There are things you would have never done before. You’d never have sung a crazy song in public. You’d never have painted your nails. You would have vomited before you sucked snot out of someone’s nose (as Hasan Minhaj did). You’d have rather starved than put on a McUniform and work extra hours at some…

Arthur MacArthur was a vain and conceited man. He was a war hero at age 18 at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. From there he went on to become a colonel, then a major, then lieutenant colonel, and then held several other prestigious military positions. He was notoriously self-absorbed and ambitious. As one former aide…

No one is the parent they want to be. That’s the bad news. The good news is that most of us are better parents than we were. We’ve talked a lot about the big choice we all have to make. Are we just somebody who has kids? Or are we a parent? And while this…

You’d think it’d be easy to raise a kid. After all, billions of people before you have done it through history, and the survival of our genes literally depends on it. Yet, here we are struggling – it’s certainly not as easy as we thought. Most times, we’re in need of all the help we…

When they are throwing a tantrum. When they are sneaking out of the house. When they are making an enormous mess. When they are changing their major for the 14th time. When they lie. When they struggle to find their career. When they do any of the things that make you worried, make you concerned,…

It’s dark stuff. It’s not pleasant. We wish it wasn’t true. But that doesn’t mean we can hide it from our children. Because it did happen. And it can easily happen again if we’re not careful. John G. Burnett knew this. That’s why on his birthday in 1890, he finally told his children what happened…

We know what we want our kids to say about us when they grow up. We want them to say that ​we were great parents​, that we did our best. We want them to say that they knew they were loved. We want them to say that they love spending time with us–especially now that…

We want happy kids, obviously. But as we talked about recently, you can’t make your kids happy. Certainly, you can’t always keep them happy. So what do you do? There’s a great exchange between Epictetus (we recommend his ​Discourses​) and one of his students. The student is asking Epictetus to show him what to do…

Being a parent doesn’t mean you give up on your dreams. We’ve talked about this many times. What kind of message would it send to your kids to see their parents quit on themselves? What kind of house is it to grow up in where Mom or Dad aren’t growing, changing, aren’t taking risks, aren’t fulfilled?…