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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now. Hello, this

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Speaker 1: is doctor Justin Colson. In the lead up to Father's Day,

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Speaker 1: we've been having some great conversations as part of the

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Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast, talking with people who have just got

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Speaker 1: so many great insights. Osher David Campbell, and today somebody

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Speaker 1: that has entertained me for a number of years. Now,

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Speaker 1: every now and again, in the Uff Post or any

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Speaker 1: number of other news outlets will do kind of like

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Speaker 1: the best tweets on Twitter this week. And there's a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of parenting tweets articles that you can find

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Speaker 1: when you Google. And there's one guy who comes up,

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Speaker 1: perhaps more often than any other parenting tweeter. I don't

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Speaker 1: even know if he intended to become a parenting tweeter

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Speaker 1: or not, but the man's name is James Brakwaill. He's

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Speaker 1: based in the United States, and James tweets under the

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Speaker 1: handle at exploding Unicorn exploding Unicorn with an X as

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Speaker 1: opposed to an EX. James joins me now to talk

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Speaker 1: about life, tweeting to more than one million followers about

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Speaker 1: his four daughters. James breakwill the Exploding Unicorn on Twitter.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Happy Family's podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for being here, Thank you for having me very excited.

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Speaker 1: So before we even get started, you and I were

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Speaker 1: chatting just before I press record here, and it turns

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Speaker 1: out that there was a bit of an issue with

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Speaker 1: the timing of organizing our conversation. You're not supposed to

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Speaker 1: be here talking to me right now. Where should you be?

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Speaker 2: I should be at my wife's birthday dinner, right right

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Speaker 2: at this exact moment. I turns out I don't understand

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Speaker 2: how time converts from Australia to the US, and rather

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Speaker 2: than rather than being safely before we needed to go

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Speaker 2: out to eat it, this is precisely in the middle

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Speaker 2: of when we need to eat. But the reason I

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Speaker 2: was able to get away with this, it's the same

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Speaker 2: reason I'm able to get away with tweeting about my kids.

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Speaker 2: My wife is very understanding of my shenanigans.

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Speaker 1: I really hope that she forgives you. This is terrible.

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Speaker 1: What I find even funnier is I messaged you because

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Speaker 1: you were having trouble with getting the conversion right, and

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Speaker 1: I made a mistake with the conversion, and I offered

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Speaker 1: to come into the office two hours earlier to make

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Speaker 1: this happen at the time that was more convenient for you.

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Speaker 1: And you said, no, no, no, no, it'll be fine. It'll

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Speaker 1: be fine if we just do it at the wrong time.

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Speaker 2: You know, there were a lot of things going on,

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Speaker 2: and I didn't make the connection, and I woke up

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Speaker 2: this morning I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

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Speaker 2: That was not a good thing to say. But that's

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Speaker 2: Those are the best kind of mistakes, the ones that

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Speaker 2: slap you in the face and in a moment of

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Speaker 2: total panic in it. Yet here we are.

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Speaker 1: I just hope you don't get another one slap that

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Speaker 1: is a little bit later. So let's talk about your

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Speaker 1: family and your tweets and your dad to four daughters.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if my EP, Craig Bruce, would he

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Speaker 1: arranged for this conversation. I don't know if he told

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Speaker 1: you I have six daughters.

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Speaker 2: Yeah he did. You uped me by fifty percent, So

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Speaker 2: I've that's my whole shick has four daughters. You should

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Speaker 2: have ten billion followers on Twitter with six that's like

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Speaker 2: a superpower.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we should work together. I'm actually thinking next time

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Speaker 1: I'm in the United States, I'm gonna bring the whole

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Speaker 1: family just so that we can, Oh man, get the

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Speaker 1: ten girls together. Like, how awesome would that be?

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Speaker 2: It would be so much, so much girl power in

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Speaker 2: one place. It'd be overwhelming.

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Speaker 1: You had a funny beginning to your dad experience and

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Speaker 1: your Twitter life. The thing that you do. You've said,

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Speaker 1: I'm not great at being a dad, so tweeting about

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Speaker 1: being bad at it felt natural. The difference between you

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Speaker 1: and I is when I realized I was not good

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Speaker 1: at being a dad, I went back into a PhD

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Speaker 1: in psychology. Oh, you got onto Twitter and started just

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Speaker 1: saying I'm going to celebrate my badness as a dad.

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Speaker 2: I feel like my approach was a lot easier and

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Speaker 2: a lot more time efficient.

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Speaker 1: And it's probably worked out better for you as well.

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Speaker 1: Baby number one is now how old?

