Parenting

Lessons a Father Should Teach His Son

"33 lessons every father must teach his son:" Twitter (2023).

"13. Don't worry about what strangers think. They aren't thinking about you at all.

Everyone is busy thinking about themselves. Except maybe your parents and grandparents.

Which is why you should call them often. **Wink wink**"

Looking Out for People

• Ask your teenage children if they know anybody to invite to Easter or Thanksgiving dinner. They might know families of two to invite, which is good because two is too few for a holiday dinner. And it's good to get them thinking about that kind of thing.

Time Management

• "Dads Can’t Have It All Either: You have to choose between doing more for yourself—or being more for your kids," Ryan Holiday, The Free Press (June 17, 2023).

• "Before my two boys, now 4 and 6, were born, a writer gave me similar advice, much more succinctly. “Work, family, scene,” he said. “Pick two.”

You cannot have it all. You have to choose.

These choices take discipline. . . constantly.

In fact, hanging on the wall next to my desk, between two pictures of my kids, is a little sign that just says “NO.” It’s a reminder: when I say no—to a request to get coffee, to the offer to go speak somewhere across the country, to appear on the podcast (it’s always podcasts)—I am saying yes to the two most important people in the world to me. I’m saying yes to a moment in their childhood that won’t exist ever again. And the opposite is also sadly true: when I say yes—especially to things in the evening or things that involve getting on airplanes, I am by definition saying no to them, to the people I claim to put first.

The tragedy is that we all know this on some intellectual and emotional level. But it doesn’t make it easy.

There are invites in my inbox right now that I know I should pass on, but the best I can bring myself to do is ignore them and hope the silence will take care of it for me. It’s a certainty that at some point in the future I will undoubtedly be willing to trade anything for one more minute with my kids, yet here in the moment, they’re fighting against other people who are asking me if they can “pick my brain.” "

• "The other day my family of four went into town for a children’s birthday party, and when we wrapped up, we decided to head down the street for dinner. It was going to be tight with bedtimes coming up, but it might be fun? Then we caught ourselves: less means trying to squeeze less stuff in. Discipline meant heading home, being content with the fun and relaxed day we’d already had. Especially when there were already signs of fatigue and the exhaustion of personal reservoirs. Discipline meant being fair to the kids, setting them (and us) up for success by not overdoing it, not trying to see how many straws the camel’s back can hold. "