You think it doesn’t matter. That all the hours you spent reading to them, all the things you told them, all the advice you gave them, you think it’s going in one ear and out the other.
And then one day, they surprise you with something. They want to have a lemonade stand to raise money for hurricane victims. They want to organize a neighborhood cleanup for the local nature trails. They want to give away their new toys to the holiday gift drive for kids in foster care. Whoa, you think, I really raised a good kid.
Imagine how Kamala Harris’ mother must have felt on that day her high school daughter brought home a friend who was being abused by her own parents. That her daughter would reach out and help someone like that, that someone would trust her daughter with that secret, that her daughter assumed—correctly—that she could just bring that someone home to live with them if that person really needed it. Put aside politics, and just imagine what a triumph that is—for a parent, for a child, and for anyone hoping to leave a legacy of kindness and courage.
Because this is what we all want. This is what true ‘success’ is. It’s not about trophies or test scores; it’s about raising children who are awake to the world, who understand what it means to be decent and good, and who are brave enough to step forward and make a difference. In the end, those quiet moments you wondered if they were really listening? It turns out they were—and the impact echoes far beyond what we ever could have imagined.

P.S. Ryan Holiday’s book Right Thing, Right Now shows us how we can all live with a stronger sense of justice and is a must-read for any parent who wants to instill a foundation of virtue in their children. In fact, Ryan wrote in the book’s afterword that if there was one book of his he wanted his children would read, “as I have written for them as kind of ethical will.”