Q&A with Shannon Carpenter, Author of The Ultimate Stay-at-Home Dad
Writing dad humor and satire security blankets
This month I talked to Shannon Carpenter, author of The Ultimate Stay-at-Home Dad who you may have seen on Good Morning America this month! Shannon's book has tons of great advice and jokes, my favorite combination.
What is your book's origin story?
My book was born, as many are, through blood, sweat, and hiding in the bathroom as my kids screamed at me. It was written on dark and stormy nights while I thought of a man named Ishmael. From soccer practice fields and volleyball gyms, I wrote my book.
All I wanted to do was to give dads the advice I felt they never got. The advice that I never got. Advice that was not condescending or empty platitudes. I’ve rubbed dirt on things, and I’ve walked things off—none of that works and I have left a bad review for toxic masculinity on Yelp. So hopefully I wrote a book that actually gives dads the help they need to be a day to day part of their children’s lives. Whether a working dad or a stay-at-home dad, we don’t care. It’s the time we spend with our kids that matters and dads deserve to know how to make the physical tasks of parenting easier while not losing the person that they are in parenting.
How much of a role does humor play in your life and or writing?
To the point that if I stop telling a joke, someone should call a doctor. But honestly, I use humor to help explain the world around me. I use it to show my kids that what can be scary, can also be funny. And when something is funny, when you find the absurdity, then it’s a bit easier to deal with and understand. That’s why satire feels so comfortable to me. It’s a way to teach a lesson or send a message wrapped in the security blanket of a laugh. And when I do it right, the message sticks longer and the universal truth can come out.
What is something you can recommend to readers that makes you laugh?
Being a dad, you would expect me to name some other dad writers. Well, you’re right. Anything by Jared Bilski and Andrew Knott will make me laugh. And so many of the joke parts of The Ultimate Stay-at-Home Dad were workshopped through them. Here’s a piece that the three of us wrote at the beginning of the pandemic that I still makes me laugh out loud.
From the moms, obviously Julie Vick’s work and in no way is she paying me to say that. On a side note, everyone should buy Babies Don’t Make Small Talk (So why should I?). I read that book and it’s awesome. Also, the work of Jen Mann hits home for me as a dad. My supreme laugh, the thing that will always get me, is The Jerk by Steve Martin and the First Muppet Movie. The joke “A bear in his natural habitat, a Studebaker!” is about the most perfect joke ever.
Thanks for that completely unpaid plug Shannon! Get Shannon's book here.