DadQuest

DadQuest #2: Don't Laugh

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I’m writing this right after my wife and I spent a week of vacation with our 4 nephews, to whom I’m basically just a big punching bag. If they say wrestle, we wrestle, end of story. I’m exhausted, but as always, there’s something to learn from being around kids and more importantly, their awesome parents.

Don’t Laugh

I find kids freaking hilarious.

I’m always amazed at how parents are able to control their reactions to the funny shit their kids do and say. From talking to parent friends, I gather that most of this discipline isn’t really discipline, it’s more like exhaustion that lets them keep a poker face in situations like this. But either way, it’s impressive. I picture myself getting even more giggly when I’m in an exhausted and delirious state, not somehow gaining more self-control over my reactions. But only time will tell.

The other day is a great example. My wife and I were babysitting for our 6 year old nephew, and we were taking him to the pool. As I was standing shirtless on the porch putting on my sunscreen, my nephew walked up and asked “why is there so much hair on your chest?” "(I’m a hairy individual). I said something like “some people have hair on their chests when they grow up. You have hair on your head!” And then the game began. “You have hair on your arms!” “You have hair on your face!”

Then my nephew says, “Do you have hair on your PENIS!?!?!?!” shouting the last word. I think I responded well - I said “it’s not nice to ask about people’s privates.” He thought about that for a second, they said “OK… but do you?”

And that broke me. I laughed pretty hard. But that was, as I’d already guessed, the wrong reaction. The hair conversation continued until I figured out a way to change the subject.

So close to a mature and balanced reaction, and yet so far.

After the penis comment, I was able to find a way not to laugh. That method basically amounted to method acting, pretending I was some kind of combination of my sister in law and her husband, who I consider fantastic parents. I answered as I thought they would. And it worked fairly well, until I forgot.

I think a lot of these little moments where we have to make micro-decisions are driven by instincts. In my mind, that’s what I have to learn and develop to be a good parent. I want to move beyond emulating another parent and developing my own instinct that I can use to make good instinctive decisions - it’s those little micro decisions and reactions that add up to make me the parent I will be.

But is that really what happens? Is there any parent out there who knows instinctively what to do, or are we all just imitating someone they know who’s more experienced?

I suspect I can guess the answer. But I’d love to hear from other parents how you handle stuff like this - the little funny moments, and the struggle to figure out what you’re doing. Does the imposter syndrome ever go away? Or is this just one long exercise in figuring it the fuck out one step at a time?

More Quest-related imagery, maybe we’ll make this a recurring thing. Taken at the Chicago Riverwalk

What I’m reading

In the spirit of preparation, I’m reading a lot these days. In this section I’ll share the good and bad stuff I’ve found for your mockery and/or information. Can’t wait until this list is full of stuff like Cat in the Hat or whatever the kids are reading these days, but in the meantime it’ll be mostly stuff I hope will be useful to me as a new dad. Let me know what you think and what you’d add to the list!

You can find the complete list here

👍 👍Cribsheet by Emily Oster

My sister in law said this was the only book she read before raising her first son, and it’s easy to see why. Emily Oster is a mom and economist who sorts through data to help you understand the decisions many parents struggle with. It leaves room for different decisions and tradeoffs for different parents, which is exactly how it should be. Highly recommended.

🤨 Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads

My opinion is this book is annoying as shit, but it’s not without value. The annoying parts: it’s full of dumb boomer sitcom dad advice and jokes, as if the authors pre-assume that you, as a Dad and a Man, are exclusively interested in Man stuff like tactical backpacks and army men cosplay or whatever. The valuable parts: there is some actual practical advice in there, although I’m sure it can be found other places easily enough.

DadQuest #1: Birthday Preppers

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

My wife and I are having a kid.

We’re having all the universal emotions associated with that. “How can we have kids if we’re still kids?” or “holy shit how is there so much baby gear to buy?” or “I hope he looks like you” (this one is mostly said by me, for good reason).

