Profiles of Men Who Have Earned the Title of “Super Dad”

Plus some notes on this somewhat old humor piece

David, 44, is a hedge fund manager and father of two children ages 8 months and 4 years. He would like to spend more time with his children but has to work 80-hour weeks to keep his funds sufficiently hedged. Several nights a week he “has drinks with clients after work” and “sleeps in his office” so as not to disturb his wife and children by coming home in the middle of the night. He spends every Saturday golfing with his friends. One Sunday per month he takes both kids grocery shopping by himself.

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Alex, 38, is a patent attorney and father of four. His work schedule has been crazy lately, but he hopes things will settle down soon and he’ll be able to spend more time with his kids. He has missed all but one of his children’s school functions over the past five years due to “work meetings.” He is currently having an affair with his twenty-three-year-old legal assistant. He spends most weekends at her loft in Brooklyn when he is “catching up on paperwork.” He once took his children to an amusement park and posted a selfie on Facebook with his 3-year-old on his shoulders eating a drippy ice cream cone.

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Mike, 47, is a neurosurgeon and father of twin five-year-old boys. His wife is an attorney. She cut back to part-time after the boys were born because Mike’s work schedule was “too unpredictable” to share daycare pickup duties. Mike is an avid runner and runs 10K races most weekends, usually in locations best described as “anywhere more than 100 miles from his home.” Every now and then he takes the boys to the park on Sunday mornings and plays chase so his wife can catch up on laundry.

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Jeff, 28, is a freelance writer and father of a two-month-old girl. His wife is currently on maternity leave from her job as a social worker so he has plenty of time to sit at Starbucks for ten hours every day “working on his screenplay” while she is home with the baby. One morning per week, Jeff takes his daughter for a walk in her stroller somewhere a lot of people can see them.

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Matt, 33, is twice divorced and has three children from his two marriages. He works in sales. He travels a lot for work, but he has all his kids every other weekend. It just so happens that on his weekends with the kids, he usually spends ten to twelve hours at the horse track while the kids “spend quality time with their grandparents.” Matt’s oldest child vomited on Matt’s head once and Matt always reminds everyone about it.

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Nathan, 52, is an engineer and father of two adult children. He is very proud that he was such an involved father when his children were growing up — he coached their little league baseball team for two whole seasons. His ex-wife remembers things differently, but “what does she know anyway?” Nathan spends much of his free time now following Mom bloggers on social media and correcting their parenting mistakes with helpful comments that are always greatly appreciated.

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Andrew, 42, is a father of three children. He spends his days caring for his children and keeping his house moderately livable. He often feels like he’s failing at everything, but his kids seem happy, so he guesses that he’s doing okay. Sometimes when Andrew is out doing routine things with his kids like shopping or going to the library, a stranger calls him “Super Dad.” Every time this happens, he smiles sheepishly, gives a demure nod to the stranger, and mutters to himself, “What the hell? Can we set the bar any lower?”

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Notes:

So, I wrote this piece back in 2018 and it was first published in Weekly Humorist. I recently refurbished it and published it on Medium to try to attract some more readers but it didn’t really work out. You win some, you lose some.

If I’m remembering correctly, when I originally wrote this piece, I was mostly motivated by spite rather than high-minded beliefs about gender equality or double standards in parenting. It seems kind of funny to me now. Like, I was just really annoyed that dads seemed to do whatever they wanted and still got praised for completing tiny parenting tasks. Even though I didn’t actually want to be doing any of the things that these other dads did (e.g., having big jobs, behaving badly, never spending time with my kids). I just didn’t want them to be praised for parenting because that was my thing! It’s very silly, but those were my feelings at the time.

I heard Billie Joe Armstrong say once that he looks back at the song F.O.D. and laughs because he wrote it about a person he was mad at and it seems dumb in retrospect. But those emotions were valid and real in that moment.

However, I do feel like the piece holds up to some extent because I was able to highlight societal double standards while channeling my personal indignation. It’s no secret that dads tend to get praised for doing literally anything and moms tend to get criticized for not doing enough even if they are doing everything. It stinks.

From a craft perspective, I kept things pretty simple. My formula was to provide a very measured and straightforward bio of each (very fictional) person and finish with one line that described an utterly mundane task that a dad might receive praise for.

“One morning per week, Jeff takes his daughter for a walk in her stroller somewhere a lot of people can see them.”

I did have to update my age for the last beat of this new version which was highly depressing.

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Things I’ve enjoyed recently:

• The album Stick Season by Noah Kahan. The album Stick Season by Noah Kahan. The album Stick Season by Noah Kahan. — I tend to latch onto one musical artist at a time and exclude everything else. Right now, it’s Stick Season.

• Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson — Just read this one and liked it.

• The One Funny Line humor challenge by

  Julie Vick
  is fun and not too overwhelming if you’re into writing humor or want to be!