Father's Day: Stories about dads

In honor of Father’s Day, this week’s episode features stories about dads. Also in honor of Father’s Day, here’s one of our favorite science Dad jokes : What did the biologist wear to impress his date?

Designer genes.

Part 1: While Nadia Osman is growing up, her father is determined to get her to pursue a career in STEM.

Nadia Osman is a comedy writer, performer, and daughter of an Egyptian Muslim immigrant. She's written for Million Volt studios, BET, the UCB theatre, Reductress, CollegeHumor, and more. Nadia created Depressed, a web series about anxiety and depression that was a Staff Pick on Vimeo and Vulture. She also co-hosts the podcast Why Do You Know That? with Steve Szlaga.

Part 2: Josh Silberg finds a new appreciation for his dad’s embarrassing antics when he’s forced to be an aquarium mascot.

Josh Silberg is a scientist, science communicator, Ogden Nash fan, and easily distracted by odd animals. For his day job, he helps researchers at the Hakai Institute share their coastal science. He moonlights as a producer for The Story Collider in Vancouver.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

So I'm a writer and a performer and my day job is as a copywriter. And there is a reason for that, because I am really bad at math and science. I failed pre-algebra. I failed algebra twice. I failed pre‑calc twice. I never got the hang of physics or chemistry. I don't know much about human biology, which is probably a little bit troublesome. I'm more of a life in the arts kind of gal.

My dad, however, is excellent at math and science. His name is Haissam. He's a Muslim immigrant from Cairo, Egypt. He has a PhD in engineering and he spent his career dedicated to trying to figure out how to make the sound in an airplane engine less of a sound.

If you Google him you will find that he wrote a blurb for a textbook titled Propagation of Sound in Porous Media; Modeling Sound Absorption Materials. That's what we're dealing with.

So as a kid, I'm kind of a creative kid. I'm going off and playing piano and writing little short stories in notebooks and doing little plays for my stuffed animals. My dad is the breadwinner so he is more of an absentee, stressed out, going deaf from listening to airplane engines all day kind of place in his life, so it's a huge surprise when he announces, “I'm going to be coming to your class for career day.”

Here's a couple reasons why that was a little worrisome for me. The first has to do with what was going on at home. As I just mentioned, I had this creative streak going which my dad just simply didn't get. The thing that he did get was that his daughter should follow a pragmatic and sensible path towards a career in STEM. So he spent all his time trying to push me in that direction.

He would do things like say, “Come and sit with me on the couch and we can solve math problems together.” Typical father‑daughter bonding stuff. That kind of thing.

Nadia Osman shares her story with the audience at Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles in February 2019. Photo by Mari Provencher.

If I wanted a young adult novel, he would go out and get me a book titled Math Magic, which is all about how to solve large sums in your head to impress people.

Instead of like a Barbie or something for Christmas, I got an erector set, which is basically just little metal pieces you put together, and this one had an engine in it so that you could create a motorized car. For my dad, that was probably a really cool toy, but I wanted a fucking doll. I didn't really want the toy telescope. I didn't want the toy microscope. I didn't want the toy doctor set. I didn't want the guilt that came with the fact that these were just gathering dust in my closet. and I didn't want the guilt of him asking why aren't I playing with these toys.

I just wanted him to take an interest in things that I took an interest in, which were not really related to STEM, which frustrated him to no end.

So at home, there's this like ongoing battle happening. And then at school, similar but different situation.

I was in a particularly special program from grades three through six. I was part of a gifted education immersion program. I know a lot of folks that went through gifted programs and they would say to me like, “Oh, yeah like that after school thing.”

No. this is with the same kids from grades three, four, five, and six. So they know and remember everything you've done, including every fuck-up. Remember every little weird thing. They know why and where and when you are. And what they know about me is the well‑worn narrative that I am bad at math. That's a sin for smart kids.

Not only that, but I am also a weirdo because I am a creative type. Therefore, I am bullied a lot, which means it's sort of the garden variety bullying of like being pushed and shoved and picked on in that way. But it's also like weird passive‑aggressive nerd bullying, which amounts to like you get back a C‑minus on your test and people are tut-tutting behind you being like, “You're never going to get into Harvard with those,” which is so lame of an insult, but devastating. Because all I want at that age is to be liked by my peers.

