Kevin Laferriere and his "Dumb Dad Podcast" co-host Evan Kyle Berger are just two dads trying to have a little fun as they navigate fatherhood.
As parents nationwide are sending their kids back to school, the dad duo felt a sigh of relief as the sweet feeling of impending "freedom" loomed.
But that notion was quickly squashed.
"The checklist of things we had to do even before school started began to pile up," Laferriere, 36, told TODAY Parents about preparing to send his daughter, Lucy, to kindergarten. "We've got to get a folder, get a device at school... we haven't even started yet and this is happening."
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The California dad shared a now-viral video, "Freedom isn't free" to the podcast's social channels.
"Kids starting school next week, I am free," the video starts, before transitioning to a slide that says "One week later...." Laferriere proceeds to dive into common parental woes for school-age kids.
"What do you mean it's due tomorrow? She forget a jacket? OK, I'll be right there. Where's your lunch? Come on the bus is coming. Who said that? I don't know who that is.
"So I either have to bring 500 cups or bake cookies? What am I signing? Oh, I forgot to clean the lunch box. Oh I gotta pick her up."
Laferriere said he never expected the video to be so popular.
"I definitely never expected it to go viral, I never think of myself that way, but I knew it would strike a chord because I was basing it off what I was going through with my own daughter," he said.
Laferriere told TODAY most parents related closely to the rotten lunchbox scenario.
"The cleaning of the lunch box was a big one," he said, adding that the video was created from both his own experiences and that of his childhood. "My daughter went to preschool before the shutdown. In the morning running around wondering if the lunchbox was packed and discovering... oh God."
The "dumb dad" told TODAY he hopes his videos allow parents to be kinder to themselves, especially during pandemic parenting.
"All of our children have been indoors for a year and half to two years being absolute crazy people," he shared. "It's OK if they lost a bit of social skills, because we all kind of have. I think everybody should just give themselves a break, this is all very new to everybody (and) you're doing it."
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