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Speaker 2: Twelve twelve, seventh grade over here? Yeah, she's a middle

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Speaker 2: schooler now. It makes me feel a million years old.

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Speaker 1: What are you going to do when she's old enough

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Speaker 1: to sort of get onto Twitter and realize what you've

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Speaker 1: written about her for the last ten years.

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Speaker 2: Oh, they are aware. I mean we do YouTube videos

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Speaker 2: together and things like that. In fact, that's the only

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Speaker 2: thing they really appreciate about my internet career. Twitter means

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Speaker 2: nothing to them, newsletters means nothing to in the books, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I can take her to leave it. But that YouTube account,

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Speaker 2: which is not very big, that's a big deal to them.

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Speaker 2: And all the time like dad, dad, can we make

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Speaker 2: a video about this or that or That's they you know,

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Speaker 2: they're growing up in the YouTube age, so they understand

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Speaker 2: what internet attention is. So I've given her a head

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Speaker 2: start in that arena, and she's also kind of given

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Speaker 2: me a little bit of leeway on that. She understands.

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Speaker 2: I'm a comedy writer. That's what I do, so I

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Speaker 2: don't necessarily take the It's not like I'm making fun

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Speaker 2: of her or taking like the whole truth. It's like, ah,

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Speaker 2: this is kind of a funny situation. Let's let's portray

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Speaker 2: this in a funny way, but not necessarily exactly as

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Speaker 2: it happens in real life. There's that little bit of

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Speaker 2: separation there that they kind of saves us all from humiliation.

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Speaker 1: How do you find the humor? So a lot of parents,

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Speaker 1: we get so earnest, and we get so serious, and

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Speaker 1: we get so triggid. How do you spin that so

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Speaker 1: that you find the human What makes your kids so

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Speaker 1: funny even when they're not being funny.

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Speaker 2: You know, the bigger to the disaster, the better the joke.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of the model I've adopted over the years,

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Speaker 2: and it really helps me keep everything in perspective that

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Speaker 2: you know, things are going wrong, everything's in chaos, and say,

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Speaker 2: all right, what's the what's the gem I can grab

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Speaker 2: out of this that people are going to relate to,

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Speaker 2: And it kind of it helps me focus in. It

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Speaker 2: helps me realize that, you know, we're going to get

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Speaker 2: through this moment, just like you know, I look back,

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Speaker 2: I've got says sixteen thousand tweets, twenty thousand tweets something

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Speaker 2: like that. I don't even check the number anymore. But

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Speaker 2: it's like, just just like those other twenty thousand moments,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna We're gonna survive this one too.

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Speaker 1: Do you find it difficult to create the psychological distance

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Speaker 1: sometimes that like, sometimes you're in the moment you've got

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Speaker 1: to get out the door, you're supposed to be a

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Speaker 1: u wat's birthday party, everything's gonna everything's going wrong, and

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Speaker 1: do you do you struggle to pause and go this

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Speaker 1: will make a great tweet. Sometimes are you so in

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Speaker 1: the moment that you're like, I'm just going I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: be exploding dad rather than exploding Unicorn.

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Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, And that's why I so rarely do YouTube,

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Speaker 2: because on YouTube you have to like, you have to

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Speaker 2: look the part, you have to compose yourself. For Twitter,

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Speaker 2: you can be having an absolute meltdown. It's like, but

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Speaker 2: I can probably type two hundred and eighty characters, like

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Speaker 2: you don't have to put yourself back together for that,

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Speaker 2: and that is that is what saves me there.

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Speaker 1: What's your favorite tweet? You know when you're right something

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Speaker 1: and you just know that you've written something absolutely brilliant.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes as a writer, you put a few words together

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Speaker 1: on the page and think, I really created something excellent here,

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Speaker 1: I really. I remember one time I talked about how

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Speaker 1: one of my children's jokes landed on my funny bone

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Speaker 1: like a plane touching down, and I just thought that

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Speaker 1: was brilliant at the time. I'm not so convinced as

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Speaker 1: i'm repeating it now that it was that good, but

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Speaker 1: at the time I thought, I've done something so good.

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Speaker 1: When you think about your tweets, do you have a

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Speaker 1: favorite one that just still melts in your mouth?

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Speaker 2: As you say it, yeah, and I won't be able

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Speaker 2: to quote it exactly. But the situation was I was

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Speaker 2: teaching my kids to play a child version of Dungeons

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Speaker 2: and Dragons because I'm doing my best to raise for nerds.

