What My Father Gave Me

Summary

Morning Wire — “What My Father Gave Me” (Father’s Day Special) Date: June 21, 2026
Hosts: Georgia Howe, John Bickley (Executive Editor, Daily Wire), Cabot Phillips

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Episode Overview

This Father’s Day special features a heartfelt, candid conversation between Morning Wire hosts John Bickley and Cabot Phillips, both fathers at different stages of their parenting journeys. The episode centers on fatherhood, family legacies, the evolving challenges of raising kids in a rapidly changing world, the emotional transformations that come with being a dad, and advice for new and soon-to-be fathers. The discussion emphasizes practical wisdom, vulnerability, and the power of being present, touching on personal stories, generational mementoes, technology fears, and how becoming a parent shapes personal values.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Moment Fatherhood Became “Real”

[04:31]

• John Bickley: Felt the reality of impending fatherhood when he felt his first son kick during pregnancy.

  “Once I felt my first son kick...it was this like beautiful mix of excitement and nervousness, but also this realization of purpose. My purpose now on this earth...is not just to serve God and serve my wife, but to protect these kids and raise them well.”

• Cabot Phillips: For him, the moment was when his newborn daughter grabbed his finger, realizing the depth of sentience and connection.

  “My big moment...she grabs onto my finger and it was so surreal to me. I think my whole life's actually been building to this.”

Evolving Perception of Their Wives through Parenthood

[06:27]

• John Bickley: Witnessing his wife’s sacrifice during pregnancy and labor intensified his respect.

  “I just remember thinking, I'll never be able to get mad at you again because of what you're going through for our family.”

• Cabot Phillips: Felt fear and awe during birth, openly admitting to personal anxiety.

  “There’s genuine fear...It freaked me out...But by the end, it’s the most beautiful thing ever.”

Preparing Kids for an Unpredictable Future

[08:09]

• Cabot Phillips (kids age 11 & 13): Advocates honesty about the world’s realities, balancing protection with directness, and avoiding excessive sheltering.

  “Let’s be more direct and honest with them about the nature of the world...Honesty’s best. Directness. Don’t shield them too much.”

• John Bickley (kids age 2½ & 4 months): Fatherhood changes political beliefs and priorities, with concerns shifting from abstraction to concrete implications for his children’s futures.

  “It’s radicalized me on certain topics...this is literally the world my kids are going to grow up in...It feels like a heavy weight.”

Anxiety around Technology & AI

[10:37]

• Tech advances, especially AI and screen addiction, are primary worries for both dads regarding their kids’ futures and well-being.

  “What does this mean for my kids’ job prospects? For their interactions with their peers?” — John Bickley

Family Heirlooms and Legacy

[11:12]

• John Bickley poignantly recounts a bracelet from his grandfather that he intends to pass on.

  “This bracelet...my great grandmother made for him before he went to fly planes with the Air Force in Korea...I told my son today, hey, when I’m an old guy, you’re going to get to wear that.”

• Cabot Phillips: Jokingly bows out, conceding John’s story is unbeatable.

  “It is a competition and you won.” (12:26)

How Fatherhood Changes Men

[12:43]

• Cabot Phillips: Embraces being a “girl dad,” which has expanded his empathy and vigilance for daughters in today’s world.

  “I love being a girl dad...I look defensively at the world...It’s made me more vigilant, more understanding.”

• John Bickley: Attributes newfound empathy and the ability to “laugh things off” to fatherhood.

  “I did not consider myself to be an empathetic person before...Fatherhood has made me completely incapable of reading news stories about children being harmed...It’s made me more chill...Parenthood has a way of helping you realize what actually matters.”

The Alpha School & Educational Trends

[15:43]

• Discussion: The group debates “Alpha School,” a $40,000/yr AI-powered, hands-on private school, and whether AI tutors can replace teachers.

