The best part of having five kids is that you get to abdicate a lot of responsibility. There are just too many kids to manage everything. I figure all I have to do is go two for five—just get two of them to turn out not horribly messed up. This takes the pressure off. You might not be so lucky. But no matter how many children you have, remember to pace yourself. Don’t make it too hard. Find ways to get what you need while also keeping them alive.
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Take science. Science is really important. So combine it with one of your own interests for a real-world learning opportunity! I like to take my kids to Katz’s Deli for pastrami and go, “Daddy loves this restaurant, but the next time maybe we should try pastrami at the Second Avenue Deli, because they shave it a little thinner.” See? I taught them about science by telling them a little bit about myself and comparing the different types of pastrami.
OK, so it’s not exactly being a tiger mom. I’m not a helicopter parent. I’m more of a drone parent. But look, we can’t shelter our kids against everything. What’s that thing where they don’t expose kids to screens at all? Waldorf? A lot of parents fear that kids get too much exposure to iPads and iPhones and such. You’re going to lose that battle. Even homework is on screens now. So, I’m doing this elaborate experiment where I’m exploring something I’m calling a Waldorf salad. We expose the kids to a big jumble of screens, all at once. Who knows! Maybe it will overwhelm them and they’ll lose interest. Or maybe it won’t and these kids will have their own shows on Adult Swim one day—they need to be familiar with age-inappropriate animation.
Sure, you’re gonna have some guilt. Just ignore it. Don’t get worked up about how screens are neglectful, how not playing flash-card games with them is neglectful, or how neglect is neglectful. And definitely don’t feel guilty about that time you missed the father-daughter square dance because you were working on your TV show about how crazy it is having five kids and being a stand-up comedian. Definitely don’t feel guilty about that. I mean, any kid could go all mini-lawyer and get their parent found guilty of neglect, right? Any kid could present a strong case if they wanted to. So just take your kids to a baseball game. Whether or not any of you want to go, take them. It will look good in court later.
Sports are important like that. One time, my son and I bought a handball at a bodega and I was like, yeah, we’re going to do handball. We’re like Larry King as a child in the 1940s. So we got the ball, he threw it against the wall, it immediately went into the street, and I said to him, “That’s it, that’s how you play handball.” We had the $2 ball for maybe 25 seconds. I was like, we could find it or we could move on to the jungle gym. No activity actually goes how you planned it, and that’s the good part.
There are bad parts. Say you go to bed late, but you have to get up early. That’s when a kid will appear in your bedroom covered in throw-up. That’s when I act like I’m asleep. I’m the sleeping-tiger dad.
Jim Gaffigan is the star of The Jim Gaffigan Show—now in its second season on TV Land—which he writes and executive-produces with his wife. His neglected kids range in age from 3 to 12.