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Speaker 2: And the situation was that this town was surrounded by wolves,

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Speaker 2: and obviously the solution is you just go out and

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Speaker 2: fight the wolves. That's what it's set up for. And

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Speaker 2: instead of going out to fight the wolves, they decided

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Speaker 2: to befriend the wolves and ride the wolves and make

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Speaker 2: a wolf army. And so I wrote about this about

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Speaker 2: how I tried to get them to fight the wolves

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Speaker 2: and instead they befriended the wolves and now they had

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Speaker 2: their own private wool farming. And then the punchline was girls, man,

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Speaker 2: They're going to take over the world. And that one

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Speaker 2: still is bouncing around the internet. I see it all

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Speaker 2: the time, pop up on nerd sites and stuff like

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Speaker 2: that circulating, But it really kind of encapsulates who my

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Speaker 2: kids are. They just they look at the world a

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Speaker 2: little bit different than I do, and I think everybody's

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Speaker 2: children do that. I think that's the advantage of having children.

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Speaker 2: You get that fresh look, you get that fresh enthusiasm.

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Speaker 2: And things that to you and I seem so obvious.

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Speaker 2: So rote so this is how it is, and that's it.

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Speaker 2: They turn that completely on its head, and that's what

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Speaker 2: keeps me coming back.

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Speaker 1: When people find out that you have full girls, you

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Speaker 1: just wait about them all the time. Obviously, how many

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Speaker 1: times would you say that you've been asked do you

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Speaker 1: know how that happened? Or did you keep trying for

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Speaker 1: a boy? Do you get those questions a lot? And

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Speaker 1: what are your best responses?

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Speaker 2: Either they say, oh you poor thing, or they say

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Speaker 2: are you going to try for a boy? It's always

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Speaker 2: one of those two responses. And my response is I

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Speaker 2: could have one hundred more kids and they would all

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Speaker 2: be girls. I just make girls. That's just how it's.

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Speaker 1: Going to be.

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Speaker 2: And so I had the wisdom to stop at four.

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Speaker 2: You kept going to six. But I'm guessing it's the

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Speaker 2: same deal with you if you had nine or ten

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Speaker 2: or twelve, if you'd be the guy with twelve daughters,

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Speaker 2: which is something wrong with that, But logistics start to

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Speaker 2: get complicated if you don't fit in one vehicle anymore.

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Speaker 1: My sense is that you're calling me a slow lena.

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Speaker 2: You know it took me four to get there. We're

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Speaker 2: all in the same bought. Actually, my wife and I

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Speaker 2: when we got married, our life plan was to have

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Speaker 2: four boys, so you can see how well that worked out.

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Speaker 1: You're on fire. I love it. Tell me what's your

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Speaker 1: parenting style? If everyone loves to talk about parenting styles,

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Speaker 1: how they work, Whether you're a helicopter parent, or an

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Speaker 1: authoritarian parent, or a gentle parent, or an attachment parent,

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Speaker 1: whatever it might be, do you like what is an

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Speaker 1: exploding unicorn parent?

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Speaker 2: I tend to be very laid back, and the title

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Speaker 2: of my second book was Bare Minimum Parenting, The Ultimate

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Speaker 2: Guide to not quite ruining your child, and I really

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Speaker 2: try to encompass that. Sometimes I think you can parent

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Speaker 2: more by parenting less and just let the kids work

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Speaker 2: it out for themselves. I'm more of a referee in

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Speaker 2: most situations, is how I kind of view it. And

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Speaker 2: oddly enough that kids have turned out to be super

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Speaker 2: responsible and I can't let them hear this, but they

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Speaker 2: do the dishes every night, they do most of the chores,

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Speaker 2: they do their own laundry, they make their own lunches

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Speaker 2: for school, and like I didn't do any of those things.

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Speaker 2: I didn't do any of that stuff.

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Speaker 1: Taught.

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Speaker 2: It was in my twenties and they're already there now.

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Speaker 2: So my loving neglect has gotten them to the point

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Speaker 2: where they're kind of semi capable adults at a very

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Speaker 2: young age. That at the same time, sometimes they turn

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Speaker 2: my back and they try to murder each other. So

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Speaker 2: they are also still children, so you have both aspects

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Speaker 2: of that going on. But so far, so good.

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Speaker 1: Brought after the break, we got to find out exactly

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Speaker 1: how to raise children who want to clean the dishes

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Speaker 1: without being asked and well, speaking with James Brakll, James

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Speaker 1: is the Twitter the tweet behind the beyond the handle

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Speaker 1: at exploding Unicorn on Twitter. I think I got that right.

