The Daily Dad

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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Pretty much every parent wants to raise kids who turn out to be good people. Almost no father thinks: I’d love for my son to be rich, but awful. Or I’d love for my daughter to be famous, but vapid and cruel. It’s a given. 

And yet, when you look at most of what we do and say as parents, especially as our kids get older, it’s clear that what we’re actually encouraging and incentivizing is for our kids to be successful. We want to hear how they did on their math test and whether they came in first running laps in PE. We want to know what college they want to go to, and how their extracurriculars are going. We nudge them toward a field of work that’s lucrative, that’s exciting, that will mean they won’t have to worry about money. The problem is that none of this has anything to do with what deep down we actually know we want—that we want them to be good and kind and wonderful to be around. 

So, clearly, it’s time to rethink some things. As Adam Grant and his wife, Allison Sweet Grant, wrote in a wonderful piece for The Atlantic, maybe the key is to stop trying to raise successful kids. Maybe the key is to change what you give attention to at home and in conversation. Instead, you need to actively discuss and reward thinking about the values that have to do with character. As they write: 

“To demonstrate that caring is a core value, we realized that we needed to give it comparable attention. We started by changing our questions. At our family dinners, we now ask our children what they did to help others. At first, ‘I forget’ was the default reply. But after a while, they started giving more thoughtful answers. ‘I shared my snack with a friend who didn’t have one,’ for example, or ‘I helped a classmate understand a question she got wrong on a quiz.’ They had begun actively looking for opportunities to be helpful, and acting upon them.”

Brilliant. And practical and actionable. 

It’s worth every father building into their breakfast and dinner conversations and time driving in the car. Don’t ask them about the things that don’t matter in the big scheme of things, don’t teach them that they can impress you with accomplishments alone. Show them that excellence is what matters—moral excellence. That being a good person is not just what you pay lip service to, but what you are always thinking about. 

So they will too. 

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One of the things Napoleon advised his generals against was “forming a picture” of the battle. What he meant was that your preconceived notions, your predictions, were a dangerous liability in something as fluid and fast-paced as a battle. 

As it happens, this is good advice for fathers as well. It’s easy to go into it thinking that you know. Because you’ve read the books. Because you’re on your third kid now and have it handled. Because you and your spouse have a plan for how to do it all right. And then guess what? Unavoidable reality quickly humbles anyone with this kind of certainty. 

Many dads go into fatherhood with strong ideas of how differently they’re going to do things than their own parents. They were upset or hurt or never understood why their dad was the way he was. And what do they soon find out from firsthand experience? That, in a lot of cases, there was actually a logic to it. That dad wasn’t as big of a jerk as he seemed to you, a little kid. That it was more a timeless function of the job than any decision they were consciously making. 

When we talked to James Frey a while back about what he’d learned about fatherhood, his answer was along similar lines. He described being a father as an “ongoing process of learning and adjusting and adapting.” Every situation, every kid, was different, he said. 

In other words, you can’t form a picture. Not of fatherhood. Not of your family. Not of each of your kids. You don’t know how it’s going to go. You don’t even have much of a vote in a lot of it. Which is why we have to be willing to adjust. To be flexible. To always be ready to learn and to change.

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Rules and regulations are important. A child needs to learn what behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not. They need structure and guidance. They need to learn about responsibility and accountability; about how actions have consequences; about respecting authority. 

Sensible, hardset rules can help with a lot of those things. But arbitrary rules that we make up simply for our own convenience, those are something we should step back from and think hard about. You know the kind we’re talking about. The ones produced in the moment, on the spot, as a response to that one-word question our children learn early and that has a special way of driving us nuts: Why? Because I said so! Because I don’t want to do that.

For a long time, one of the arbitrary rules in Jeannie Gaffigan’s house had to do with slime. Maybe your kids are too old to care about slime, but it’s not difficult to relate Jeannie’s dilemma. Sure, the kids are having fun, but it’s a pain in the ass to clean up, and who do you think is going to be the one left with the scrubber and the paper towels in their hands? 

Recently, though, Jeannie Gaffigan had a change of heart about her rules—particularly after a battle with a benign but very life threatening brain tumor. She recently talked about it and her brush with death on Marc Maron’s podcast:

“My nine year old just turned 10. She is into making slime. You know, this is a big thing, right? It's this whole little science thing. So my daughter is really into this slime thing and I had a list of rules and regulations for slime in the house and how to deal with it because I was finding it in places that are like—AH! But after the surgery, I realized that I never asked, 'can you teach me how to make the slime?' I never engaged with the slime. I engaged with the control of the slime.”

We don’t want to deal with the mess. So we come up with a rule. We’re too tired when we get home from work. Rule. We just got that carpet and it was expensive. Rule. We’re adults, this is silly. Rule. Our kids could be making better use of their time. Rule. We just don’t have the patience right now. Rule. 

