Living Martin Luther King's Dream

First off, s/o Dr. Martin Luther King Jr for getting rid of “colored” signs by water fountains, dreaming of a better life for African Americans and all the nonviolent activism. Side note: So predictable that we don’t get MLK Day off at Barstool HQ but we're off next month for President’s Day.

Mentally, Martin Luther King Jr and I are linked. Obviously, all minorities in America are reaping the benefits of Dr. King’s work but it’s a little deeper for me. I have a white wife. My entire life is surrounded around race relations. Screaming “Welcome to my life” in my Simple Plan voice (also quoting Simple Plan is a symptom of white wife syndrome). I’m not proud to be in an interracial relationship, but I’m most definitely in one. I’m most apologetic to black women. My bad y’all. I’m ready to take heat from anyone for marrying outside of my race, but I can’t care how any of you feel about my marriage, anymore. My wife and I are happy and she’s pregnant with our first child, and now I have to be a dad.

If I’m being honest, I’m pretty scared of being a dad. I’m not nervous, but I am scared. Everyone keeps telling me, “No one’s ever really ready.” Yes, I’ve been told. Somehow, that sentence doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m scared of being a black dad too; I don’t know what to expect. I imagine being a black dad is kinda like being a white dad, but with cooler shoes.

The day I found out my wife was pregnant was the day that I found out that I was getting an interview with Barstool Sports. When I told her about the interview she said, “Only you would upstage my pregnancy with a job opportunity.” This dream job and this biblical ass firstborn son we’re having are serendipitously connected. Instead of having a boy in Los Angeles like Kanye West’s children, our son’s going to be born in New Jersey, like Tony Soprano’s. How could I not be worried?

Here’s a list of concerns surrounding my specific parenting dilemma:

• When do I teach my son “Mommy can’t say the N-word”?
• What do you feed babies in New Jersey outside of bagels and pizza?
• When applying sunscreen… do mixed kids need sunscreen?
• Is my son allowed to exercise white privilege?
• After my son learns about slavery, is he going to call me a sellout?
• Am I a sellout?
• Should I buy a separate diaper bag?

There’s plenty of things to worry about surrounding race and fatherhood as we get closer to our due date in March. Stay updated on all the new dads at Barstool HQ every week on The Podfathers with Uncle Chaps, Clem and Large. I was featured on their season 3 premiere last week and will be joining them more in the future once shit really hits the fan. Until then, I'm celebrating every single day that thing moving in my wife's stomach, stays in my wife's stomach.