The Daily Dad

Dr. Edith Enger’s son was born with athetoid cerebral palsy. A diagnosis like this would be scary whenever one gets it, but getting it decades ago was scarier still. Dr. Enger (then not a doctor) and her immigrant husband, who had both survived the Holocaust, were frustrated and confused and overwhelmed. 

One day, at a visit to the doctor’s office, Edith Enger expressed some of these fears and worries to the specialist. It was there that she got some advice that is worth sharing for every parent, whether their family ever has to face that kind of adversity or not. 

“You son will be whatever you make of him,” the doctor explained. “John’s going to do everything everyone else does, but it’s going to take him longer to get there. You can push him too hard, and that will backfire, but it will also be a mistake not to push him hard enough. You need to push him to the level of his potential.” 

Your kids will be whatever you make them. It’s true of parenting and it’s true of life. Edith Enger is living proof of that (everyone should read her book, The Choice). She survived the death camps. She survived communism. She survived coming to America with nothing. She decided she would make something of those experiences. She refused to accept that her son was forever compromised, believed that he would thrive if she—and he—believed he could.

No one is saying that things won’t be hard. No one is saying that any of this is fair—dyslexia or disabilities, being a refugee or losing your job, being a genius or being short, divorce or having to change schools. What matters is what we make of it. What matters is who we push them (and ourselves) to be. What matters is the kindness and the love and the patience we accompany that pushing with. 

We can’t do everything for them—that would only make them helpless anyway—but we can believe in them and help them believe in themselves. We can help them reach the level of their potential. We can make them be what they are capable of. We have to. That’s our job.

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Your kids should be grateful. Not to you and mom, of course, you’re just doing your job. You’re legally and biologically obligated. Your kids should be grateful for everything. We all should be. This is a wonderful time to be alive. Even if it wasn’t—it’s amazing that any of us are alive at all. The odds are astronomically small that we are. 

So it’s important that you teach your kids about gratitude. Because it’s so easy to take life, to take the gifts we have been given, for granted. Especially when we’re stressed, when you’re a kid with homework or acne or a room to clean. 

Jason Harris, the CEO of Mekanism—an award-winning ad agency—and the author of The Soulful Art of Persuasion, has an interesting practice for how to persuade your kids to have a more grateful outlook about life. As he writes:

As I tell our boys, you’ve got to be great—but you’ve also got to be grateful. Every Sunday night we write down in our book three things for which we are individually grateful. I know this is not an earth-shattering idea. And I’m not the kind of guy who loves shouting out my “intentions” in a yoga class. But this practice has made a world of difference for me and my kids. It resets you and gets you prepped for the week ahead. 

The things they write down can be big-ticket items like a place to live, or just the fact that they are alive and kicking. But they can also be little things, like something good that happened at school or a play in a game. What’s helpful about writing these reflections in a notebook is that you can consult previous entries and jog your memory on truly trying days. It helps them go back and tap into those feelings when they may seem lost and hopeless.

My boys like the routine and look forward to it each week. This is an exercise that takes less than ten minutes, and yet the effects can be dramatic. Keeping thoughts of gratitude on the surface of your mental life can help you realize that whatever might be going wrong today, on balance we all have a ton to be positive about.

Beautiful. And how much more beautiful would the world be if more of us took up this practice? And practiced it with our kids?

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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 drinking and serving on military campaigns and hanging around the marketplace with some of his students, and finally, even while under arrest and drinking the hemlock. He was the first to demonstrate that our lives are open to philosophy at all times and in every aspect, while experiencing every emotion, and in each and every activity.” 

As with teaching and with leadership and with philosophy, so too with parenting. You can be a dad anywhere. It’s not just on fishing trips or at family dinners. It’s not just about carrying them around in a baby bjorn or going to back-to-school night. It’s not about punishments or incentives, or rules or life lessons, though of course it’s also about all these things too. 

Remember what we’ve talked about with quality time vs. garbage time? It may just be that the most impact you’ll have as a dad will come while joking around, it may come on a walk, it may come with how you do your job (and show them your work), it may come on a family vacation or it may come while you’re watching TV and make some passing comment that lands in exactly the right way. It may come—god forbid—on your deathbed, as you depart from this life with courage and compassion, showing them that they don’t need to be afraid, that you love them and that they’ll be okay without you.

Being a Dad is not some official thing. It’s not sitting on high, doling out pronouncements and demanding obedience. It’s something you do anywhere and everywhere, every minute of every day in the same way that Socrates taught—by example, by getting down to their level, by being open, and by adapting to the situation at hand.

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There is so much to do. Your kids have to be dressed. They have to eat. They have go to school. They have to do well in school. They’ll need jobs. They’ll need to figure out finding a home, finding a spouse, navigating the difficulties of the world. 

There is so much to do...and they are so bad at all of it. So where does a parent draw the line? How do you know where to help, what to handle for them, what to tell them doesn’t matter and they don’t have to worry about?