What we seem to have less rules about are with ourselves. Why not a rule about being interested? Why not a rule about playing and having fun together? Why not a rule about encouraging their fascinations rather than curtailing them? Those are the important rules because they will bring you and your kids closer together. They will help you relax. And, of course, as Jeannie explained, you can still limit where the slime is used in your house. 

”There's still rules,” she said somewhat obviously. Because like in any healthy household, there has to be. But make the shared experience--make the fun together--come first. 

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It’s interesting to think about the steady decline in expectations for our kids when it comes to reading. Sure, we want them to be able to read earlier than ever, but what about what they read? 

Not long ago, kids were taught Latin and Greek so they could read the classics...in their original languages. Think of Aesop’s Fables. Think of children being read Plutarch’s Lives by their parents. This is heavy stuff. And purposefully so. Because when you read old school books, what you’re really doing is acquainting yourself with the obscure yet illustrative figures from the ancient world while also displaying a willingness to wrestle with timeless and morally complex topics. 

There is a quote from George Orwell, which dates to the early 20th century, that illustrates how much things have changed. “Modern books for children are rather horrible things,” he said, “especially when you see them in the mass. Personally I would sooner give a child a copy of Petronius Arbiter than Peter Pan, but even Barrie seems manly and wholesome compared with some of his later imitators.”

How many adults even know who Petronius is? (He was a writer who lived in the court of Nero). And how many adults today probably winced at the idea that a book should teach kids how to be manly? Even the idea of wholesomeness is controversial! Wholesome according to whom? The white male patriarchy? The west? The Judeo-Christian tradition? 

This is how the discussion devolves these days. Is it any surprise then that the children and young adult sections of today’s bookstores are filled with so much infantilizing escapism, fantastical melodrama, ie just plain absurd nonsense? The curmudgeons among us want to blame millennials and Gen Z for this. Their laziness and faltering tastes are why we’re awash in this stuff. 

But do you really believe our kids are dumber than the kids of Orwell’s time? Or back before that? Of course not! They’re kids. We’re the problem. Parents. Adults. Educators. Publishers. As a collective, we’ve stopped believing our kids are capable of reading challenging books. So we provide them without “kids editions” and give them silly picture books, instead of helping the  build their reading muscles, and then we wonder why they can’t handle heavy stuff. 

Well stop it. Push them. Push yourself. They aren’t babies. Or at least they shouldn’t be after they’ve learned to read for themselves.

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The ancient writer—and father—Plutarch tells us of a parenting strategy he discovered in the works of Plato. “Young people must be taught from childhood,” he said, “that it is not right to wear gold on their bodies or to possess it, since they have their own personal gold intermixed into their soul, hinting (I think) at the virtue that is part of human nature and received at birth.” 

It’s a beautiful idea: They don’t need to wear that most precious and sought after ornament...because they are made of something much more precious. Even more beautiful is the timelessness of this observation. Plato said it over 2000 years ago...and Mr. Rogers ended every one of his programs with something very similar. "You've made this day a special day by just being you,” he would say. “There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are." 

We must, as parents, teach our children where their value really lies. It’s not in accomplishments. It’s not in what they earn or how they look. It’s not to be found in anything external at all. It’s inherent. It exists because they exist. Because there is no one on the planet with their same combination of DNA and experiences and circumstances. That’s what makes them special—what makes them rarer than any of the rarest jewels and more precious than the most precious metals. 

That’s why we love them. And why they should love and value themselves. 

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The late ESPN broadcaster—and father of two girls—Stuart Scott, was once sitting in a restaurant with some friends and their respective children. Everyone was having fun, and it was one of those delightful scenes where you see parents bonding with their kids. The kids were behaving. The dads were present. All was well.

Until a mom walked by and, recognizing Scott, tried to pay him a compliment for “babysitting the kids.” She did not realize that this was an insult to Scott—and in fact to all fathers. Because dads don’t babysit. It’s impossible. Babysitting is something somebody else does for your children on your behalf. A babysitter is by definition a non-parent. These were Scott’s kids. He couldn’t babysit on his own behalf. It’d be like calling a homeowner a security guard every time you see them lock their house when they leave for work. They’re not protecting someone else’s property, they’re just being a responsible homeowner. They’re just doing their job.

Scott was doing his job. He was being a dad. No more, but certainly no less. As his friend would observe after Scott’s tragic death from cancer, “We didn’t see ourselves as an occasional parental figure who might take the kids off mom’s hands for a couple hours.”

See what you do as important. Because it is. 

You’re not a babysitter. You’re not some lesser figure in your kids’ lives. When you are with them—and when you are not with them—you’re their father. That matters. It’s an important job, one that you should take seriously and never demean (and not let others demean, either). You’re doing it because you love it, because you get something out of it, and you know what kind of impact it has. 

Not because you’re covering for someone else. Not because anyone can do it. They can’t. 

You’re the only one who can. And that’s why it’s got a special name when you do it.

