might have to do community service or write an apology letter. These are more than simple deterrents. They’re punishments that make them better both as players and as people.

When you get upset, when you catch your kid doing something they’re not supposed to do, Dad, make sure that you don’t punish out of emotion or out of fear. Take a minute. Come up with a punishment that makes them better. Something they wouldn’t choose to do, but is good for them. Vocab drills. Memorizing state capitals. Volunteering somewhere. Picking up trash. Painting the house.

They won’t like it, but one day, they may actually thank you for it.

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It's All Quality Time Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

You’ll hear other dads talk about the need for “quality time” with their kids. It’s sort of a strange phrase, if you think about it. Because it implies a kind of hierarchy of time that nobody has ever really bothered to define. There’s a judgement to it too, that maybe the time or experiences you—the busy, ordinary, doing-the-best-you-can dad—give your kids is not enough.

The comedian Jerry Seinfield, who has three kids—an 18-year-old daughter, a 16-year-old son, and a 13-year-old son—pushes back against that. Special days? Nah. Every day is special. Every minute can be quality time:

I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about "quality time" – I always find that a little sad when they say, "We have quality time." I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.

Your job is not to entertain them. Or to curate every minute of their lives so that everything is meaningful and important and edifying. Your job is to be their dad. You job is to be there. To help them see that quality is what we make it, that it’s always within our reach if we so choose. Eating cereal together can be wonderful. Blowing off school for a fun day together can be wonderful—but so can the twenty minute drive in traffic to school. So can taking out the garbage or watching a garbage truck meander through the neighborhood.

All time with your kids is created equal. What do you with it is what makes it special.

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Why Kids Like Their Grandparents Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

Even if it wasn’t such a relief for overworked dads and moms, it’d hurt a little to think about how much our kids love their grandparents. It almost seems like they prefer grandma and grandpa sometimes, don’t they?

Why is that?

It’s pretty simple. Because grandparents have outgrown most of their baggage. They have let go. Even a lot of grandparents who were demanding and exacting parents seem to finally settle into themselves and manage to be exactly what the generation once removed needs. And kids can sense this: Grandma loves me for me. She’s so nice all the time. Grandpa just wants to hang out. He doesn’t try to make me do anything. He doesn’t boss me around or correct me, he just listens.

Of course, this isn’t universally true...there are lots of bad grandparents out there. But what makes the great ones great is that they’re present, accepting, and proud. Traits that are unfortunately easy to lose sight of as busy, stressed out, and well-meaning parents.

Which makes it a decent test to consider when we get really worked up or worried or upset with our kids: How would a grandparent think about this? What if I wasn’t such a dad about this? Would that make things better?

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What a Good Sport Looks Like Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

As we’ve said before, Seneca was a father and a father figure to many people. Even today, through his writing, he remains an inspiring, patient, and firm father figure through the advice he wrote thousands of years ago.

We don’t know what kind of father he was, but we can imagine that his kid (and the kids he tutored) were taught the lessons of sportsmanship, an essential skill for athletes and for life. How you handle winning and losing shows so much about who you are—and the earlier kids are taught this, the more prepared they will be for the real world (which includes plenty of both).

In his essay, Of Anger, Seneca lays out some specific advice for fathers when it comes to teaching your kid how to be a good sport. He writes:

In contests with his comrades we ought not to allow him to become sulky or fly into a passion: let us see that he be on friendly terms with those whom he contends with, so that in the struggle itself he may learn to wish not to hurt his antagonist but to conquer him: Whenever he has gained the day or done something praiseworthy, we should allow him to enjoy his victory, but not to rush into transports of delight: for joy leads to exultation, and exultation leads to swaggering and excessive self-esteem.

This is important. We want to give our kids a will to win, but one they can control and contain. We want them to feel good when they win, without being so dependent or addicted to that feeling that they are crushed when, inevitably, they lose. We don’t want their success to fuel their ego, or their shortcomings on the field to lead to insecurity or self-loathing.

It, like all things, is about balance. And most of all, about being respectful, responsible, and enjoying the process more than the results.

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An Important Rule for Dads Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

The economist Russ Roberts is a guy who understands how the world works. He knows about the laws of the economy and government. He knows about philosophy and he knows about history. He lives his life by a number of rules and rituals. He keeps Shabbat, for instance, and he commits to regularly tithing a portion of his income. He has another rule, specifically for dads, that is worth thinking about today:

If your child offers you a hand to hold, take it

The preciousness of childhood, the preciousness of this day, today, this moment when your child wants your hand for comfort can be hard to appreciate in the moment. You might be tired. Or just tired of holding your child’s hand. Take it anyway. As they get older, they assert their independence. That’s good. But in the meanwhile, hold their hand, take care of them with an open heart. And when they ask to hear Curious George for the nth time, read it again as if it were the first.

Life and relationships are an endless dance of reaching out and pulling away. You reach out to your kids, they pull away—they’re busy, they’re in front of their friends, they’re mad at you. You try to help them and they don’t want it. You want what’s best for them but they don’t understand.

We can’t control that. It’s going to hurt sometimes. Signals will get crossed. It’s heartbreaking but it’s part of growing up. What we can control is that whenever they reach out—whenever they offer us a hand to hold—that we take that opportunity. When they want to lay in our bed with us, we can let them. When they call on the phone, we can answer—even if we’re in a meeting. When they ask to talk about something, we can listen, whatever it’s about. We can hold them tight every chance we have.

We need to make a rule of it.

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No, This is the Special Part Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

In her wonderful book On Looking, Alexandra Horowitz takes a series of walks in different environments. What does a geologist see on a city block? What does a naturalist see walking through a park? What does a dog see on a short walk around the block? But the most interesting walk was the one Alexandra took with her 19-month-old.

The idea was that she would take her young son and really try on his perspective about the world. So they walk out of Alexandra’s apartment, down the hall to the elevator, down and out of the elevator, and across the lobby to the front door, where they would start the walk. And as Alexandra went to check in with her 19-month-old son as they headed out onto the city street, she suddenly realized...that the walk had begun the second they started getting ready in the apartment.

To an adult, things have official beginnings and ends. Parties have start times. The gift is given when it is unwrapped and opened. A fun family dinner kicks off when everyone sits down. It ends when the last bite of dessert has been eaten. Everything else is prep or clean-up. Of course, this is all a product of our adult labeling-minds. To a kid, anything can be special and fun. A walk doesn’t have to be outside. Dinner can be anywhere and at anytime. How many stories have we heard or pictures have we seen of young children spending hours on Christmas morning playing in the cardboard box that the actual gift came in?

This sincerity and presentness is wonderful. As fathers, we have to appreciate it. We have to encourage it and make sure we don’t crush it with subtle corrections and insistence on the “official” way things are or should be. Most of all, we have to learn from this love of the moment, and add it as much as possible to our own lives. For, the walk truly can begin when the shoes go on, not just when they first hit the pavement.

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