The Daily Dad

Which Will It Be?

Dec 18, 2020

02:43

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The podcast discusses the importance of being an ancestor rather than a ghost in our children's lives and helping them transcend past mistakes.

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Choose to be an ancestor, not a ghost in your children's lives, helping them find their own way.

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Deep dives

Choose to be an ancestor, not a ghost

In this podcast episode, the speaker reflects on a profound quote from Bruce Springsteen's Broadway show. Springsteen emphasizes that as parents, we have a choice: to be ghosts or ancestors in our children's lives. Being a ghost means burdening our children with our mistakes and flaws, haunting them with our unresolved issues. On the other hand, being an ancestor means assisting our children in laying down their burdens, guiding them, and helping them find their own way. The speaker underscores the importance of rising above our own demons, seeking self-improvement through therapy and reading, and consciously striving not to repeat the mistakes of previous generations. While it may not be easy, the speaker encourages parents to keep trying and to be the guiding presence their children need.

Being a Ghost or an Ancestor

3min

“In his Broadway show, Bruce Springsteen—whose songs have often focused on the painful legacy of our parents—explained the choice that all of us have as fathers. “We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives,” he said at the beginning of Long Time Comin’. “We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence.”

Learn how you can be an ancestor, and not a ghost to your children, on today’s Daily Dad podcast.

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