Papa est Fatigué - the origin story
Photo by CDC on Unsplash
In today’s episode we’re talking about the origin story of Papa est Fatigué
During this episode we’ll discuss:
What does Papa est Fatigué mean and where did the name Papa est Fatigué come from
How did the business come about
What listeners should expect to take away from this podcast
Our favorite episode(s) and why
What we’ve learned from the podcast
What is our greatest challenge with being a father
If you like what you heard, please consider subscribing, writing a review, and sharing the podcast on social media.
Resources:
Transcript
[music]
Dave: In today's episode, we're talking about the genesis of Papa est Fatigué, and looking back on some of our most memorable episodes.
[music]
Dave: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Papa est Fatigué podcast, the podcast for dads, by dads. We're 30 episodes in, and we thought it would be interesting to talk about the origin story of the podcast, and what we hope you'll take away from it, but first here's my deal. I'm Dave. I have an eight year old daughter and a five year old son.
Jim: I'm Jim, I've got two daughters, eight and five.
Dave: Jim, let's just jump right into it. What does Papa est Fatigué mean, and where did the name Papa est Fatigué come from?
Jim: I think, literally Papa est Fatigué dad is tired, right? That's what it means, the actual words, but where did the name came from? It came from our conversations, and I think that's a lot about what this podcast is. It's conversations that dads have,, or that we did anyway with other dads that pick up and drop off, but it's something that I heard you say to your kids, "Daddy, put me on your shoulders or daddy wouldn't pick me up?"
It is like, "Daddy's tired," and it stuck with me, because it just seemed like a very matter of fact statement that captured the sentiment of like, "We're here, we're doing the best we can, I'm tired.
It's not that I don't love you."
Dave: Right.
Jim: I just can't do it right now. The sentiment is just the acknowledgement that parenting's not easy, and particularly my experience. I think that's a lot of experience for a lot of parents is that it's just, it's exhausting. We did that episode about the sleep deprivation, and how long it lasts for parents. I'm not imagining it, being a parent is a lot about just being tired all the time.
Dave: Yes, agreed. How did the business side of it come about?
Jim: That's an interesting turn of events. As far as the business, we were working on a related project, we were having a hard time finding a logo, or finding something that we could use to capture the product, and it's something that was related. I think probably from our conversations, there was one morning I woke up and I just had this image in my head of the words, and the battery with the low charge.
I thought it was funny. I made a couple of shirts just for my own fun, I'd wear them around. I got a lot of other comments, and then in working on this project, we were all dads of young kids, and the other guys connected with the shirt, and we thought it was pretty funny. It just became we had a lot of conversations with those dads and, you were included on several of those.
Just the idea of having this forum, or dads talking about what it is with their young kids and how it is to be with their young kids. It seemed to capture that mood, I guess, that a parent's sharing their experiences together. Now, you've been the big driver of this with the podcast, and it's become a way for to have a conversation in a more public way.
Dave: That's a nice transition. What should somebody expect to take away from this podcast?
Jim: I think the big picture, the big takeaway is that there is a community of dads, and I think you and I connected on doing the pickup and drop off. I can think of six other dads that maybe we would see pretty frequently. Part of it is that, parenting dads are much more involved in parenting now than they were two generations ago, or even one generation ago. It's still new, and it's nice to have these conversations and try to figure out that we're all, again, we're all doing the best we can.
We're all trying as hard as we can. Realizing, and having it reaffirm that this is a labor of love, and it is a labor, and it is one of the most joyful things that I've done in my life, but it takes some intention and attention, and intention in that there's a lot of things that feel, or that I thought would feel intuitive as a parent.
There are a lot of things that aren't, and being able to talk that out with other people is really helpful. The one that came to mind was strawberries, like, you're not supposed to give your new baby strawberries or honey.
Dave: Honey, yes.
Jim: I would've never thought that I could kill my kid by accidentally giving him strawberries. That's mind blowing, and I know that's an extreme example, but there's a lot of things that obviously are not intuitive. That's not something I would've even even thought of. Would've been on my radar. I feel like in some ways it's easy to be on autopilot. I find myself in times like that in weeks or so, where I feel like I'm reacting to new experiences.
I'm reacting to being a parent, rather than trying to get ahead of it and trying to prepare or anticipate new things that are going to be coming up with my daughter. I think that the conversations that dads have are important, and I think that's what I'd like people to take away.
