The brilliant humor of White Dad Problems has officially crossed the pond.
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This week, Matt Rocco, one of three members of the White Dad Problems Comedy Podcast, was featured as a guest on BBC Radio 5’s show Up All Night. Rocco, along with a mom of three from Manchester, weighed-in during the show’s parenting call-in segment.
When producers from BBC reached out looking for an American parent for the program, Rocco was excited about the opportunity. He was prepped by the BBC team before the show and connected during the live broadcast using Skype.
“When I talked to the producers the day before, they said ‘Oh please be funny… feel free to be jokey’,” Rocco said.
White Dad Problems is a pre-recorded podcast, so Rocco said it was a nice change to be on live radio, especially with the unique needs for an overnight show.
“With these overnight shows, I know that they have to fill time and have to keep explaining the premise for people that are just joining. So it does repeat the premise when you’re on it for 90 minutes. You feel like you’re in some time vortex.”
Host Dotun Adebay’s theme for this week’s call-in centered on how to control children’s behavior in a public setting:
“Is it OK for your kids to be noisy on long plane or train journeys or would you rather give them some medicine to help quiet them down a bit and help to keep your hair on and to give all the rest of us some peaceful time? Should we worry about our children disturbing other people in public, on public transport? Or do other people just need to lighten up and accept that kids are kids? They’ll be kids. That’s how they behave, isn’t it?“
Parents, or people who had felt “victim” to badly behaved kids, were encouraged to call in, text, or tweet their input on the discussion.
Rocco and the mom from Manchester both agreed that the best thing to do in such an awkward situation is to remove the child from the situation.
“My daughter Viva is very boisterous and got quite a set of lungs on her and if we are shopping, getting groceries, and she’s riding along in the cart looking adorable and says ‘Down, please’, you’ve got about 10 seconds to check out and get out of the store before she goes into a complete meltdown. So I try to remove her from the situation. I heard that first bit with Jen, she said it’s best to remove them from the situation… of course it’s hard to step out of an airplane while in flight so until she’s 2 we’re trying to not fly with her.”
The parenting call-in lasted for about 90 minutes, during which Boresi said he learned a lot about how parenting techniques can vary from country to country.
“Based on the answers of the mom from Manchester and the callers, it seems like the British may well be sterner parents than Americans. They seem to generally have an attitude that children shouldn’t run free in public,” Rocco said.
“It was stated by a lot of people that it really depends on what country you’re in. But based on the sample set from the hour it seems like we’re a little more hippy dippy here in America.”
To hear more of the discussion and Rocco’s opinions on rowdy children in public, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rr6tx. The parenting discussion begins at 1:39, and Rocco is introduced at 1:47.