  “There’s something you’re missing out when you don’t have a teacher in a classroom setting...We all have teachers to this day that you can remember when you were seven years old being inspired by a teacher...You miss out on that when you’re outsourcing to technology.” — John Bickley, [18:05]

• Cabot Phillips: Finds value in practical and AI literacy, with the caveat that nothing replaces good human teachers and peer interactions.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Your whole life’s been building...many of your desires, so many of your goals actually revolve around just being a father.”
  — Cabot Phillips, [05:17]

• “I just felt this...respect for all women, all moms, but especially my wife.” — John Bickley, [06:40]

• On family legacy:

  “My grandfather gave [the bracelet] to me just a few months before he passed, and I wear it all the time now.”
  — John Bickley, [12:07]

• “It is a competition and you won.” — Cabot Phillips, [12:26]

• “Being needed. There’s times you can resent that. You step back for a second and go, how great is it to be needed?”
  — Cabot Phillips, [24:23]

• Sharing an explosive (but relatable) parenting moment:

  “My four month old just has explosive diarrhea in the bathtub...My wife and I just looked at each other...and started laughing.”
  — John Bickley, [14:07]

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Practical Advice for New or Expecting Dads

[20:34+]

• Cabot Phillips:

  • Balance selflessness with the need to maintain a healthy, distinct identity—avoid unhealthy obsession or self-neglect.

    “Do not become one of the obsessed parents...maintain your own boundaries and your own life. And that’s super important for their health.”

• John Bickley:

  • Don’t martyr yourself in parenting; embrace sacrifice as a refining experience.

    “Don’t make yourself a martyr...Allow it to refine you.”

  • Look to God as the ultimate example of fatherhood.
  • Keep journals and take pictures/letters for your kids to treasure memories often lost to time.

    “I write both of my sons a letter each month...and I go back and I read the letter from when my son was a couple months old. There’s stuff that I’ve already forgotten.”

  • Be present—treasure even the hardest nights.

    “When you’re 80 years old you’re going to look back on the worst night of parenthood and wish you could do it all over again.”

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Final Reflections

[24:37]

• Georgia Howe: Wraps by affirming appreciation for the candid parental wisdom of her co-hosts and wishing all listeners a Happy Father’s Day.

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This episode serves as an intimate, advice-rich, and emotional snapshot of fatherhood, suitable for both new parents and those reflecting on their parenting journey—offering practical insight and heartfelt encouragement, all relayed with warmth and humor.

Transcript

[Georgia Howe]

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[John Bickley]

I actually just this morning was telling my son about what I'm gonna give him when I'm an old man. This bracelet, actually, this is from my grandfather, and so my great grandmother made this for him and she gave this to him before he went to fly planes with the Air Force in Korea. I told my son today, hey, when I'm an old guy, you're gonna get to wear that.

[Cabot Phillips]

I can't. I can't follow that take

[Georgia Howe]

that was our own John Bickley and Cabot Phillips discussing fatherhood. And as you may have guessed by now, Morningwire is a family show. We love moms and dads, and we like to celebrate them when we have an opportunity. And our producer, justice, had a fun idea that this year for Father's Day, we could have a candid conversation with two of your favorite dads from this show to discuss their experiences with fatherhood and maybe share some nuggets of wisdom as well. I'm Georgia Howe, with Daily Wire Executive editor John Bickley and Wired in host Cabot Phillips, and this is a story special Father's Day episode of Morning Wire.

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[Georgia Howe]

So the transition to parenthood is really strange and it can take a while to kind of gel into your new identity as a parent. When did you really start feeling like a dad? And is there a moment that you can point to that like, kind of stands out?

[John Bickley]

Once I felt my first son kick, I would like to say, oh, like the second we had the pregnancy test, it didn't feel real at first. The first moment that I felt my son kicking was this moment of, oh my goodness. It was like real. Oh, that's a human life in there. And of course I know life begins at conception. I know that like in my head, but in my heart it was that feeling of, oh my goodness, I just felt my son. And it was this like beautiful mix of excitement and nervousness, but also this realization of purpose. And that was the coolest moment of just feeling my purpose now on this earth is not just to serve God and serve my wife, but to protect these kids and raise them well. And it was that moment for me.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. So true. And also it changes the way you look at your wife, where you go, oh my gosh, you're carrying this life and it's real to you. My big moment. I guys, I hope I don't get emotional on this, but my big moment, every time I talked about this with my family, I get teary eyed. But daughter's born, first daughter's born, she grabs onto my finger and it was so surreal to me. I couldn't believe one thing, that already so sentient, so kind of aware of the surroundings, even if it's just tactile. But that was an unbelievable moment. I'll never forget it. It happened again with my second daughter. I have two daughters and both times was incredible. And by the way, when the second daughter was born, our first daughter held her and I couldn't believe what I was watching. It really was the kind of moment where you go, I think my whole life's actually been building to this. I didn't realize it. I think that's as fatherhood. Your whole life's been building so many of your desires, so many of your goals actually revolve around just being a father.