Dave: On my end, I think of the podcast as a place for-- Like a community and for other fathers or parents, to be able to connect with the highs and lows of parenting. I remember, I think there was a thread on Reddit where somebody was like, "Why didn't you parents tell me all of the crazy stuff that I should know? You didn't prepare me for what parenting was. You just gave me all the fun, sweet stuff, but you didn't tell me about all these other things that I was going to be worried about. That I was going to get puked on all the time."
Just as far as the logo, that's not too bad of a low, but I certainly remember some of those conversations, just seeing those where people were like, "Hey, everybody always talks about the great side, which is fine, but I would like to know some of the reality of being a parent. It's not going to dissuade me from being a parent, I want to be a parent, but it's nice to be prepared going in." I think that to me, there's some of that, the ability to communicate, again, those highs and lows.
I think it's also a place where people can understand that their challenges are not unique. I feel like sometimes parenting does seem a little bit isolating. Certainly within your family group. You're probably talking to your significant other, but outside of that, sometimes it might be dependent on your situation. If all of your friends are single or don't have kids, it can be, I think a space that might sometimes feel a isolating for people.
This is a place to understand that we all face challenges, they're different. There are some that are very much the same. I think some other things are that this is a place for us to exchange ideas and lessons that you might want to integrate into your parents. There is a few episodes that come to mind for me that we did episode five on getting separated from your child. That's one where you and I talked about how we minimize the likelihood that our child gets lost, but also what we do to teach them what happens in case they do get lost.
You talked about the safety plan that you have. That's one of those things that I thought about is that when we go to a new place, we get the kids together. "Hey, everybody, here's the deal." The episode six on chores and allowance. I really like how you guys have done your Sunday night meals where it's-- There's something very intimate and unique about how you guys exchange emotional-- You talk about filling up the bucket, and that stuff, and then we pivoted into also the specifically how we handle allowance and things like that.
Episode 10 that I did with Tim about board games. I love board games. I can talk all day long about board games, and it was fun to talk to somebody else who really had a passion for games. As we both think about using board games as a conduit for learning that, to me, just how certain parents think about those things are really interesting. I guess the last point again, if we talk about community for me, is that for men who grew up maybe in a single parent situation where there was no father, or there was maybe poor role models, or maybe more stereotypical roles.
This man wants to take more of a egalitarian parenting stance, but doesn't really quite know what that might look like. I think these are all places where you might be able to find some information or find a community of people that are again, trying to do their best, and the place where you could maybe just hear from some other parents out there. Their experience might be the same, might be different, but at the end of the day, I think there's some unifying threads for all of us that we can learn from.
I just talked a little bit about a few of the episodes. Looking back on the last, I guess 29, this is episode 30. On the last 29 episodes. Do you have any favorites? If so, which one or ones and why?
Jim: I also like episode five about the missing child, and the reason I like that is because I was going to say nobody, but certainly I'll speak for myself. I don't want to think about losing my kid at the shopping mall, or as I did at the the Billy Beez play place, but it's helpful to think about that ahead of time. I don't want to be thinking that through in the moment. I want to think about it ahead of time and have a strategy, and be able to execute a plan that is the best one that I can think of.
It's like following my own best advice from before the moment. I feel that was really practical and some of the others, the advice for soon-to-be parents, episode four, and what to do when you expecting a second child. As you said those are insights into the things about parenting that I didn't anticipate until they happened, and so to hear somebody else's experience I think is helpful.
Dave: I've really enjoyed Episode 21, The Challenges Of Being A Father. I think it's one of our sort of, "Most real episodes." Again, if you go back to the comment that I made earlier about the highs and the lows I think understanding the lows, and being able to see that you're not the only one, to me that one really laid bare the challenge of parenting. I certainly knew going in that I wasn't going to have a lot of free time, but here we are eight years later, and I'm not clear that my free time is--
I figured at some point it would get a little bit easier, because they get older, they're a little bit more independent, and that's not to say my daughter's not independent, but the challenges, and the necessity of working with kids it just changes over time. Initially, it's making sure they don't roll off the bed, or that they don't eat something they're not supposed to do, and then it's they're climbing the furniture, and now it's they're running around outside and wandering off.
Then you get into second and third grade, and there's always a different set of challenges, and so that that piece about really not being able to find time to me was really important. I do think that a lot of times we just gloss over the parenting challenges. Certainly when you're pregnant, and when the baby's first born, I feel like there's just not enough talked about, and again, it's not to dissuade anybody to say parenting is terrible because otherwise, no one would have two kids.