I feel pretty prepared to have a kid.

Ok, are you done laughing? I know what I just said is ridiculous. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. But I do want to prepare myself as much as I can, and I’ve really been thinking about the extent to which people actually can prepare for having kids. Obviously, none of these could ever prepare you for the real thing (I know this from listening to literally every parent I’ve ever met), but I have some life circumstances that seem like they might help a little.

I’m an uncle to 4 nephews, there are something like 20 kids spread out among my closest friends, and I had fantastic parents of my own, not to mention my wife’s parents who are great parents and experienced grandparents. My wife’s friend group has a bunch of kids as well, not to mention multiple nurses with NICU experience). I have about 8 sets of parents that I could ask for advice, no matter how personal (or medical - some are even nurses and doctors), that live within 15 minute of me. That’s a lot of direct sources I can go to for parenting knowledge.

I feel insanely fortunate to have this network, but I know it’s nowhere near enough to actually know what I’m doing on day 1. And what if I didn’t have that network? What if, like my own parents, I’d moved to a new city for work and started having kids without a support network? That must have been scary as shit. And it’s not uncommon.

A small part of me thinks that maybe the fact that you can’t prepare for kids is the point. Parents, so I hear, have to deal with lots of unpredictable situations on a daily basis. Maybe that’s the real skill you have to develop - agility plus inventiveness. But that still doesn’t feel right. Even if the average parent is 1% prepared to have a kid, what if there was a way to get them to 2% ready? That seems like a huge win. We don’t have to shoot for 100%.

Looking at the successful parents around me, I think new parent can benefit from all of the following:

Support networks (near and far)
Expert advice
Peers to learn with

Hey, would you look at that! Those are exactly the things I’m going to write about in DadQuest. I’m going to share what I learn from my own fantastic support network, share expert advice I come across (always cross-checked with my more experienced friends, don’t worry), and I’m going to be a new parent peer for people to learn with.

That’s the main thing to remember; I’m a peer, not an expert. I’m not going to give firsthand advice on anything I don’t know. Actually, don’t take any of this as advice. Take it as inspiration, food for thought, whatever. I’m hoping that as we grow, the real value of DadQuest will be the network (aka the comments section) where those in the know can share their real ideas.

I imagine these boats I saw from the bridge the other day are on a quest together. Prob not as difficult as ours though

The Levels of the DadQuest

Parents should get achievement badges for making it through the different phases of the clownshow that is parenthood. I watch my friends and family with kids and just marvel at how well they seem to be handling things. My criteria for ‘handling kids well’ is basically that they’re still breathing and able to hold a sane conversation with me; so far that’s everybody.

For the sake of entertainment, the following is my proposal for the levels of parenthood. For fun I’ve also written down some thoughts about what each level entails - remember that I’m still at Level 0 so all comments beyond that are to be ridiculed to the maximum extent possible.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m reading Dungeon Crawler Carl right now and this leveling and achievement system is a reflection of that. No apologies (and also go read DCC, it’s amazing)

But in reality, this was driven by me thinking about how much I actually know about the different phase of parenthood based on my secondhand observations. TLDR; not a lot.

Level 0: The Prenatal Pretender

This is me and my wife. A few months until D-day, trying as hard as we can to prepare and figure out what we need to know and freaking out about what we don’t know. Pretending as if we can prepare ourselves for what’s to come. Nothing wrong with trying to prepare, obviously, but it’s important not to get too confident during this level. Yes, you’ve got this, and you’re gonna figure it out, but also it’s probably healthy if you have a freakout here and there. That just shows you understand the magnitude of what you’re about to do, and that’s probably a good thing.

Level 1: The Newborn Noob

What I’m trying to prepare myself for. Opening Day after a long preseason, where any team could still be a winner, everybody’s 0-0, everybody has a chance. Fully aware that my game plan is going to pretty much be in tatters by the end of the first week, and that’s OK.

