Cato the Younger was not an easy man to get to do something. If he felt it went against his conscience or that it was illogical, you’d have an easier time convincing a fish to climb a tree. That’s just how he was. All his life.So, as you can imagine, Cato was not an easy student. He resisted anyone and everyone who tried to tell him what to do. Plutarch, one of his biographers, observed that “to learn is simply to allow something to be done to you and to be quickly persuaded is natural for those who are less able to offer resistance.” This is why we start instructing our kids in the important things so early, even when it seems like they are way too young. Because if we wait, they’ll be able to easily fight us off and resist the lessons they will need in life. Cato was an obstinate student, Plutarch tells us—“in each case he demanded the reason and wanted to know the why and wherefore.” But this resistance was nothing compared to what Julius Caesar and Pompey faced when they tried to bowl Cato over as an adult, when they tried to show him how the world really worked. It was nothing compared to what other corrupt and dishonest politicians experienced when they tried to show Cato what was in his “best interest.”While Cato had been a resistant learner, what his teachers were able to get up and over his defenses really stuck. Those lessons about right and wrong, about doing your duty, about the history of Rome—those lessons were etched into steel. And no one was ever able to teach him otherwise...even with the threat of death or a bribe of many dollars. We have to teach our kids early. We have to push past their reservations. Of course they would rather play video games. Of course it’s more fun to goof off. But now is the time. Before they can fight us off with their full determination. Before the cement is completely dry. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

One of the best lines from Seneca is that while we can’t choose our parents, we do have the ability to choose whose children we will be. In ancient Rome this was even more true than it sounds, because it was common for people to be adopted into families. Seneca’s brother, Lucius Annaeus Novatus, for instance, was adopted by a man named Gallio, whose name he eventually took (and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because Seneca’s brother is in the Bible).In any case, this idea is worth thinking about now that you’re a parent. Instead of thinking about how you parents were, and using that as an excuse for whatever type of parent is easiest and most natural, why don’t you think about who you wish your parents were. Maybe that’s a specific person or maybe that’s just an ideal that you’ve seen in a movie or read about in a book. Maybe it’s a combination of the mother of one of your friends, and then someone else has become a father-figure and mentor to you since. Or maybe it’s Mr. Rogers and Ms. Frizzle from Magical School Bus. Or maybe it’s Socrates and Oprah. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you try to live as if that is whose child you were and are. We want to eliminate the excuse of “Oh that’s just how I was raised” and “It’s what I saw growing up.” Instead we want to flip it from a rationalization to an encouragement. I am this way because it’s what my “parents” taught me to be. I’m a great dad because I had a great dad (or dads). I am carrying on the tradition. I am passing along the love and the lessons I got.You can’t choose your parents. They did the best they could. But you can choose whose footsteps you’re going to follow in, and in so doing, what kind of parents your kids are going to have.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s a sad sight when you see a dad who has clearly stopped trying. He puts on weight. He checks out of his marriage. Maybe he starts drinking more. He resigns himself to the fact that he hates his job. He accepts whatever grades his kids bring home from school. He makes their behavior somebody else’s problem. We see that dad and we think, “I never want to be that guy.”Good. Ok. But what steps are you following to make sure you don’t? In the startup world, they said that if your company isn’t growing, it’s dying. In a way, it’s sort of true for people too. If you’re not actively developing yourself, what’s happening? You’re atrophying. You’re getting worse.  Epictetus liked to quote Socrates, that he delighted in attending to his own improvement day to day. Brilliant. And in a way, the perfect thing for you to be thinking about as we head into a new year. How are you improving yourself day to day? Are you working out? Are you reading? Are you setting goals for yourself? Are you clocking in at home as well as at the office? Your kids will be better served by a father that’s getting better. More importantly, they will be inspired by your example. Show them that you’re trying—that we can never stop trying—and they’ll follow you in their own way.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s hard to picture Fred Rogers as a parent. Of course, we can easily recall him as Mr. Rogers, patiently and lovingly explaining things to generations of young viewers at home. But that was his work. Could he have really been like that at his home? Or was he much less perfect there—losing his temper, stressed about money, involved with himself?Obviously no one really knows the answer to this but his kids, but from the various recent documentaries we are told Fred Rogers was a great dad. We know that Fred Rogers tried very hard to be the same kind and understanding man that he was for other people’s children with his own. Did he have his own issues? His own flaws? Absolutely. Who doesn’t? But he also knew the stakes were too high to simply leave it at that: When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will stay with that person as long as we live. From that time on, there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides, and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can. Our children are extensions of ourselves.Our responsibilities as parents extend far beyond just putting a roof over their head and packing lunches for school. It includes working on our own emotional issues and ourselves so that the little people in our orbit don’t get thrown out of whack (remember John Wooden’s advice: A Little Fellow Follows You). We can’t be consummate professionals at work only to come home, loosen our tie or our belts, and then just wallow in our personal status quo. We have to be growing, improving, actively working to provide a good example and a safe place for our kids to grow and learn. We chose to bring them in the world. They depend on us and watch our every move. Now we owe it to them to live up to the stakes of the situation we have created. Every. Single. Day. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re always in a rush. We have to get them ready for school. We have to get them off to bed. We have to get to the airport. We have to get back inside. We have to finish up dinner. We are, as parents, it seems, perpetually short of time and always eager to get to the next thing. But it’s worth stopping and thinking this morning, what we are actually rushing to and what we are rushing away from. You’re wrapping up bedtime quickly, why? So you can sit and watch Netflix after they’re asleep? You cannot stand for them to be late to school, why? Fear of other parents judging you? You want to be to the airport how early? And for what reason? Because it recommends doing so on your ticket?As dads, when we rush, we should know that we are hurrying through life. We are zipping through their childhood—the exact thing that we will stop and miss at some point not long from now. How much of this will seem important then? How much would we give for a few minutes back here, that right now we seem to want to be over as quickly as possible?We are rushing through the 18 summers we get from them at home. We are rushing through the few hundred breakfasts before they are sullen, hormonal teenagers. We are rushing out early in the 4th quarter to beat traffic in one of the last football games we’ll be able to see together before they have kids of their own. We are rushing towards an uncertain future—one in which we might have cancer, in which a war might break out, or one in which we might be much, much busier with work than we are now. So slow down. Enjoy it. They call it “the present” for a reason—because it is a gift. Appreciate it. Don’t scarf it down. Savor it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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