Throughout his life, Abraham Lincoln—born on this day in 1809—could not seem to please his father.

Even though his son was brilliant and clearly cut out for something other than subsistence farming, Thomas Lincoln resented his son’s talent. He hated that he was always reading (in fact, he was known to have destroyed some of his son’s priceless books). He rented him out as a laborer. He nearly wore him down. Even when Lincoln was older and supporting his father financially, the judgment never really stopped.

In the end, Thomas died more or less estranged from his son, then a well-known politician and successful lawyer.

Lincoln, with his own children, went the other direction. He bound them to him by the cords of affection, as we write in the February 9th entry of The Daily Dad book. He never used corporal punishment. He loved to play with them. He took them to work with him. He embraced their craziness. “It is my pleasure that my children are free,” Lincoln said, “happy and unrestrained by parental tyranny.”

Given his own childhood, it makes sense. It’s sweet. He loved his boys. He also knew that life—especially back then—was precarious and short. Only one of his sons would live to adulthood (and Lincoln himself would die tragically).

Which parent would you rather be, then? Imperious and impossible to please? Or fun and proud and loving?

You know the answer.