[John Bickley]

Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up the shift in mindset towards your wife because I remember watching my wife go through pregnancy and feeling this awe of, wow, you're sacrificing so much. Literally sacrificing your body for our family.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah.

[John Bickley]

But then it magnified tenfold when she actually was going through labor. And I just remember thinking, I'll never be able to get mad at you again because of what you're going through. For our family to bring this life into the world, does that remain true? Of course that remains true. We've haven't had a single argument since our case. Kids were born, but it definitely, it left me in awe and it made Me just humble and thinking, you're going through something that I never could go through. And I just felt this disrespect that. I think that's the best word. I felt this new respect for all women, all moms, but especially my wife.

[Cabot Phillips]

I have a kind of negative, okay, this is a bad way to start this. But I actually. During the birth of our first child, I actually was a little mad. Okay, not at her.

[John Bickley]

That no one was giving you attention.

[Cabot Phillips]

I did not. I was.

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It.

[Cabot Phillips]

I really was kind of freaked out. And the degree to which it. It freaked me out, I was kind of mad. I was like, why does everyone talk about this? Like, this is so wonderful. There's genuine fear. You know what I mean? But by the end, it's the most beautiful thing ever. But I genuinely, at some points, was. Was freaked out and very, very much feared for her.

[John Bickley]

I feel that, too. We did a home birth for our first son.

[Cabot Phillips]

Oh, my gosh.

[John Bickley]

And I remember there were a few moments thinking, was this a bad idea? Should we not have done a home birth? Ended up being a wonderful experience. But there were some moments of, yeah, I'm glad. That was one.

[Cabot Phillips]

That sounds like a horrible idea to me.

[John Bickley]

It was horrible.

[Georgia Howe]

Okay, next question. The world is changing very fast, and it's really overwhelming. As a parent trying to prepare your child to succeed in a future that could look very different even from what we experienced, from what our parents experience. What are you focusing on inculcating in your children to help them thrive under those unknown or maybe unstable circumstances in the future? And is that something you think about?

[Cabot Phillips]

Maybe I go first on this one because my daughters are older. We think about this all the time. My wife and I think about this all the time. All the time. I do think one of the things that, so far, it feels like we've made pretty good decisions, and the decisions have basically been guided by. Let's be more direct and honest with them about the nature of the world. Then maybe you kind of reflexively want to be like. You want to shield them from the realities of the world. And we've done that a good bit, I'm sure, especially as they're younger, you know, when they're younger. But as they've grown, we've decided, you know what, we need to tell them about the reality of these things and not shield them from it if it comes up naturally, organically, you know, And I do feel like that's. That's been good. They both have been remarkably. One of them is 13, the other one is 11. Remarkably capable. So I do feel like they're inculcated against a lot of things that I was really worried about that this, at this stage, they would be vulnerable to. Now, again, you know, you have to keep. Be vigilant all the time. But it has felt like honesty's best directness. Don't shield them too much. You know, you have to use your judgment all the time. But I'm glad we've done that.

