Raising a Kid Is Way Harder Than Running a Marathon

A few things have happened since I published my stream of consciousness recap of the 2019 Brooklyn Half. Most notably, I stormed into my boss’ office and said, “I finally watched that Michael Keaton movie and have decided I’m never coming back to work here.”

OK, that’s only half true. I’ve never seen Mr. Mom, but I did leave my job at the beginning of June to become a stay-at-home dad. And over the last few months, I’ve experienced the joys of watching your kid laugh at his own farts. I’ve gotten really good at completing freelance projects while the baby naps. And I discovered that being a parent is infinitely more difficult than training for a marathon.

That’s not to say that marathons are easy. Of course they’re hard, and they’re especially challenging for idiots like me who refuse to give up ice cream and chicken nuggets. Last summer, Joey G caught me dry heaving during a long progression run on the West Side Highway; I only finished that long run because it was cheaper than taking a cab back to Queens. When I got home that afternoon, I told Jess that training for a marathon would be the closest thing to labor pains that I’d ever experience. As you might expect, she was not a fan of that joke.

Now that I’m a stay-at-home dad, marathon training pales in comparison. And to be frank, I’m surprised that it’s so hard because we have a great kid. He’s a total goofball and is usually pretty chill, so long as you feed him three meals per day, with at least one of those meals including ground beef. I might be biased, but it sucks for you that we don’t post pictures of him on the Internet.

But I think that’s what makes it so difficult. He likes to smile a lot, which you’d think would be great, but sometimes it just reminds me that he’s way overdue for a diaper change. Or I’ll ruin his storytime by making a joke about how he’ll have to choose between Stanford and Northwestern someday. I live in a constant state of believing that this kid deserves a better dad than I think I can be, and that is exhausting. There have been plenty of nights where I’ve gone to bed feeling like I’ve just raced a half marathon; on many of those occasions, the only things I did that resembled exercise were loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash.

As I re-read that paragraph, I’m well aware that it sounds like I’m complaining. Some days, I do complain. A lot. Especially when I have a looming deadline and the kid refuses to take his afternoon nap. But if you told me to give up this stay-at-home dad thing right now, I’d tell to shove it up your…well, you get the idea.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to order the baby some new books. He’s an excellent reader for his age.