A Comedian Dad on Parental Leave, Politics, and Yelling at the Pool

Friends, you know how often humor saves our behinds in everyday family life, so we're thrilled to have comedian and dad of three Florian Hacke here today to talk about "lifestyle part-time," Chancellor Merz's phrase for people who work fewer hours, and all the other absurd ideas politicians have for us parents.

Dear Florian, so, are you enjoying your lifestyle part-time on parental leave and dreaming up cheap hobbies for when you're broke in retirement?

Exactly, because of course I'm not working. I just let the delivery guy into the house every ten minutes because he's dropping something off for the neighbors. He always gives me such a pitying look. And then some evenings I sit on the couch feeling ashamed: didn't do anything productive today, sorry, Mr. Merz. Because vacuuming, grocery shopping, cooking, and all that isn't work, obviously. High time I get back on stage, where at least people only ask, “So what do you do all day?”

Some people use parental leave to keep bees, get a PhD, or drive a Porsche (I'm adding "sarcasm" for everyone who thinks somebody stole my brain). You seem to have picked writing books as your hobby…

Writing is quieter than screaming, and there's something downright therapeutic about sorting out your thoughts after an afternoon at the veggie-stick playground.

But seriously: the book took over ten years. It took that long, with all the people I met and everything I observed, before I felt sure that what's true for my family might be worth reading for everybody.

And even Christian Lindner, the former finance minister your dig was aimed at, and rightly so, has now publicly declared: “Raising kids isn't entirely stress-free.” You should give him an award for that, right now (yep, that was sarcasm too).

Your book is called “I Could Scream (Sometimes for Joy): Family Life for the Fearless” (Ich könnte schreien in German). So tell us, when did you last scream?

I COULD, a lot, but I rarely do. Not never. Back when I was on stage, I regularly yelled “FATHER!” or “OH ZEUS!” But in family life, it's pretty much always a sign of surrender. Whoever screams is weak, I think, but sometimes it happens (to everyone), and then that's okay too.

My kids, for example, always pick up the really terrible swear words from me in traffic and then say, “Daaad!” One time at the pool I pulled out my theater voice. A few punks were shoving each other at the top of the slide, and with good voice training you can shut up a whole indoor pool. That was kind of cool, honestly.

And we want to stay useful here: where do we put our fear if parenting is something for the fearless?

With honesty. Parents often feel like they have to get everything right, and definitely better than their own parents did. And better than the other parents. But family life is a wild mix of chaos, love, dirt, and exhaustion.

When someone tells me yet again how GREAT everything at their house is, ALWAYS, I wonder what they're afraid of. That I'll judge them? Nah, at our house it's always like Christmas at the McCallisters'.

Education Minister Karin Prien says parents just aren't ambitious enough about their kids' education. Mr. Merz says everyone (even single parents!) simply needs to work more. We're a magazine for moms, so we figure we could just say moms instead of parents. Moms are to blame for everything. They work too few hours, they spend too few hours on homework help. Don't you think so too?

Now I'm going to scream. It's an ancient recipe, pushing systemic responsibility onto individuals. It always sounds concerned and thoughtful, and in the end it's just one thing: unfair. Take Elterngeld, Germany's paid parental leave benefit. It hasn't been adjusted for inflation even once since it was introduced in 2007, and that has direct consequences for everyone affected.

And now cutting it is being sold to us as a sign of equality, even though Ms. Prien knows perfectly well that fathers who barely take two months of parental leave aren't suddenly going to take more.

And Friedrich Merz himself only worked two days a week at BlackRock, and now people wish he'd just go ahead and retire. Maybe he's not the right poster boy for full-time work. If politicians really wanted better educational opportunities for everyone, they wouldn't cut billions in exactly that area. (You need “The Lifestyle Part-Time Song” in your life! Give it a listen.)

You have three kids, so let's do a ranking of what's worst: parent group chats, the Conni picture books where Conni always does everything right, or nightmare influencers who stay cheerful AND look great while cutting cheese into little hearts with a cookie cutter?

Right now, the worst for me is those countless videos on social media where incompetence gets celebrated as humor. Look, Torsten can't go grocery shopping unless his old lady (he calls her “the Government,” which makes me want to throw up on the spot) tapes the shampoo bottle to a notepad for him. Hahaha.

Manfred is an engineer at Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national railway, but sadly he can't load the dishwasher. Must be genetic. And Jürgen explains to his wife that they have a magic laundry basket, because every night he drops his skid-marked underwear in there, and the next day it's folded in the drawer.

A hundred thousand likes, hahaha, “omg same,” “so true,” “men, amirite.” That doesn't make me laugh. It makes me despair: “Men just can't do that stuff” is a viral gag, and that shows how far we still have to go as a society before we get to a truly equal footing.

You say the delivery room is a time machine that catapults us straight back to the '60s. How do we get out of there?

Keep your eyes open, see through the structures, take criticism. If you keep ending up at the same point as a couple, with fighting and unhappiness because the daily tasks are divided unfairly, you can change that. For example, with the mental load test, which first of all makes visible what it actually takes every day to run a family household. And then keep up your stamina and your humor: It's not hard, it's just a lot.

THANK YOU for staying in such a good mood through all this madness and keeping the humor up!

It really isn't easy these days, and there's a lot to be rightly worried about. But sticking with it pays off, even though my retirement planner just suggested I take up smoking. No, kids are great, and they're the best reason for revolution.