We clearly all, well most of us went in wide-eyed and knowing exactly what was going to happen the second time around, and we decided to have a second one knowing full well what the challenges were. It's not to say, "Hey, I made a mistake. I never should have had that first kid," but it really is just to acknowledge that. The other episode that I like, and I touched on it with Episode 10, and I'll lump in Episode 26, Media Recommendations.
Just the recommendations about books and apps and games and board games, all of those things I'm passionate about, and I love using all of those tools, books, especially again, as conduits for learning and for having conversations that might be difficult, and using a book as a way to introduce that and say, "What did you think? Was that person right? Was that person wrong? How would you do it differently?"
All of those things I really find that it's a way to, we always talk about teaching moments, but teaching moments you have to wait until the moment happens. Here I think what I'm trying to do is use the books, and the games and those things to get in front of those, and to have those conversations, and to be proactive about those conversations. Those two episodes I think, in particular, the media, recommendations, and the board games I really, really liked those. What have you, I guess what do you think you might have learned by doing this podcast?
Jim: To answer this question of what have I learned from doing the podcast? There's two answers. One is what have I learned from the podcast? Then what have I learned from doing the podcasts? What I've learned from the podcast has been just a wealth of information. The articles and the research that you and I have read, and the conversations we've had about that, that structure our conversations in the podcast, talking to other parents about the podcast, or asking them about topics and things that are interesting to them.
Just having that dialogue has been really helpful. From doing the podcast, it really is just I guess we've got 30 episodes that are basically a chronicle of our meditating and thinking about parenthood. The thing that stands out for me is that I think that there's a set of principles or guidelines, some fundamentals that if I can keep in mind, I'm probably going to get through most parenting challenges without making lasting damage to my kid.
Do you know what that's like? Kindness, empathy, love and how you express love with kindness and empathy and compassion, and trying to understand things from my kid's perspective just to-- I may not come up with the right answer, but I think it's going to be a pretty good one. In reading this stuff for the podcast, and the conversation we've had, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the stuff is just not intuitive.
I feel like those principles and those fundamentals will get me pretty far, but there are some very basic and real strategies that can help to solve things, or at least improve situations with your kids. There are strategies that I'm going to need for situations that I can't yet imagine, maybe some that I can, you and I have joked about teaching our girls how to drive cars. That's coming up-- [crosstalk]
Dave: Yes, soon.
Jim: I'm surprised at how much I think about that given [crosstalk]--
Dave: We were just talking about that at dinner today actually.
[laughter]
Jim: Yes. I’ll teach her to, let her sit on my lap, and I’ll walk her through how to start the car, and just, yes, that's going to be a-- What happens after you start the car is the next part.
Dave: Yes, that's the terrifying part.
Jim: Anyhow, so there are some things that I'm going to need some strategies about, and maybe some situations that I can't even imagine, but being able to have that foundation, and trust so that's going to get me through most situations, and then knowing that there are other resources, and other ways to approach a situation that's going to come up with a good result.
Dave: From my end, I think that the last few episodes has become a little bit clearer. I've seen this thread to me, in terms of what we talked about is the importance of proactive or intentional parenting, and you actually touched on it a little bit earlier here where, again, with that episode five of How To Handle If You Get Separated From Your Child and as you point out, I'd rather have thought through my response before it happens.
I think this is that what I've gotten through this podcast is that the importance of that intentional parenting of trying to think a few steps ahead, before the problem happens. It's the same things that we hope to do in our business lives, like to be proactive versus reactive. To me, some of that is the parenting that we do is trying to figure out what might become an issue, and having thought through how we would handle that if heaven forbid the worst came up, or something to that effect.
The other thing that I feel like I've really teased out, is it just I guess maybe reinforces the importance of talking to other parents, and it doesn't always need to be these super deep conversations, but just as you talk about your kids, things do come up. The diversity of experiences and styles is so interesting, and it allows you to figure out what might work for you or just how other parents do things.
There's one parent in particular, and we have a very different style and I really always enjoy talking to her, because our parenting styles are very, very different. We were out, the kids must have been I think was the end of pre-K4 and we went to a playground together. I think there was something about one of the kids was trying to eat a flower or something like that, and I just told my daughter like, "Remember, don't eat the flowers," that was the end of it. I said, "Don't eat the flowers."
She said to her son, "Why don't we eat the flowers?" Which to me was very different. It wasn't just, "Don't do this because--" Mine was effectively, "Don't do this because I had said so." By just saying, "Don't eat the flower," period, end of discussion. Hers was an inquisitive trying to teach him through that process, why is this maybe not the smartest idea in the world to just randomly eat stuff on the side of the road?
