When my kids were younger, I used to avoid them. I used to sit on the toilet 'til my legs fell asleep. You want to know why your father spends so long in the toilet? Because he's not sure he wants to be a father.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a father's struggle with the responsibilities of parenthood and the desire to escape from them.
In this quote, comedian Louis C. K. humorously reveals his reluctance to embrace fatherhood fully. He shares a relatable experience of avoiding his children by spending excessive time in the bathroom, highlighting the pressures and doubts that can accompany the role of being a parent. This candid confession touches on the complexities of parenting, including the fear of inadequacy and the yearning for personal space.
In practice
In a parenting seminar discussing the challenges of fatherhood, this quote can provide a humorous yet relatable perspective.
I just always loved comedy and I really wanted to be good at it. And it was heartbreaking, 'cause I started and I wasn't good at it. I was only 17-years-old, so I had a lot to learn about life in general. But I just kept on trying. I was young enough and stupid enough and I had no other choice. I had nothing else I was good at.
It's a positive thing to talk about terrible things and make people laugh about them.
[about being a father] I don't really remember what it was like before. Whatever I had going on, it was bullshit. It wasn't important. It's kind of a nice thing about being a dad. My identity is really about them now, and what I can do for them, so it sort of takes the pressure off of your own life. What am I going to do, who am I? Who cares, you've got to get your kids to school. So I like it that way.
The only time you should look in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don't look in your neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much as them.
In 27 years doing this, I've seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo.
When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.
Having children, they're not your property. They need to figure out their own views. I think my daughters have a pretty healthy self-awareness, but I can't speak on their behalf.
We believed in our grandmother’s cooking more fervently than we believed in God.
Someone told me that having a baby is like having your heart walking around outside of your body, and I didn't understand it until I had a baby. Now, like, everything he does literally crushes my heart. In a great way. And then if he's in pain, it's like my whole endeavor is to make sure he's not in pain.
It's sad if people think that's (homemaking) a dull existance, [but] you can't just buy an apartment and furnish it and walk away. It's the flowers you choose, the music you play, the smile you have waiting. I want it to be gay and cheerful, a haven in this troubled world. I don't want my husband and children to come home and find a rattled woman. Our era is already rattled enough, isn't it?
You have to pay attention to who you are. You need to know your family history as well as you can. It is important for young women to have preventive care. If you catch any women's cancers early it's the difference between life and death. Do you really want to leave your kids without a mother?
You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.
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