Citizen Reader

Before I read Drew Magary's Daddy Memoir Someone Could Get Hurt, I chanced across an interview with him* that made me want to read the book. When asked about the biggest challenges of parenting, the first one he listed just made me laugh: "Off the top of my head, money. Like, you need five billion dollars just to prop up one lousy kid. Every day, I'm thinking, "Christ, I need to accrue more money or else these people will end up living among hobos."

The week after I got his book from the library and devoured it, I also saw an interview with comedian Jim Gaffigan. Again, consider me completely charmed. So now I'm waiting for Gaffigan's Dad Is Fat memoir from the library as well.

All of this got me thinking about different parenting memoirs I've read. And this got me wondering if daddies get to be funnier than mommies. I've really enjoyed some Mommy Memoirs, but when I think back on it, most of them have had a darker edge** (and at least two have steered onto the topic of abortion at one point, which is really a laugh-killer). So what do you think? Do fathers get to write about parenting with more detachment and more humor than mothers do?

*The interview's at the bottom of that page; scroll all the way down.

**Oh no, I forgot about The Three Martini Playdate, written by a woman. That book was hilarious, although not really a "memoir" as such.