I just thought that it was an interesting way of parenting, and that was really the first time I just saw this, it's not that I guess, we're not on diametrically opposed opposite sides of the parenting spectrum, but again, just a different way of thinking about things, and I often think about that interaction that we had. Again, that was many, many years ago at this point, but it is something that I was like, "Yes, why didn't I ask my daughter to say, "Hey," or to have a conversation about it as opposed to saying, "This is the way it is."?
I do try and go back to that when I can, it doesn't always happen, but at least it exposed me to a different way of doing things. I think one that was maybe more patient, and also allowed for the child to have a little bit more independence in the conversation to express their feelings, and to think it through, versus what I was doing. I think this podcast again, it's just another way of exposing people to different ideas or different ways of thinking.
The last question I have is, we do have a dedicated podcast, Episode 21, and I referenced this a few times, and so if you haven't listened to it, please do listen to it but what is your greatest challenge with being a father?
Jim: Today I was thinking about this in a big picture way, and in a more specific way because I was having some problems with my daughters. The biggest challenge I'm having these days is getting them to listen to me without ignoring me. That's becoming the challenge. Maybe it's just their ages now, but for me, as a father, I think my biggest challenge is staying present.
For me that I'm an introvert, so a lot of things about my personality, my circumstances that make this maybe my challenge more than others, but having to be enough self care, get enough rest, make sure I'm taking care of myself, so that I can show up and be present for my daughter's and it takes a lot of energy for me to pay attention to the nonverbal cues, and remember context, and think about where they're coming from from their situation. For me, it takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of effort to do.
That's my greatest challenge. Again, I feel like these basic fundamentals or principles, if I can stick with that, then chances are, I'm not going to really jack up a situation, but it takes effort for me to be in a place where I'm able to see and really react to those things in a way that I want to.
Dave: For me, obviously, I've mentioned it a couple of times here that the challenge for me is finding the free time. It's only recently that I've also realized that part of the challenge-- Again, if you think about those stages from the interactions that you're having with the child as they grow, and how those differ over time, and where your time goes, to me, that the stage that I'm at now with an 8 year old, is she's very inquisitive. What that means is she's constantly asking questions about what I'm doing.
Certainly, when she's at home, and I'm trying to work, it's very difficult, or she wants to build something, or she needs help with this thing, or that thing. I'm either trying to work, or maybe I'm on a conference call, and she can see that there are other people on the call, but that doesn't seem to dissuade her from asking me to do anything. My kids are still in that phase of what is going on with them is the most important thing that could be possibly happening at this point in time, regardless of what it is.
I could tell her, "Hey, I'm going to be working." They're mostly pretty good if I say I'm working, but there will be times when I'm just trying to get some stuff done, and it's whenever, "I'm hungry, or I need to go to the bathroom," or something. I'm like, "You're eight," well she doesn't do that but like, "You're five," for the boy. "You can go to the bathroom on your own. You don't need to inform me about this, just go."
There is that constant either check-in, or need for something or question, and it's never-ending, so just to find some quiet time has been a bit of a challenge for me, and that's the basis of the self-care is that if I just can't get that time to relax and to refresh, that I am a little bit more on edge than I normally would. That's where I do try and keep a beat on my patience level. I think when the kids were young, I was really pretty patient, especially even actually, when they were crying, because there's nothing they can do about that.
As they've gotten older, I don't want to say my patience level has changed and so I try and keep tabs on that, and I will, for instance, take a breather, if I need it. If I recognize that I'm getting frustrated or whatever, I will just walk away from the situation, take 5 or 10 minutes to myself, and then come back, and I've calmed down and everything's fine. I never have to hit the red line, they never see that. I just excuse myself and come back and everything is okay. That, to me, is the biggest challenge.
I don't know how much longer that's going to last. I think it will probably last for a while certainly as my youngest is still five. We probably have another three years of this to go, and so it's just sort of managing the free time and managing the interaction with the kids I guess. Over time, those things change, and that's I guess part of what is fun about being a dad is that you do see those changes, and whereas my only concern used to be them rolling off the bed, now it's things like sleepovers and fights at school, and this friend doesn't want to be friends with me anymore. It's a different level of stuff.
[music]
Dave: We hope you found today's episode informative. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions, hit us up on the Facebook page facebook.com/papaestfatigue. That's P-A-P-A E-S-T F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
[music]