[John Bickley]

Yeah, I felt my kids are younger. Mine are two and a half and four months old, so I haven't had to deal with as much of that. So a lot of it right now is more conceptual for me, and I think it has changed. Fatherhood has changed my, my political beliefs in many ways. It's radicalized me on certain topics. It's made me think more about concrete issues in ways that not just, oh, what's, what's the best for our GDP or our immigration policy or whatever it is, it's made me realize this is literally the, the world my kids are going to grow up in, which is so cliche. But it's, it's cliche for a reason. So it, it's definitely. I don't know, it's. It's made me think more deeply about, like, the issues facing our country in our world from, like, a tangible standpoint. I'm realizing now with our. Especially with our two and a half year old, that we're getting to the point, like the things we're doing now and the things that he is experiencing are actually shaping who he's going to be in a very real way. And that feels like a heavy weight. And. Yeah, I mean, we're, we're trying. The big fear for me is just technology. And I think when I, when I see the explosion of AI, it's no longer just a wow, what a cool tool. What's that going to mean for our country? It's now. What does this mean for my kids job prospects in the future? What does this mean for his interactions with his peers? And, and those are the things that I. Now we'll come back to, by the way.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. Yeah. Screen addiction. Yeah. Will become a major theme of every parent's life at this point.

[Georgia Howe]

You know, do either of you have any items or personal memorabilia that you've been holding on to that you dream about passing on to your child, that you have an interesting story behind?

[John Bickley]

I actually just this morning was telling my son about what I'm gonna give him when I'm an old man. That's so funny. You asked this, just this morning, this bracelet, actually, this is from my grandfather. His brother, my great uncle, was a POW at the Battle of the Bulge. And when my grandpa went to Korea, my great grandmother was terrified that he was going to be captured or go missing and that he would lose his dog tags. And so my great grandmother made this for him. It has his name on it, Jacob Abraham Ryder. It's a little mini dog tag on this bracelet. And she gave this to him before he went to fly planes with the Air Force in Korea. And.

[Georgia Howe]

What do you mean she made it?

[John Bickley]

She had it made for him. And so my grandfather gave it to me just a few months before he passed, and I wear it all the time now. And I told my son today, hey, when I'm an old guy, you're going to get to wear that. Because he was playing with it, he was putting it on. And so that's one thing.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah, I can't. I can't follow that, John.

[John Bickley]

Okay.

[Cabot Phillips]

It is a competition and you won. No moving on from me.

[Georgia Howe]

Okay. Don't worry, John. You'll have an answer for the next one. Have you changed in any fundamental way since becoming a dad? So either your perspective on certain things or maybe elements of your personality. Rough edges that have been smoothed, smooth edges that have become rough.

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. Being so. This is different for you and me. I am a girl dad.

[John Bickley]

Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

I love being a girl dad. I've heard other girl dads say this before, so this idea, like, these are the loves of my life, it's very real to me. It has changed. It has changed the way I view women in general. I view other fathers, particularly when there's a daughter involved. I understand how they feel about them and the sort of richness of the. The relationship. And so that, that's like expanded. It's expanded my world a lot. I don't think it's made me softer, though. I don't think that's the case. Like, I do see, I look defensively at the world. Like when we all had to live in LA for a while, I saw threats everywhere. And particularly when you're a girl dad, you really see threats. You know, like, you're going to see it when the kids are young, for the boys are young, but as they get older, more and more, they need to be. They need to face threats. You know what I'm saying? It's for girls. You see all the potential ways that society threatens them. So I think that's. It's made me more vigilant. And then the, The. The softening Part of it is, is being probably more understanding of other, other people that have daughters and, and how complex the emotions are or something. When you, when you deal with that,

[John Bickley]

it has made me more of a softie. It's made me more empathetic. I did not consider myself to be an empathetic person really before becoming a parent. And fatherhood has made me completely incapable of reading news stories about children being harmed, of seeing that in movies, seeing that in TV shows. I cannot do it because it's like I'm, I'm not able to see those things or read about those things without instantly thinking this is someone's child. And you know, these parents love their kids just the way that I love my kids. And so it has softened my heart in that way for sure. As far as changing me, I think it's made me more chill. I've always been a pretty happy go lucky guy, pretty chill. But it's, it's given me more of an ability to laugh at things that are going wrong. And my wife and I, we've had so many nights. Two nights ago, we're giving our kids a bath and my four month old just has explosive diarrhea in the bathtub. Can we say that on Morning Wire? Well, he did. He had explosive diarrhea in the bathtub and both of our sons are in the bath and it's going everywhere. And our two year old is laughing, thinking that it's something to play with and he's playing with the water and my wife and I just looked at each other and after the initial freak out of okay, get him out, get the towels, everything, we just looked at and started laughing. And I think parenthood has a way of doing that, of helping you realize what actually matters. And if you get mad every time those things happen, you will always be mad. And I think it's given me the ability to just have stuff brush off more quickly.

