Dad Up! A Father’s Day Q-and-A with comedian, dad, and author Steve Patterson
Posted June 20, 2021 1:21 pm.
Last Updated October 18, 2021 11:42 am.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – CBC Radio listeners may know him best as host of The Debaters, but when he’s not doing that Steve Patterson is father to Scarlett and Norah. Just in time for Father’s Day, he’s out with a new book on the ups and downs of dad-hood entitled Dad Up! Long-time Comedian, First-time Father.
Today on @NEWS1130: @patterballs, author of Dad Up! Long-time Comedian, First-time Father, tells me “Not all dad jokes are bad jokes! So give your dad a break, laugh at all their jokes this #FathersDay and beyond because every dad is a comedian of sorts.” #1130bookshelf pic.twitter.com/NKLxNqrFaf
— John Ackermann ???? (@jackermann) June 20, 2021
John Ackermann: What does it mean to Dad Up? What changed for you when you became a father for the first time?
Steve Patterson: Well, I mean, as a comedian who had the freedom of traveling around all the time and basically spending the day just thinking up material for the night’s shows, it puts quite a crimp into your spare time. I sort of knew that going in, but I didn’t realize it would become an all-encompassing thing. And especially during the last year, of course, all parents have been home all the time. There’s no breaks from it, so it’s a double, full overtime gig.
John: Did the pandemic and being at home give you a new appreciation for fatherhood?
Steve: Yeah, it gave me a real opportunity with Scarlett, my oldest daughter. I was still on the road quite a bit when she was quite young, and with Norah, with the world being what it was, and is, I was home for more of those things which was actually, you know, I appreciated it in a way, which I know not a lot of people would appreciate this past year, but being home for a lot of those firsts that I missed with Scarlett was pretty special. And it’s nice to be one of Norah’s favorite people by process of elimination, just because she hasn’t met that many people!
John: Well, there you go! What was it like then to become a dad at 43? Did you feel ready for it, maybe in a way you wouldn’t have felt earlier?
Steve: Yeah, I think so. I mean, for me, you know, being in the entertainment business, it’s never a sure thing for your income, but I needed those years to kind of establish myself a little bit more. I wouldn’t have been able to do it when I was younger because I just had to be constantly on the road. I think I’ve got more life experience now to kind of share with the girls and I can now make the immediate transformation from me taking care of them to them taking care of me! There will be no middleman. As soon as they’re ready, they can take care of their dad.
John: What kind of advice did you get about being a father from your own Dad? What did you learn about being a dad from your father?
Steve: Well, it was a different time and I was the youngest of five sons, so I didn’t get a lot of insight on how to bring up two young girls. And because my older brothers are quite a bit older than me, we were left to sort a lot of things out on our own, with a lot of quote-unquote play fights. So, it’s a lot more subtlety, I’m finding, to raising my daughters. I’m trying to help them deal with bullying that occurs even at a young age with little girls, trying to deal with that in a different way than would have been dealt with in my family, which was just basically three rounds of bare-knuckle boxing.
John: Very, very different times we’re living in, for sure. You speak as well, quite openly, about fertility, miscarriage, and the process of trying to get pregnant. What is your advice to other couples navigating those issues?
Steve: Well, it’s a real challenge. It’s not always as easy as everyone makes it out to be and no-one talks about it. We only figured out that some of our friends had gone through it when we went through it [ourselves] and kind of reached out to some people. So, you know, my advice is to do everything in your power. Certainly, we went to fertility clinics when we thought we should [but] in the end, it wasn’t the fertility clinics that happened for us, it was after going through all of that. But, my main advice for people is to, when a couple gets married, or is trying to conceive, is not to ask them, “When are you going to have children?” because it is not coming out nearly as funny as you think it is!
John: And you managed to address this issue with humor, of course, that being what you do. Tell us, for example, about what you call the robo-pimp!
Steve: [Laughs] Well, you know, my wife is a planner anyway, she’s an event planner. And that added to the frustration of not being able to pinpoint and successfully just plan the conception of our child from ovulation until birth. She was trying as hard as she could, but fertility clinics take that to a whole different level with their science and they will pinpoint, not just approximate times that you should be trying to conceive, but right down to the minute. So, you will get a call from the fertility clinic. And it’s an automated voice telling you it’s time, it’s go time. And I can’t imagine a more awkward way to be called to action, as it were, to try to conceive a child, unless they somehow emulated that robo-voice to be the voice of your own mother, which, thankfully, they didn’t do.
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John: And, as you kind of alluded to earlier, it happened when you guys stopped thinking about it. But perhaps the best fertility advice is being in Regina during Grey Cup Week!
Steve: Yeah, if you can make that happen! If you can go hang out in Riderville with Brent Butt, it’s basically like hanging out in Bethlehem with Jesus Christ. Have a handful of beverages on-hand, Pilsners usually, that people are bringing you, and Brent will hand you every second one, because he can’t possibly consume all of them. And then it’s minus-55 outside, so you go inside to the hotel room, you’re feeling good, and if all goes really well, a baby comes out! I’m sure Scarlett’s not the only one that was conceived that weekend.
John: You also address the difficulty an only child has suddenly becoming an older sibling. So, how do you give two children your undivided attention?
Steve: That’s a great question. There’s no way to do it. I brought it down to sports analogies. At least there’s two of them and two of us, so we are on, person-to-person, man-to-man defense. When it’s zone coverage, it’s even better. It’s two parents on one child. I don’t know how people who have the children outnumber the parents do it because, right now, when my wife leaves me alone with my daughters, which isn’t often because she knows what will ensue, I cannot handle the two of them on their own. I am not that kind of defender and they know that and they will exploit it to its full ability. So, I guess, just look over sports defense strategies and find out which one’s the best for you. Try to keep the maximum number of children the same as the maximum number of parents or it’s going to be very difficult.
John: Steve, there’s a really candid passage in the book that I like. You say, “Ultimately the greatest parents out there don’t have the time to tell you how to do it. That’s because they’re too busy and too exhausted being attentive parents, so the fact that I’ve had time to write a whole book about being a dad is a pretty good indication that I have a long ways to go.” Do you really feel that way?
Steve: Yeah, the irony of completing a book on parenting in the midst of parenting was not lost on me! I had to write this book while the children were sleeping generally. And often because I was writing until late at night, I would be really dreary in the morning and not be able to be the best dad I could be in the morning, so this is definitely not a how-to book. Being a parent, especially if you have children and especially being moms of really young kids this past year is, I don’t want to say a thankless job, but it’s incredible that the moms have kept the families together this long. So dads, you have to do all that you can and all that you can will be enough, you don’t have to be perfect about it.
John: And, Steve, finally, what do you hope readers take away from Dad Up then?
Steve: Well, I just hope that they get some laughs, of course. I’ve tried to fit as many laughs in as I can and, again, it’s more of a tribute to my wife Nancy than it is to dadding and because, with a great partner, it’s pretty easy to dad really. But the other part of what I want people to get from this book is a PSA: not all dad jokes are bad jokes. So give your dad a break, laugh at all their jokes this Father’s Day and beyond because every dad is a comedian of sorts, or at least wants to be, and I did it the other way around. I became a comedian first so I’m trying to set a standard here.
John: Not all dad jokes are bad jokes! You should put that on a coffee mug. Merchandise that!
Steve: I might do it. It’s a good idea!
Dad Up! Long-time Comedian, First-time Father is available from Penguin Random House.