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Speaker 1: Dad's pretty awesome. Just to ask me today, your dads

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Speaker 1: are more involved with their children's lives than ever before,

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Speaker 1: and research shows that their children are really benefiting from it.

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Speaker 1: But too often dads don't realize just how vital they

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Speaker 1: really are. In the Dadding Done Right webinar join me,

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Speaker 1: is I examine how dads can be a fantastic support,

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Speaker 1: the ideal role model and an excellent all round best

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Speaker 1: dad ever. Check out Dadding Done Right at the Happy

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Speaker 1: Family's webshop. It's the Happy Family's Podcast, the podcast for

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Speaker 1: the type or parent who just wants answers. Now we've

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Speaker 1: got Father's Day days away, In fact, just just a

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Speaker 1: couple of days here in Australia. In the United States,

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Speaker 1: you've already had Father's Day, James, how do your four

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Speaker 1: girls treat a Twitter celebrity? I mean you, I don't

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Speaker 1: know if Twitter has influencers so much, but you're a

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Speaker 1: Twitter celebrity. Everyone follows you, knows who you are, sees

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Speaker 1: your tweets. What did the girls do for you on

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Speaker 1: Father's Day? What makes Father's Day great for you?

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Speaker 2: So I try not to make a big deal out

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Speaker 2: of Father's Days. If you make a big deal out

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Speaker 2: of Father's Day, you have to make a big deal

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Speaker 2: out of Mother's Day. Just you're here any more work

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Speaker 2: for yourself. So we tend to be pretty low key

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Speaker 2: about everything, birthdays, holidays, everything else. But they do try

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Speaker 2: to be nice to me. They'll try to make an

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Speaker 2: extra dessert or something on those days. And I always say,

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Speaker 2: what I really want is for them to be nice

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Speaker 2: to each other and be quiet. That's the one thing

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Speaker 2: that's absolutely impossible. I might as well ask them for

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Speaker 2: a real unicorn.

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Speaker 1: I kind of feel like you are me, except for

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Speaker 1: the fact that I've got two extra daughters. That's literally

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Speaker 1: what I ask for for Father's Day every year. Can

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Speaker 1: can you all just be nice to each other? And

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Speaker 1: if you can give me a little bit of peace

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Speaker 1: and quiet and we just spend some time together, that'll

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Speaker 1: be fine. And instead they give me gift vouches for

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Speaker 1: massages and bobs and the promise that they will actually

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Speaker 1: do the dishes. And yet when I try to use

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Speaker 1: those gift vouches, they scream at me and say, no,

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Speaker 1: not now. It's a bad time. And you don't understand

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Speaker 1: what it's like to be a girl. It's challenging. You

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Speaker 1: don't have any girls that have gone through puberty. Yet

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Speaker 1: what are your greatest fears?

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Speaker 2: You know, my father in law talks to me about

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Speaker 2: this all the time. He raised three girls, and he

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Speaker 2: keeps telling me that basically his daughters they spent some

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Speaker 2: years hating their mom, but they were always fine with him.

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Speaker 2: And like, I feel like that's the best case scenario.

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Speaker 2: If mom is the bad guy and I'm the good guy,

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Speaker 2: we'll work it out one way or another. People always

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Speaker 2: tell me they're like, oh, man, there's gonna be so

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Speaker 2: much drama in the teenage years, and it's like, what

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Speaker 2: do you think my house is like now? Like the

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Speaker 2: quote of the ratio of tears to not tears, the

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Speaker 2: ratio of screaming to not screaming. There's a lot of

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Speaker 2: drama going on every second of every day. And I

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Speaker 2: kind of wonder if maybe we've already hit peak drama.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we get to the teenage years and it's just

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Speaker 2: more of the same. I mean, that's my naive hope,

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Speaker 2: that's what gets me out of bed in the morning.

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Speaker 2: So please, please don't tell me the.

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Speaker 1: Truth, James. My eldest is in her twenties and married.