[Cabot Phillips]

You have to be patient. You have to have a new level of patience, which is super hard for me.

[Georgia Howe]

Okay, so I'm going to return to a theme that we kind of talked about earlier. I'm just going to tell you a little something that billionaire dads have been buzzing about. And I want to get your reaction to this phenomenon that's going on and just hear what you guys think. So have either of you heard of Alpha School? So Alpha school is this AI powered pre K through 12, private school network. It's based in Austin. It's expensive, $40,000 a year. And the idea is they have just two hours of core academics a day. And they have these AI tutors teaching them things they don't have te. They have these like roving adult guides that will assist them with some of their AI learning. They do for, they do that for two hours in the morning and then the rest of the day they have hands on workshops in real life fields.

[Cabot Phillips]

Wait, hold on. So is this a physical? You're in a physical location.

[Georgia Howe]

Yeah. So they have like when you're saying

[Cabot Phillips]

roaming like they're robots roaming around like

[Georgia Howe]

adults that are like checking, oh, I see you on your computer. How's it going?

[Cabot Phillips]

You know, that kind of thing. Gotcha.

[Georgia Howe]

Like proctors, Is that kind of like that? So anyway, the fields that they do their real life workshops are robotics, public speaking, financial literacy, entrepreneurship. So anyway, Bill Ackman is a huge proponent of this. Reid Hoffman, he co founded LinkedIn. He's also very interested in this.

[Cabot Phillips]

This is like the Derek Zoolander school of. For kids that can't read good.

[John Bickley]

There goes.

[Cabot Phillips]

They want to do other things good

[John Bickley]

too, because they do the entrepreneur thing in Zooland.

[Georgia Howe]

I'll just give you a jumping off point. Does this give you the ick or is this something that you're like, oof, I should probably get my kid in this like AI powered job and teach them about robotics.

[Cabot Phillips]

Funny that you should mention robotics. Both of my daughters did robotics this year.

[Georgia Howe]

Oh, okay.

[Cabot Phillips]

And we were very excited about it. I love like, I love the idea of practical education, you know, not just like trade, not trade school exactly, but let's make ourselves really employable. Yeah. So part of that's exciting, the AI part I'm not thrilled about, but I do feel like, I mean, that's the reality. This is all of our search now on Google is AI.

[Georgia Howe]

Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

All of us are constantly using it all the time. It is a quicker way to access and summarize information. And we have more and more information available to us, so we have to use it.

[John Bickley]

So yeah, I like the idea of making my kids AI literate, but I, I think there's something you're missing out when you don't have a teacher in a classroom setting. I think there's a certain level of collaboration you're missing. And we all have experiences with teachers who in one way or another changed our lives. And we all have teachers to this day that you can remember when you were seven years old being inspired by a teacher, being encouraged by them having that deep relationship where they're almost like another parent to you in a way. And I think you, you miss you miss out on that when you're, when you're outsourcing that to technology. Now there are a lot of things that the ultra wealthy, which I'm kind of a little offended that you assume that John and I are not billionaire dads. You just to say, what would you do? Yeah. But they're all. Anytime they start doing things with their kids, you should start thinking like that should tell you something. They have all the resources in the world and they're able to do things and provide for things for their kids. So I love the idea of broadening their horizons when it comes to teaching them real life skills that will be applicable. And the public speaking stuff is cool. And the, you know, the robotics and the coding and all of that. I'm down for that. Not down for the AI tutors replacing teachers. Yeah.

[Georgia Howe]

I actually have racing a bet. When you follow what the billionaires do and sometimes they do things that may not be the best even just for your soul too.

[Cabot Phillips]

I have some experience with classical education as, as an educator and then seeing my, my both of my kids were at some points in classical schools. So in some ways I'm like retro. There's elements of that that I really love for education and I do think almost one on one tutorials. If you can possibly find the right people to do that. There's a reason that's always been the go to throughout all of history for the most educated people. You know, if you can do that, that's great. And that is a human being.