Of course, there are no rules. No one can give you a perfect list: Pay for their college, but not their car. Cook them food but don’t do their homework for them. Clean the kitchen but not their room.

So maybe instead we should look for a good principle to follow instead. Perhaps this one from Plutarch would work: "A leader should do anything,” he said, “but not everything." 

Our job is to help our kids but not make them helpless. We want to teach them how to do things, not necessarily do them for them. That means encouraging them to make their own decisions, that means modeling the right behavior, that means showing them that the only person to blame in life is ourselves (and no one else). 

A great leader is never above rolling up their sleeves. Like a great dad, they’ll do anything for their family or their organization. But they also know they can’t do everything. It’s not good for them or for anyone else.

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Way too many parents are competitive. They see the car their neighbor is driving and they want to get a better one. They hear that a friend’s kid got into a fancy school and they think, “My kid is smarter. I’ve got to get them in there too.” We want to make more money than other parents, we want our kids to beat other kids in sports, we want our kids to be cuter than other kids, we want our houses to be cleaner. 

Needless to say, this is mostly toxic and negative. But that competitive urge is hard to get rid of. So where should we channel it? We've told you about Jeannie Gaffigan before, whose haunting story of a surprise pear-sized tumor changed her and her family’s life. She found a good outlet. She explained that during her recuperation from the surgery her husband brought out a new side of himself and created a healthy, positive dynamic in their relationship: 

I noticed that like Jim started learning all about the day to day stuff. Out of necessity, but I feel like in my recovery, he has a whole different level of appreciation for me. And also he'd do things like my son Jack was going to like all these bar mitzvahs every weekend because everyone was turning 13. And I'm bad at tying ties, but I would do it because he wasn't home. And then he would be like, when he does something better than me, he brags about it. He's like, ‘who ties the better tie?’ So there was a lot of this kind of fun competition of who made eggs better. And it was a different level of our relationship because before he was not doing that stuff.

Don’t compete with other dads, or other families. Compete with your spouse. Compete with their mother. Who can use their phone less? Who can get them down to bed fastest? Who can convince the kids to do that thing they hate doing with the least amount of arguing? Who can pick up the most slack? Who can get up earliest and start breakfast? Who can complain the least?

You’ll both be better and happier for it. Your kids might not notice...but they’ll be happier and better for it too.

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A few weeks ago, there was a fascinating piece about the controversial NFL receiver Antonio Brown. Of course, anything about Antonio Brown is fascinating—his behavior in the last several months has cost him something like $40M in guaranteed money and taken the best wide receiver in the game out of the game, possibly forever. 

But what’s worth taking note of in this piece, for any dad or stepdad, are two seemingly inconsequential remarks by Larry Moss, Brown’s stepfather. 

Brown and his brothers, Desmond and Eddie, would often try to intervene in arguments between their mom, Adrianne Moss, and Larry—arguments Larry attributes to trying to parent Antonio.

Larry Moss, Brown's stepfather, says Brown started staying out late and sneaking off with cars around the age of 14, with a "no respect" attitude that contributed to his leaving the Miami Gardens home. As Larry remembers it, he and Brown's mother even lived in separate homes at times because of friction between him and Brown.

Imagine that. 17 years later this guy is still pointing the finger at a child for the troubles in his marriage. And he’s so shameless about it, he’s willing to put it on the record to ESPN. This is not what dads do—even if they do have difficult children, even if they are stressed and overwhelmed by being a father or stepfather. 

We have to follow Marcus Aurelius’ advice always: “Blame yourself or no one.” Your spouse is not the problem. Your job is not the problem. The economy is not why you’re stressed. It’s not the weather. The fact that the house is a mess is not your kid’s fault. The fact that their grades are slipping is not their fault. That’s not why your marriage is struggling. 

You’re the problem. Your systems are the problem. Your parenting is the problem. Focus on that. It’s the only thing you control. It’s your job to take the blame. It’s your job to help fix it. 

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The writer Thomas Sowell once noted, sardonically, how sad it is that editions of Frederick Douglass’s memoirs, when provided for high school students, were forced to provide annotated definitions of many words. What does it say, he asked, that a slave in the 1800s was able—under the penalty of severe violence—to teach himself a vocabulary that privileged high school students cannot manage after a hundred and fifty years of progress? And what does it say that we have to spoon feed them the answers to these vexing problems—how could they possibly look up a word without our help!—instead of expecting them to figure it out themselves?

We have talked before about why it’s important not to baby your kids when it comes to reading. We have also talked about teaching them that “everything is figureoutable”—that is, giving them the skills to learn what they don’t know. 

But it’s also important that, as a father, you provide the expectation that they are capable of doing things. If you treat your kid like a helpless idiot...they’ll stay one. If you assume that certain ideas are beyond their comprehension, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your kids will not learn that which you expect them not to be able to learn. Equally, they will grow and strive and struggle to meet the expectations you do have. 

If Frederick Douglass could do it, your kid can definitely do it. He had to fear for his life. He had not only to steal time to read, he had to steal books and newspapers too. Your children have far more advantages. So expect, encourage, inspire them to seize this. Expect great things from them, expect progress, but most of all, expect them to try.

