Dad jokes from Judd Apatow, Jim Gaffigan, and ...
+ "Many of my earliest memories involve some random act of anger."
10 of our favorite dad jokes
Andy Richter once said, “The hardest thing about being a parent is these goddamned kids.” You know what? He’s kinda right. As much we love children, many of also need a laugh at the end of the day.
If you celebrate, Happy Father’s Day from all of us at The Midst!
Feeling badgered by past family trauma
A few years ago, my family and I moved to the suburbs of Madison, Wisconsin, a city that holds special significance to me. It’s the place where my parents met, where my dad went to college, and where I had visited many times with him.
Initially, I loved exploring all the new places to go and things to do. But then I kept seeing these damn UW Bucky Badgers all over the place — sorry fans. The cheeky red and white mascot really started to bother me with its puffed-out chest, fisted hands, angry face, and sharply clawed feet. To me, the emblem didn’t just represent the college. It was also a strong reminder of my dad. Not the pleasant-to-be-around “fun guy” side, but the other one — the win-at-all-cost, always right, “you’re either with me, or against me” side.
And because my dad died suddenly a decade earlier, these feelings of resentment were buried under layers of sadness and grief. Feelings that went as far back as I can remember, during intense periods of conflict between my parents that led to a divorce where choosing sides was the only option. I chose my mother’s side, which, emotionally, was my only option. But this choice came with a cost — the loss of loving my father, and feeling loved by him. And all of these conflicted feelings felt frozen in a state of saturation, with nowhere to go.
Sixty-some days after my dad retired at the age of 60, I got the call that he was gone. Just like that. No warnings. Just gone. It was the first day of December, the first snow of the season and just after the first Black Friday that my dad didn’t work during his nearly four decade career in retail management at JCPenney’s.
Initial shock was followed by a strange and guilty feeling of relief: The loyalty tug-of-war between my divorced parents that persisted for many decades was finally over. I wouldn’t have to hear him utter the phrase “your Mother” as if it were a swear word. I would no longer hear his booming voice on my answering machine commanding me to pick up the “[insert expletive] phone.” I wouldn’t have to stress over making plans with him because I could never be sure of the mood he’d be in that day or where my tolerance level would be.
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I’ve been thinking lately about how I might be a bit of a workaholic or perhaps a recovering workaholic. Which is why Jennifer Romolini’s new book is next up on my summer reading list.
I’ve read several reviews of Ambition Monster, so here’s the gist: For Romolini, an accomplished media and tech exec, workaholism was a trauma response. Her mom and dad were teens who struggled with parenting. In Romolini’s 20s, as Slate EIC’s Hillary Sley puts it, “she navigated how to direct her ambition — to get out of a marriage she never should have been in, to hustle her way to New York and into the raucous and male-dominated media world of the new century, to remarry (to a popular and talented writer) and have a baby. And then a whole other set of problems arrived.” — Amy
Very funny. I love dad jokes