The Time When My Daughter Called Me Out and Changed My Perspective on Life
- orilatter
- May 1
- 3 min read
Updated: May 2
I didn’t expect the truth to come from a six-year-old’s mouth.
But after a long, draining day, worn thin from carrying too much and resting too little, I snapped at my daughter.
She paused, looked at me with deep, knowing eyes, and said:
"Daddy... you didn’t meditate today, did you?"
That moment stopped me cold. It was disarming. Disorienting. And true.
She saw what I couldn’t.
She felt what I wouldn’t.
And in that instant, I realised something that would reshape how I parent, how I lead, and how I live:
Our kids feel our nervous systems more than our words. They mirror the energy we bring into the room. And they instinctively know when we’re grounded... and when we’re falling apart inside.
That wasn’t the first time I broke. But it was the first time I realised how much she could feel—and how little I was giving myself.
Fatherhood Is Not an Identity. It’s an Initiation.
Becoming a dad didn’t just invite me into a new role. It demanded I become a new man.
Before that moment, I had taken on the primary day-to-day care of my daughter. We moved back to the UK from Australia. I thought I could manage it all: the logistics, the emotions, the decisions. I thought love and determination would be enough.
But fatherhood quickly revealed itself not as a series of tasks, but as a spiritual path—one that held up a mirror to every part of me I hadn’t healed.
It taught me that kids don’t respond to instructions. They respond to presence. They don’t need us to be perfect. They need us to be regulated.
To show up for her, I had to learn to show up for myself first.
The Unspoken Weight Men Carry
In my work as a coach and therapist, I meet a lot of men who are strong on the outside and quietly disconnected on the inside.
They’re high performers. Providers. Problem-solvers.
But ask them when they last felt deeply seen—by themselves or anyone else—and there’s a long pause.
We’re not taught to feel. We’re taught to function.
But the cost of that? It shows up in our parenting. Our relationships. Our ability to lead.
When we suppress what we haven’t resolved, it doesn’t disappear. It spills.
Usually on the people we love most.
And because we don’t give ourselves permission to feel, we unconsciously hand that burden to others—our children, our partners, our teams.
Why This Isn’t Just About Fatherhood
You don’t need to be a parent to recognise this dynamic.
Every man who holds space for others—in business, in love, in leadership—is doing so through the lens of his own inner state.
The more we’re attuned to ourselves, the more available we are to others.
Leadership without self-awareness becomes control.
Parenting without inner work becomes projection.
So this is about more than fatherhood. It’s about emotional leadership. It's about the quiet revolution of men who are no longer willing to pass down what was passed to them.
Repair Is Greater Than Perfection
After that day, I apologised to my daughter.
I didn’t make excuses.
I didn’t tell her to toughen up.
I looked her in the eyes and said, "That wasn’t about you. That was my stuff. I’m sorry."
That simple moment of repair did more than a thousand moments of control ever could.
It showed her what accountability looks like.
It gave her permission to trust her instincts.
And maybe most importantly, it showed her that grown-ups don’t have to be perfect. But they do have to be honest.
What Children Really Want From Us
Kids don’t want superheroes. They want us.
Present. Grounded. Real.
They want to know they can fall apart, shine brightly, or be a total mess—and we won’t flinch.
But we can only offer that if we’ve made space for those parts in ourselves.
That’s the real work.
I spoke about all of this—and more—on my recent interview with James Ainsworth on the Man: Quest to Find Meaning podcast.
It’s raw. Unfiltered. And it goes far beyond parenting.
It’s about what it means to lead from the inside out.
🎧 If you’ve ever found yourself holding it all together while quietly falling apart—this conversation is for you.
And if something in it moved you, I’d love to hear what landed. Let’s stop pretending. Let’s start leading from the inside.
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