They’ll be better for it. 

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In 2009, after winning two National Championships as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team, Urban Meyer stunned the nation by announcing his retirement. The self-admitted workaholic, Meyer made the decision to step down due to a health scare. He woke up in the middle of the night with severe chest pains, lost consciousness, and was rushed to a hospital in an ambulance. 

He said that when his 18-year-old daughter, Nicki, found out her father would be leaving his job in Florida, she hugged him and said, “I get my daddy back.” She didn’t care about National Championships. She didn’t care about multi-million dollar salaries. She didn’t care about how many people admired her father. She cared that all those things meant her father was never around. So she drafted a contract he had to sign before he ever agreed to another coaching position. What were the terms?

1. My family will always come first.

2. I will take care of myself and maintain good health.

3. I will go on a trip once a year with Nicki (at minimum).

4. I will not go more than nine hours a day at the office.

5. I will sleep with my cell phone on silent.

6. I will continue to communicate daily with my kids.

7. I will trust God's plan and not be overanxious.

8. I will keep the lakehouse.

9. I will find a way to watch Nicki and Gigi play volleyball.

10. I will eat three meals a day.

It’s a beautiful sentiment, reminiscent of something we talked about recently: King Leonidas choosing 300 Spartan fathers because he knew fathers do whatever they have to do to not let their children down. Would that be the case for Meyer? He returned to football in 2011, taking the head coaching job at Ohio State. In 2015, a caller on a radio show asked Meyer if he still honored Nicki’s contract. He laughed, saying "I tore that thing up a long time ago...It was all for show." 

Yikes. 

In 2019, he retired from Ohio State...due to the "long-term risks" associated with a health issue. It was also done in the shadow of mishandling domestic abuse allegations against his former receivers coach.

Just because Urban Meyer fell short doesn’t mean the contract was a bad idea, it doesn’t mean we have fall short ourselves. What would a contract with your kids look like? What terms do you need to agree to to have a happier, healthier life? To protect you from your own drive and workaholism? To make sure your family is always first

Sign it and stick to it.

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It’s a story as old as fatherhood itself. The son or daughter kills themselves to win the approval of their dad, which never seems to come. There is pain, resentment, bewilderment. I have worked so hard to make you proud, am I just not enough? Only at the end, or after the parent’s death, is it revealed: The child had the thing they wanted all along. They just never knew.

This was Claudia Williams’, the daughter of Ted Williams, story. Only buried in a pile of memorabilia did she find a note left by her impossible-to-please father. “To my beautiful daughter,” it said, “I love you. Dad.’” In a recent obituary of the brilliant publisher Sonny Mehta, Roger Cohen writes:

“When Mehta’s father, a diplomat, died in Vienna, Mehta found in his desk a folder with every article ever published about him. The pride of his father, who had never complimented his son, was evident.”

It breaks your heart. Why couldn’t they have expressed some of this when they were alive? Was it a generational thing? Did they think it was helping to make their kids better, tougher? We wonder this about our own parents sometimes: Did they lack the words, did they just not know any better? Why couldn’t they have been more like Jim Valvano’s father and given us the gift of being a fan?

In the end, these questions don’t get answered. We’ll never know. What we do know, what does matter, is what we do with our kids right now. We have been given a second chance. We have been given our own opportunity. We can’t wait to be proud. We can’t keep our feelings for them hidden under piles of paper or in a drawer in our desk. We have to tell them now. We have to show them now.

That we’re rooting for them. That we love them. That we believe in them. That we’re proud of them. Because we are. And they deserve to know it—before it’s too late. Before it’s just some bittersweet memory of a connection that should have been there...but for mysterious reasons, never was made.

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When our kids mess up we say: Aren’t you a little old for that? And we have all sorts of rules of thumb for what things are age appropriate or not—what age they should stop having accidents, what age they should stop throwing a tantrum just because they’re tired, what age it stops being okay for other people to have to pick up after them. 

You’re too old to act this way. It’s time to grow up.

But, unfortunately, we apply this standard to ourselves less often. Whether it’s as serious as an affair or as silly as getting hangry because you neglected to eat, we seem to forget that we should be policing ourselves first. Our kids are at least still kids, even when they’re acting a bit beneath their age. You’re an adult. What excuse do you have?

“We ought not willingly add to old age, which has many of its own problems, the shame of misbehaviors.” That’s Cato the Elder, who seems to have really lived up to that second part of his name. Remind yourself today and every day that you are getting older, that it’s time to grow out of these silly habits you’ve allowed yourself to fall into. Remind yourself that you’re too old to act out, to stoop this low, to not be responsible for yourself. 

It doesn’t matter if other people are willing to let you get away with it—because you’re a success in your field, because you have a patient spouse, because you’re in private—what matters is that you shouldn’t let yourself get away with it. You’re too old to act out. And even if you weren’t, remember your kids are always watching—a little fellow follows you—so act like the adult that they believe you are.

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