So it's not going well over there. And now my dad is going to infiltrate this space and I have no idea what he's going to do when he's there, so I'm a little nervous.

Career Day comes. We're in a fourth-grade classroom. All the kids are in those desks with the chairs attached to it. There's art projects on the back and all the other parents are in the back. And my dad starts to do his presentation.

Before he gets up to speak to the class, he starts passing out branded merch from the company he worked for which was Rockwell Engineering. So he hands all my classmates Rockwell pens, Rockwell pads of paper, these balloons with Rockwell stamped on them. This is already off to an auspicious start because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why my dad raided his office supply cabinet to bring all this shit to my classmates. It'll become clear later.

Then he gets up in front of class and he introduces himself. He says, “Hi. I'm Haissam. My daughter is Nadia. I'm an engineer.”

“Now, the first thing you need to know about being an engineer is you need to be really, really good at math. Nadia's not. She's not good at math. But you need to be really good at math if you want to be an engineer.”

And I can just feel all the faces of my classmates turning and looking at me, staring me down as if to say, “Who the fuck do you think you are? You are supposed to be in a gifted education program and your own father doesn't think you belong here. You fucking fraud.”

The shame. The humiliation I felt. My own dad calling me out on the thing that we all already know. It's not like it's this elephant in the room we need to talk about. It was just proof, tangible proof that my dad was not proud of me.

I just felt hot in the face as I sort of slunk down into my seat. I was just like, “Please, please. Let's just get this over with. I just want this to be over with.”

Then he keeps talking and it kind of took a turn in my favor.

So he keeps going and he says, “Engineering is about using math to solve everyday problems.” And then he takes one of those balloons he passed out and he said, “Like this. How much air do we need to fill this balloon?” That's the problem that he's trying to illustrate that we'd want to solve.

Then my dad tries to blow up a balloon for like a full minute. Have you ever seen an adult try to do something really simple in front of kids for like a full minute and eat shit? Because that's what he was doing. He was just like pfft, pfft, pfft. And his palms were getting clammy and there was sweat coming down his forearm. Pfft, pfft, pfft. And then it turned out it wasn't like a round balloon, like a birthday kid's balloon. It was a long hotdog‑shaped balloon.

Pfft, pfft, pfft. And you could see the R and the O and the C on Rockwell starting to inflate and then deflating because he couldn't get the balloon to work. Pfft, pfft, pfft. He was just failing hard up there.

And it starts to dawn on me that if I were in this situation, this wouldn't be happening. I bet my dad went to a co-worker and was like, “I don't know what to do. I'm supposed to go to my kid's career day and talk about this.” And his co-worker was like, “You use props. Use props. Kids love props.”

He's like, “Great idea,” and then he just didn't prepare. He just brought shit and decided like I'll wing it. Whereas I would have prepared something. I would have made a whole thing of it. I would have practiced it in front of my stuffed animals and then presented it in front of the class.

Then it starts to dawn on me I might be better than my dad at something. I might actually be pretty good at this thing that clearly, in some situations, has value even if he doesn't seem to think so. It does. It helps to have notes and to have prepared, because I'm just watching him fail hard and I'm starting to take a little bit of pleasure in that and knowing like, okay. All right. Maybe we're in a little bit more of an even playing field than I thought.

I don't really remember the rest of the presentation or what the other kids’ parents talked about. And I guarantee you, if I called my dad right now and was like, “Do you remember that time you came to career day?” He'd be like, “I don't know what you're talking about.” Not because he's trying to gaslight me. It's just he has a bad memory.

It's that or it could be just the fact that this is like a blip in a series of a decades‑long fight against me in trying to get me to pursue a career in STEM. For him, this is like this never‑ending thing, where he's just constantly, constantly, constantly trying to get me out of the creative stuff and into the STEM stuff.

