The Daily Dad

They see you disheveled and groggy. They see you busy and preoccupied. They see you argue with your spouse . They see you burned out after a long week. They see regular old, normal you. But what about some of those peak career moments? When you sold your company. When you were invited to that special reception at the fancy place downtown. The first day of shooting for your new screenplay. When you...

The amount of choices we have today is not normal. Certainly, it’s quite new. When you were a kid–which was not that long ago–there were how many channels on TV? Even cable, which radically expanded that number, was still finite and nothing compared to streaming. There was no infinite scroll…YouTube only rolled out autoplay at the end of videos in the last decade. And this is only discussing what...

When they’re young, when they’re asleep, when they’re older, when you’re old, when you’re on vacation, after a big Thanksgiving meal, early in the morning before school, in the afternoons when you’re visiting their new family, there’s one thing you should do with your kids: We’ve talked about John Adams ( the great McCullough bio is at The Painted Porch ) and his fascinating relationship with his...

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad,  Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on being the model for our kids and the ultimate skill on the ability to handle frustration.  ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube      See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not...

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...

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 evi...

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      See Priva...

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 Dai...

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      See Privac...

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      See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.co...

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: Twit...

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      See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Califor...

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 , Y...

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  ...

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 Dail...

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      See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-n...

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....

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      See Priv...

“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...

“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...

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 , Fa...

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      See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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      S...

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...

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 philoso...