Chapter 2
The Framework
What if I told you that the greatest parents in history all did the same thing – and it wasn’t what you’d expect? They didn’t teach more. They didn’t try harder. They picked one idea and built everything around it.
In 1869, Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child – severe asthma, weak body, doctors not sure he’d survive childhood. His father, Theodore Sr., made a decision. He told young Teddy: “You have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body.” This wasn’t generic advice. It was a principle: vigorous life. Every decision flowed from it. Theodore Sr. built a gym in their home, took Teddy on demanding hikes, enrolled him in boxing lessons. He didn’t coddle his sick son – he challenged him, deliberately, systematically. The activities varied, but the principle never did.
Teddy Roosevelt became a boxer, a rancher, a soldier, a police commissioner, and president of the United States. At 60, he explored an uncharted river in the Amazon. The vigorous life wasn’t just something he learned – it became who he was. His father didn’t teach him 50 things. He taught him one principle, through a hundred different activities.
Joseph Kennedy Sr. ran his household like a campaign headquarters. Dinner wasn’t a meal – it was practice. His principle was simple: compete and win. Every dinner, he’d bring up current events and grill his children on their opinions. He’d challenge their arguments. He’d pit them against each other in debate. The children complained. They prepared for dinner like an exam. They researched topics just to survive the table. Four of them became major political figures. One became president. Joseph didn’t teach public speaking as a skill. He embedded a principle – competition – into the fabric of daily life. The activity was dinner. The lesson was much bigger.
Marie and Pierre Curie had a problem with schools – they thought traditional education crushed curiosity. So they started a cooperative with other scientists’ families built around a single principle: curiosity above all. The children didn’t sit in rows. They did experiments. They asked questions. They followed tangents. Marie taught physics. Other parents taught math, art, languages – each in their own style, but all serving the same idea. Their daughter Irène won a Nobel Prize. So did Marie. Twice. The Curies didn’t follow a checklist. They created an environment where one principle – curiosity – could flourish in a thousand ways.
This is the framework
A principle is what you want them to become – a character trait, a value, a way of being in the world. An activity is how you teach it – specific, practical, and repeatable. One principle can be taught through dozens of activities. “Self-sufficiency” might mean cooking a meal at age 8, doing laundry at 10, managing money at 14, and filing taxes at 17. Same principle. Different activities. The checklist gives you 50 activities. Your job is to figure out which principles they serve – and which principles matter to you.