366 Days of Dad

Thinking through one year of being a parent. Plus recs for Kristin Radtke's baby surveillance, Maria Bamford and Thao Nguyen's Holiday Anthem, and Haley Nahman's lessons

Dec 07, 2024

Today’s newsletter is all about parenting / babies. If that’s not something you’re up for reading right now, I fully get it. Rest assured that next Saturday, I will be back with your regularly scheduled goofs.

I’m just short of a full year of being a dad. This first year was also a leap year, so I even got a bonus 24 hours. I certainly don’t feel like any sort of parenting expert, but also, wow, I have learned a LOT over the past 20 months between the pregnancy and the baby. I also feel like there’s a lot to be said about what it means to be a dad that’s not the weird stuff that’s out there in dad books and blogs currently.

If you haven’t read the literature, a lot of dad advice is like, “How to Never Cry While Teaching Your Baby to Be a Lethal Warrior” or “YOU’RE GONNA NEED TO FIND A WAY TO ESCAPE… 167 WAYS TO HIDE IN YOUR GARAGE AND DRINK BEER.”

Suffice it to say, that has not been my experience of parenthood.

Instead, parenting for me has been a lot of fun. Sometimes it’s Type 2 fun, where it’s only fun looking back after the moment is done. Sometimes it’s not fun at all. And it’s almost always a mixture of fun and something else. It’s also exhausting, beautiful, hilarious, sometimes disgusting, and frequently humbling. It’s been one of the most time-warping experiences I’ve ever had. It feels like it was decades ago that we were scrambling to stuff all our labor/birth supplies into a duffel bag and make it to the hospital. It also feels like this baby arrived yesterday.

As a person who loves the approval of strangers (see: my comedy career, my entire personality, and 99% of my life choices), carrying a baby around pays dividends that I could not have imagined. I think it’s because the bar for dads is so low, but if you do anything remotely competent with a baby in public, strangers just praise you. One time, I was pushing the stroller when a guy started applauding out of nowhere and yelled, “Yay! Yay! Daddy! Daddy!”

That’s not happening to Mollie on her stroller walks.

The one time I flew with the baby solo, I felt like I had entered a bizarro universe of the airport. Our checked bag was a little too heavy, but the agent took one look at me and the baby and said, “you’ve got enough on your hands. Don’t worry about it.” And then when I was going through TSA, one of the officers walked like two lanes over, grabbed my travel stroller, broke it down for me, and put it through the x-ray. She smiled and said, “just don’t drop the baby,” then ushered us through the metal detector. It was probably the nicest interaction I’ve ever had with the TSA. For what it’s worth though, I hadn’t been planning on dropping the baby even before she gave me that order.

Those interactions both made me laugh, and are undeniably nicer than people being rude or difficult. But there are also some undercurrents there that I’ve found myself needing to push against, and not just the sexist double standard and expectations for moms.

The thing that I’ve found about being a straight guy and having a kid is that you have to actively push hard if you want to be equally involved. The system is not set up to rely on you (or even inform you) equally. That puts a lot of weight on the other partner. But, if you’re not careful, it also cuts you out of the work and care in ways that might only become visible much later when your relationship with your kid and partner is more set.

Three things that, in retrospect, I’m really glad I did:

Went to the OB appointments during the pregnancy— There were SO MANY appointments. It’s wild. It’s also totally understandable how, if you had a regular job or another kid at home to take care of, you wouldn’t be able to both go. But I definitely found that being there, in person, subtly changed the tenor of my relationship with the doctors. Of course, it’s also worth noting that Mollie was cool with me being there. I can imagine how other people might prefer to have some of the appointments be just one-on-one.
Fed the baby— The single biggest factor for us in letting me be with the baby and help take care of him at the beginning was the fact that we ended up needing to supplement with formula. I know people have strong feelings about this and there’s an almost fundamentalist fervor to the “breast is best” camp, but I gotta say that using formula made things so much more equitable. It let Mollie get a real break, especially at night, and it let me bond with our kid in such a meaningful way. Especially at first, they don’t do much other than eat and sleep, so being able to feed him felt very important to me.
Put my email and phone number as the primary contact— I don’t do this every time, but at least sometimes! I’m the primary point of contact in our pediatrician’s system and it’s hilarious how often when the receptionist calls she says “Hello mom—- I mean Dad?” I like the feeling of being the point of contact for some important kid logistics. And it doesn’t bother me that they truly do not seem to have figured out a way to put parents’ names into their computer system. They’ve only ever referred to me or Mollie as “[Baby name]’s mom?” or “[Baby name]’s dad?”

There’s a lot that I’m still struggling to figure out, like how to talk about parenting with other dads in a consistent way. Or how to balance work and parent obligations with time to recharge solo and then also time for us to connect as a couple apart from the baby. Or how to put my ego aside when the parenting technique I’m sure should be working is clearly not working. Or how I’m going to adjust emotionally when our son can do things like, I don’t know, communicate in English.

I try to tell myself that we’ll figure all that out when we get there. Sometimes I even believe myself!

In the meantime, I’m going to take this baby out in public in case someone feels like applauding.

My projects and upcoming events:

LIVE IN LA: Wrong Answers Only (LabX) - THIS WEDNESDAY, December 11th at 7:30 p.m. at Dynasty Typewriter. Come see me, Lauren Lapkus, Joanna Hausmann, and Karen Chee make jokes about garbage, while we interview a chemist who turns trash into treasure. Tickets for the in-person show (or the livestream, which you can watch for free from anywhere!)

LIVE IN SF: Wrong Answers Only at SF Sketchfest - Sunday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Gateway Theater. Sketchfest is my favorite comedy festival and I’m so excited we’re bringing the show back to Bay Area for it. Come see me, Samm Levine, Aparna Nancherla, and Dulcé Sloan! Tickets are onsale now

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Logan Ury is a behavioral scientist and dating expert. This week, we interviewed her on the podcast about her new Netflix show The Later Daters, which I’m having a lot of fun watching. We talked about Logan’s advice on dating and romance for people of any age and she had so many practical tips for getting out there. Check out the episode here (or wherever you get podcasts).

TED TALK: How to find laughter anywhere - My TED talk is online and on YouTube. Please watch and share! You can find it here

This week’s list

GREAT:

I first became a fan of Kristin Radtke when I read her illustrated nonfiction book Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness. I’ve still never read another book quite like it. Journalistically rigorous, personally revealing, and also a work of visual art. I was excited to see that she put out an article in The Verge in the same style, looking at her experience as a new mom and what it means to be able to see your kid through a monitor at all times. Where’s the line between surveillance and love? Is there even a line? How to watch a baby

FUNNY:

It’s the holiday season which means you’re probably looking for the perfect gift. But what if the perfect gift is actually just a one-for-one exchange? I’d never heard this song before and it’s now an instant holiday favorite: Thao Nguyen and Maria Bamford - The Gift Card Song (h/t Lisa Sibbett)

INTERESTING:

I’ve been inspired to write more about parenting by some of the amazing writing that I’ve read about parenting lately, especially these incredible tips for parents-to-be (and friends of people with kids) from Haley Nahman: Lessons from babyworld

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Thanks for reading,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.