Casablanca Lessons for My Daughters - Introduction

Transcript

Rick's Rules for Fatherhood.

Some time ago I fell into an odd habit. When my daughters were 4 to 6 years old, before putting them to bed, we would watch a bit of Casablanca, the famous 1942 movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I don't know why it first happened, but watching different parts of Casablanca for about 30 minutes before bedtime became our habit. My wife thought the habit was weird, but she always appreciated the downtime.

In retrospect, Casablanca is a horrible movie for young children. There are Nazis, murderers, alcoholics, liars, cheats, and just a few good people thrown in for contrast. Stranger still, there are no children in Casablanca, which in retrospect is probably for the best.

However, after watching the movie many, many times I came to an different conclusion: Casablanca is a great movie not because it's a moving love story -- it is -- or an engaging World War II period piece -- it is -- but because it provides enduring lessons for any father who wants to help prepare his children for Life - the big game, not the simplified happy, sweet one we always hope they will have. So completely by accident I might have exposed my girls to some brilliant life lessons.

Of course when I try to tell this to my family or friends they think I'm an idiot, and I am just trying to justify bad parenting. So I decided to write down Ricks' Lessons for Fatherhood partially to prove my friends and family wrong (always important), but mostly for my daughters. Because they were so young when they saw the movie they don't remember much except vague memories of tanks rolling through Paris and a monkey wearing a fez.

By reading these Rules I hope that when my girls are old enough to worry about money, love, leaving everything they know for an unknown place of better opportunity, or have to stand up to evil, they will know some of the rules that will help them survive and maybe even prosper with grace.

These episodes will be short and to the point (like Rick himself). There is no particular order to the episodes, so feel free to listen in any sequence that suits you.

Here's looking at you, kids.