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Right now, you’re thinking about what all the other parents are doing. What schools they’re getting their kids into. What the best strollers are. You’re thinking about how to get them to do their homework or how to keep their rooms clean. How to manage your life and career and staying in shape. It’s overwhelming and you’re stressed.

Every dad is. 

So maybe it’s helpful to sit back and really think about what parental success really looks like. First, of course, it’s having healthy kids who survive to adulthood—that’s obvious. But second, when you flash way forward into the future, what is it? It’s that beautiful phrase captured in The Highwomen hit—it’s having a crowded table. At Thanksgiving. On birthdays. At some summer house on the beach you all rented as a family. That is: having kids who you get to see, who you have a good relationship with, who you want to spend time with...for the rest of your days. 

Tiger Moms and Tiger Dads might raise Harvard grads, but will they have crowded tables? Snowplow parents might feel important for the first eighteen years of their kids’ lives, but will those kids resent them for spoiling and sheltering them? Instead of a crowded table, might their house be crowded with kids who have failed to launch? 

Some of the best lyrics in the Highwomen song capture the path forward for a dad who is looking forward to those crowded table days:

If we want a garden

We're gonna have to sow the seed

Plant a little happiness

Let the roots run deep

If it's love that we give

Then it's love that we reap

If we want a garden

We're gonna have to sow the seed

If you want a crowded table, you’ll need to plant the seeds. You’ll need to make the decisions now so they’ll want to make the decision to fly from their homes to yours when they’re older and have families of their own. That means listening without judgment. That means being a fan and a supporter. That means loving unconditionally. That means managing your temper. You’ll need to set the table today to have the one you’ll want tomorrow.

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A couple weeks ago, we talked about the sobering exercise of trying to observe other people getting upset or losing their temper at their kids. Nothing wakes you up quite like catching a reflection of yourself in other people, especially when it comes to our anger problems. But this exercise of looking in the mirror through people-watching can be used to address other bad habits and parenting flaws as well. 

One such area is our anxiety. Everyone knows anxious parents. The mom who is always worried about strangers with candy or drugs in Halloween treats. The dad who turns into a totally different person at the airport, turning the already stressful experience of traveling into a nightmare of conflict and needlessly high stakes. There are the couples who are always fighting about money, even though they are hardly starving, and whose lifestyle and insecurities are in a vicious negative feedback loop. There are the couples who are stressed—a decade and a half before they need to be—about where their kids will go to college, or the ones whose political views have them convinced the world is about to end and are thus perpetually outraged and worked up.

When these folks catch our attention, we should turn our gaze towards their children. What effect is this having on them? What kind of energy is all this anxiety and stress causing? Is it solving any problems? Is it contributing to anyone’s happiness? Is it the source of a lot of misery?

The point here is not to judge. It’s to see ourselves in someone else. We are all anxious. We all have our own bundles of worry and fear. And these things turn us into a type of person we do not want to be, and someone whom our children do not deserve. Anxiety doesn’t solve problems—it compounds them. It ratchets up the tension. Not just on you, but the impressionable and innocent people who have no choice but to live under your roof. It’s hard to watch other people behave this way, which is why we are usually in denial about behaving that way ourselves. 

You have to catch yourself. You have to work on yourself before you become the thing you cannot stand to look at.

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We’ve talked before about David Epstein’s wonderful book Range, which advises against premature specialization—in athletes, in kids, in intellectual development. It tends to be better, he writes, to pursue a wide variety of activities and build a base of competence than it is to be like Tiger Woods--or rather like Earl Woods--and dedicate yourself or your child to golf at two years old.  

But it’s important that the message of this book is not oversimplified. There undoubtedly must come a time, as Epstein points out, for someone like Roger Federer, where you decide to commit to something and it becomes your thing. While you don’t want to do that too early, it’s important you don’t get to it too late either. Getting serious about becoming a Navy SEAL at age 35 is an exercise in futility (another lesson Tiger Woods learned too late). 

Which is why it’s important that we also pass along the advice that David Brooks has for young people in The Second Mountain. “Get to yourself quickly,” he writes. “If you know what you want to do, start doing it.” It’s ironic that the rise of specialization for kids seems to have also coincided with an increasingly extended adolescence for many kids. Now everybody is told to go to college. Then encouraged to travel. Or travel and then go to college. (Gap year consulting is now a real thing.) Then move to a new city. Date around, have flings. Try a handful of different jobs. People seem to be delaying getting serious about their lives...and then they wonder why they are falling behind, why they aren’t truly great at anything, why they are 35 years old and have little to show for their year and start thinking about the Navy SEALS.

So this is the delicate balance you’ll have to figure out as you guide your kids through life. Don’t take options off the table too early...but don’t put off choosing forever. It’s great to be interested in lots of things...but you should still search for a true love. Don’t overly specialize...but if you have a calling, chase it!

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