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Speaker 1: I've got another one who's about to turn twenty, another

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Speaker 1: one's finishing her senior year of high school as we speak,

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Speaker 1: and then I've got a fifteen year old at twelve

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Speaker 1: year old, and an eight year old. And I can

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Speaker 1: assure you, as much as you just told me not

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Speaker 1: to that it's not even beginning yet. It's all still

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Speaker 1: to come, and your tweets are going to become potential

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Speaker 1: missiles aimed at your own hid the more you tweet

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Speaker 1: about the girls as they enter those adolescent years and

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Speaker 1: move through them. The more likely is that they got

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Speaker 1: to start to threaten you. I know that your wife

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Speaker 1: has told you not to share pictures of the family

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Speaker 1: or get the family killed with what you're tweeting. But

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Speaker 1: the difficulty that you've got to be facing soon is

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Speaker 1: friendly file what the girls will do and say.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right now, they still find it a novelty, still

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Speaker 2: actually tell me, you know coming we do do pictures

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Speaker 2: online and things like that, take pictures of this, you know, kids,

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Speaker 2: kids love attention. But yeah, I'm sure there'll be a

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Speaker 2: shift there, and as they get older, if they don't

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Speaker 2: want their pictures online or they don't want to be

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Speaker 2: part of my shenanigans, that's that's fine. I've I've branched

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Speaker 2: into other things over the years. I've got my I

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Speaker 2: have a science fiction book that came out in January.

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Speaker 2: So it's not like it's not like if the kids

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Speaker 2: are like, okay, Dad has been fun, but we're not

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Speaker 2: going to be part of this parenting thing anymore. It's like,

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Speaker 2: all right, you guys can go your own way and

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Speaker 2: I'll go mine. It's so not that I'm cutting them

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Speaker 2: out of my family, just that if they don't want

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Speaker 2: to be in the tweets anymore. That is a that

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Speaker 2: is a perfectly fine outcome, and I will not It

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Speaker 2: will not ruin anybody's life.

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Speaker 1: I don't think tim a question, and we'll wrap this

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Speaker 1: up for you really quickly. James. First of all, what's

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Speaker 1: the most viral tweet you've had? What's the one that's

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Speaker 1: gone bonkers better than any others? The one?

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Speaker 2: It was the wolf tweet. I was telling you run

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Speaker 2: her up to. That one was probably one of my

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Speaker 2: way early on, before I was even that big on Twitter.

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Speaker 2: It was something to the effect of, to anybody out

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Speaker 2: there who's thinking about having kids, my two year old

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Speaker 2: just threw a temper tantrum because she can't get rid

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Speaker 2: of her shadow. And that was We were out at

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Speaker 2: a restaurant. Her shadow was like going in four different directions.

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Speaker 2: She was freaking out. It took us a while to

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Speaker 2: figure out what it was. And then when we figured

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Speaker 2: out what it was, it was like, oh, well, okay,

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Speaker 2: then I guess we can't stop physics here. This just

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Speaker 2: is what it is.

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Speaker 1: It's a great one. I can see why you have

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Speaker 1: a million plus followers on Twitter. James. Last question for you,

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Speaker 1: what are you eating for dinner? At your wife's birthday.

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Speaker 1: Oh sorry, you're not eating anything, you hear with me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we need to let you go.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll go over there. I think it'll be okay,

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Speaker 2: but I do appreciate you talking with me today. I

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Speaker 2: will go over there and try to save my marriage.

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Speaker 1: You need all the luck in the world. I guess

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Speaker 1: based on the way you've responded to these questions, James,

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Speaker 1: tell me if people want more information about you and

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Speaker 1: about your books. Obviously your Twitter handle is easy at

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Speaker 1: exploding Unicorn. People will find you on Twitter easily. But

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Speaker 1: if they want to have an absolute hoot of a

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Speaker 1: laugh while they're reading about parenting and not feeling so

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Speaker 1: bad about themselves and their parenting experiences, how can they

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Speaker 1: find more about you and your books.

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Speaker 2: James Breakwell, Just search for that on Amazon or your

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Speaker 2: favorite book retailer of choice. I also have a newsletter

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Speaker 2: in it's both print and podcast forum. You can listen

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Speaker 2: to it. That's James Breakwell dot substack dot com. James

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Speaker 2: Breakwell dot substack dot com. There's a free newsletter slash

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Speaker 2: podcast that comes out every Monday with my greatest disaster

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Speaker 2: from the week before that makes you feel very good

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Speaker 2: that you are not me perfect.

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Speaker 1: We'll link to every one of those items and more

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Speaker 1: in the show notes. You've been so generous. I feel

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Speaker 1: so terrible. Go and have some connected time and maybe

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Speaker 1: we can catch up again one time when disasters aren't

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Speaker 1: looming in your life.

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Speaker 2: Al Right, it sounds good. Thanks so much.

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Speaker 1: Wonderful to talk with James Breakwell Exploding Unicorn on Twitter

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Speaker 1: about everything great about being a dad. The Happy Family's

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Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig

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Speaker 1: Bruce is our executive producer. Father's Day A couple of

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Speaker 1: days await, hope you're all set for it. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like more off about making your family happy, visit happy

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Speaker 1: families dot com Today you