Level 2: The Toddler Tryhard

You’ve kept the little blob alive long enough for it to form teeth and opinions. Now it’s turning both of them against you. The only thing I know about this level is what I’ve see from my friends and nephews - I am very afraid and also I can’t wait.

Level 3: The Big Kid Bozo

None of my friends or relatives have gotten here yet. Holding my breath. My perception of this age (which I’m defining, for no real reason, as kids from like 8 to 11), is that it’s prime time for sports and hobbies and other interests to take hold. That’s because for me, this age is when I tried basically every sport, instrument, or other hobby imaginable. I didn’t like them all at the time, but now my ADHD brain picks up those hobbies sooo much faster, and my interest in them is held longer, which I attribute to my parents introducing me to so many things at this age. Will be researching more about this, but it feels like a pretty good lesson.

Level 4: The Preteen Clownshow

Same here. How to be a parent for phase of a kid’s life is just not something my brain knows. I probably haven’t spoken to a teenage or pre-teenage human being since I was coaching baseball about 10 years ago. Who the hell knows how they might have evolved since that time.

Level 5: The Teenage Troubadour

This part of parenthood scares the ever-living shit out of me. A kid with reasoning skills AND they’re too big to just pick up and put in a corner when they’re being bad? (that’s a joke, I assume putting kids in a corner all the time not proper parenting)

Level 6: The Adult Anarchist

I guess I kind of have seen parents navigating this part of parenthood - namely, my parents, my wife’s parents, and pretty much every one of my friends’ parents. It’s not really something I’ve thought about before, but every parent is figuring out how to do the next phase, even parents with adult kids. My wife’s mom is going to a class about how to parent your kids when they have kids, which I think is pretty darn cool. I hope I keep learning about parenting like that, even when my own kids are in their 30’s and beyond. That’s my takeaway

Level 7: Grandkids? Fuck yeah

I’m about as close to this phase of life as the Browns are to being taken seriously as an NFL franchise, but I am watching my own parents enter this phase, not to mention my inlaws who are about as awesome as grandparents can possibly be. It seems to me that all parents are constantly learning how to be a parent - my own parents are learning how to be parents to a son who’s about to be a parent.

A little more about Dave

Dave finds it weird to write in third-person, but Dave also hates editing. Screw it, the title stays.

I’m sure I’ll share more as this blog gets more touchy-feely or whatever is supposed to happen as I evolve as a dad, but this should be enough info to start. I’m Dave, an engineer by day, writer by night. My job involves working on robots and AI. My hobbies are absolutely freaking endless - ADHD, man, it’s wild.

Other fun facts about me to help paint the picture:

Born on Halloween (irrelevant but cool)
Former D1 and pro baseball player (pitcher)
From the Southeast USA
Too many hobbies (my initials are basically ADHD)
I am very large for a human
My mom thinks I look old with a beard so I don’t have a beard

Most importantly, to me: I love to discuss stuff, and I’m very hard to offend. That’s literally the point of this blog. I know that all my thoughts and ideas and expectations of being a parent are mostly bullshit. And I know that even once I kind of get the hang of raising a 1 year old (if I ever do) then I’ll be learning it all over again when I have a 2 year old.

So when I say things that sound like advice, here’s what you should do, depending. A) call me out on my bullshit. Tell me that I’m Delusional As Hell (DAH, my initials). That’s the feedback I need. or B) Tell me I’m a genius and I should be the face of dads everywhere. I’ll gladly accept any and all comments like this. or C) share a story of your own, a question, anything that only a parent can answer (please do this)

Because here’s the secret: if this site is ever going to be useful to anyone, it’s these discussions that will bring the real value. A community of open, welcoming, honest parents sharing waht they know, what they’ve heard, what they’re afraid of… that’s the dream. And it might be totally impossible on the internet of 2026 but dammit let’s try anyway.

Cheers,

Dave (Level 0 - Prenatal Pretender)