[John Bickley]

Yeah.

[Cabot Phillips]

That hopefully inspires you or challenge you or whatever. It's not AI, but absolutely it's gonna be supplemented now by technology. It's got to be education.

[Georgia Howe]

The thing that jumps out to me about this is that it's a kid on a computer by themself. They're not just missing out on the teacher. They're missing out on the peer interaction that you get with learning together. That to me that was the thing that. I don't know. I mean it is scary when you see the ultra wealthy doing things and you think, shoot, you know, I don't want to set my child up to be behind by not doing what they're doing. But you have to make the decision

[John Bickley]

and I'm sure it improves their test scores. I'm sure that's the case. But what are the trade offs?

[Georgia Howe]

Yeah. All right, last question. What is your advice to new dads or soon or dads to be soon?

[John Bickley]

John's the veteran dad. You've got to start.

[Cabot Phillips]

I have too much advice. I would say so selflessness. This is a complicated theme. One of the things my dad modeled for me was he was very selfless in so many ways as a. As a father. And I want to emulate that. But I think that there is. We've seen this balance, particularly, I mean, it's men and women. Women have a harder time with this probably too. Where you make your fan, you make your kids the center of your world and it becomes unhealthy or you project onto them. There's almost like a narcissism that can. You can project onto your kids something that's actually unhealthy. So the balance of selflessness versus maintaining your own life, maintaining things that your kids are ultimately going to respect about you, that is outside of them, that is larger than. Not larger than them, but an identity boundary. Yeah, identity boundaries. And. And that. It's not the me time thing. It's like being a complete human being, you know, And I think a lot of. There are parents that can go either direction. They can be negligent or they can be these utterly indulgent or obsessed parents. Do not become one of the obsessed parents. You know, you can be selfless, you can do all those things, but you can also maintain your own boundaries and your own life. And that's super important for their health.

[John Bickley]

I would say don't make yourself a martyr. It can be tempting when you're having to sacrifice things as a parent to get this feeling of, oh, poor me and I. All the things I'm giving up and the things I could be doing. Don't make yourself a martyr. It just leads to bitterness, I think. View those things as an opportunity to lay yourself down and it's a refining process and allow it to refine you. The big thing. Don't look to earthly examples. For the best example of what a father is. Look to the perfect father. Look to God the Father as the pinnacle of what it actually means to be a father. You will be let down by earthly human beings. You will always be let down by them, no matter how great they are. And so I would say try to emulate the way that God the Father acts towards us as children. Tangibly. I always tell other dads, my kids are two and a half and four months old. I'm not going to pretend to be this wise old martyr. Keep a journal. Take lots of pictures. I already enjoy going back and looking at not to brag. I write both of my sons a letter each month and I don't give it to them. Obviously, they couldn't read it, but I'm going to give it to them when they're 18. So we have one letter a month for each kid. And I go back and I read the letter from when my son was a couple months old. And there's stuff that I've already forgotten. It's like, oh, I forgot he was doing this when he was three months old. And I love that. And then the final thing, the best advice I got, just be present. There's this cheesy podcast clip I saw where a guy was saying, like, when you're 80 years old, you're gonna look back on the worst night of parenthood and wish that you could do it all over again. Or wish you would give anything when you're 80 to go back and have one night where your kid is screaming at 2 in the morning and you do anything to be back in that one moment, just for one night. And so for some reason, that really resonated with me. And when. When I'm having bad nights where my. My sons won't go down or something, or they puke on me or poop on me, I just think, I'm going to be an old man one day. I won't have little kids who need me. And I want to enjoy that right now. So that's the advice of a dad who's been a dad for two and a half years, which I'm sure people are looking at funny.

[Cabot Phillips]

Being needed. I know everyone here relates to this being needed. There's times you can resent that. You step back for a second and go, how great? How great is it to be needed? You know, it's a wonderful feeling.

[John Bickley]

Yeah.

[Georgia Howe]

All right. Well, gentlemen, happy Father's Day. So proud to have such great dads on this show. And viewers, to you dads out there, happy Father's Day and thanks.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Georgia Howe]

Thanks for watching today.