For a long time, I couldn't understand why. And then it started to dawn on me a few years ago. It's not because he didn't want me to be where I am now. It's because he didn't understand it. Because, for him, that pragmatic and sensible career in STEM was something that would lead to success, whereas a life in the arts is chaotic and unknown and he didn't get it. He didn't want that for me even if I was really good at it.

Now, he and I have sort of hit this impasse where, as an adult, I'm able to do things like call him up a few weeks ago and explain a small career milestone that I hit. And he can say to me, “I don't understand this, but I'm proud of you.”

Thank you.

Part 2

I can see it coming from a mile away. It happens 100% of the time my dad sees any kid younger than four years old. He will approach them, he will make silly faces and he will try to make that baby laugh.

What he doesn't notice is the look of disapproval on the parent's face and he definitely doesn't notice the look of complete disapproval on my face.

I'm a shy 10‑year‑old and I care way too much what other people think of me, my hair, my voice that hasn't changed. My voice that hasn't changed yet. Yes, it sounded a little like that. And I played it safe. If I was in a school of fish, I would be right in the center and just don't stand out. Don't offend anybody. It's all good.

And no one can embarrass me more than my dad, because my dad has no shame. He has no shame whatsoever and he doesn't mind. He feels like it's his role in life to embarrass me.

So we're headed to a football game. We're standing in line to the stadium and I see it. There's a baby. And the baby is on a mother's chest in front of us and it peeks. I see a little wisp of hair come around the corner and my dad reflexively starts making silly faces.

And I just think, “Who brought this weirdo? Like who's he with?” And I pretend I just want to be like a hermit crab and just kind of like go into a shell and just hang out.

We make it into our seats and, thankfully, we see no more babies. For most of the first half, my dad cheers his head off, but that's socially acceptable at a sports game. I feel like that's expected. I'm okay with him cheering really loud at sports.

About two minutes before halftime, we get up to get a snack, as you do to beat the crowds. And right as we're leaving our seats, we hear an announcement over the PA that says there's a contest. Free shoes. Somebody in Section 209. Loudest fan.

Josh Silberg shares his story outdoors at The Beaumont Studios in Vancouver in April 2022. Photo by Rob Shaer.

We both look and we're in Section 208. And my dad, takes off his own shoes. I have no idea why. And in his white mid-high socks, sprints down the stairs away from me towards the giveaway. And who's holding the giveaway is a dopey mascot for the Calgary Stampeders, Ralph the Dog.

I have no idea what to do and so I just stand still for a second and I watch my dad wave his stinky sneakers in this mascot's face screaming, “Aah, shoes!”

And I can't take it anymore. I walk as fast as I can to the tunnel, the concourse. I'm not old enough that I should be in a busy stadium by myself so, I don't go too far. But all I can think about is the poor schmuck inside Ralph that has this five‑foot‑seven inch man waving stinky sneakers in his face. I just imagine that person being utterly uncomfortable and that makes me uncomfortable.

I don't care that my dad wants to do a contest. That's cool. He does need new shoes. But he made someone else feel uncomfortable and he embarrassed me, and that's the worst feeling in the world for me.

So I watched dozens of people walk by thinking he's got to come back eventually. He does and he's out of breath because he just sprinted around in his socks for some reason. He sees the look on my face and he goes, “What's wrong? I didn't win the shoes but like, I don't know. What's the matter?”

I said, “Why did you take off your own shoes and yell at a mascot's face? I mean you could see Ralph has these dopey eyes but he had that look of complete disapproval. Like who is this guy?”

And tears are starting to well up in my eyes but I think there's predators around. They can see weakness. Like who cries at the half time of a game your team is winning?

But my dad doesn't care. He says, “You know, it's my job to embarrass you. I had fun. Let's go get a snack.”

I don't remember who won the football game. I don't remember much after that.

Ten years later, I'm standing on a dock in front of the Pacific Ocean. Now, I'm not a shy 20‑year‑old who at least pretends that he doesn't care what people think. I'm about to interview for a job I really want, because this is the first job that I'll try to have in my field in marine biology so I'm super stoked.

The interviewers, it's going really well. I'm answering questions. And they mention, “Part of the job is once a month you go to the farmer's market.” The farmer's market, great. Got this. Nailed it.

And they're like, “And at that farmer's market, you have to dress up like a clam or an octopus.”

For some reason, I immediately answer, “Yeah. Sure. I can convincingly play a clam or an octopus. I'm a positive I can do that.” And that I feel seals the deal.

They're like, “You got the job.”

So this aquarium is like a semi-dilapidated floating house that has a soft spot in my heart because people would walk in and they would say, “Is this it?”

It's just like a room with aquaria in it and microscopes in it. Then I would light up and I would go, “Oh, when you look through these microscopes, it's a whole new world. It's only $5 to get in and I will show you around personally.”

I feel like this is my hometown team. I'm an ocean nerd. This is where I feel comfortable. I got this. I'm expected to cheer loud in this case.

Then the third Thursday of the month comes and farmer's market's at 4:00 PM. I try to distract myself all day and I teach kids about fish. I try to make sure that little Timmy doesn't touch the urchin too hard in the touch tank.

Then at around 3:00-3:30, we close up and I have to make the decision: clam or octopus. Well, I got to try them on first.

Sandy the Clam is a foam construction with some pool noodles and some wire. It looks okay. These are homemade costumes. This one looks like if someone— Halloween's their favorite holiday and they have a glue gun, that's the kind of costume that Sandy the Clam looks like.

There's red fabric in between. There's two biologically inaccurate eyeballs, for some reason, out front. And then there's the problem, which is that your face just kind of comes out the middle. It's good. You're an unclammy clam. It's kind of breathable. You could see around. But there's a problem because someone might recognize you.

And the thought of someone seeing me as a clam, it's close to the university, I have friends, that's too much. I can't do that.

So I move on to Ollie the Octopus. Now, Ollie Octopus looks more like a mascot. Still homemade, but it's foam and there's eight arms that go out from it with like wire. And then you put this head on top. It's kind of pinkish. And you look out the screen, at the little smile. It's anonymous, but you can only see about 15 degrees in front of you so you have to have a handler.

So my co-worker has to take you by the arm, by the octopus arm and walk you around the market. But I think, no. I'm going Ollie. We're going Ollie this time.

So they walk me up to the market and the first people we see is great. The first family we see I hand out some free admissions to the aquarium. And then up ahead I see a group of 10‑year‑olds, and they're kind of roughhousing.

I'm thinking, “Okay. This could go okay. Everyone should have a chance to go to the aquarium. Who am I to pre-judge?”

So we walk up to them and one of the little shits kicks me in the shin, laughs hysterically and runs away. I'm a little taken aback. I'm kind of back in that stadium feeling really embarrassed and like, “Oh, gosh, I'm Ralph the Dog, aren't I? I'm the guy getting the shoes wagged in its face.”

But then I try to get over it. No one knows it's me. An anonymous octopus means that kids will kick you, but it also means that no one knows that I'm the one in the costume.

So we go up to a family and they have two kids. The older kid, about five, I said, “Do you want to shake my arm?”

“Yes,” grins. Really loudly shakes the arm. Doing great.

Then I turn to the toddler who's being held by the mother and I ask, “Do you want to shake an arm too,” and there's silence. Then they turn beet red and then they burst into tears. Just complete uncontrollable tears. I can't see but I imagine all the eyeballs of everyone at the market that's like, “This monster just made this child cry.”

Like who is this person in this costume that made a child cry? What did they do? What did this octopus do?

So it's only been about an hour at the market but I'm exhausted. I'm dehydrated. This thing is hot and sweaty and it smells like the previous people who have been in it the previous summers. I can't wipe any of the sweat off my brow and I'm just done.

You know, my shin heals and I get more confident at my job even more. I've heard every question and I try to answer them honestly. Like, “No. That's not an eel. That's a black prickleback.” Like, “No, there's no dolphin in this small room. There's no dolphin show around.”

“Yes, everything that I'm sending your child to touch in the touch tank is not going to kill your child.” Like we would put some sort of venomous creature in there?

And I feel good. Again, this is where I feel most confident.

But then it's the third Thursday of the month again. This time, my decision is made for me because it is hot out. The thought of dying of heat exhaustion in Ollie the Octopus at a market, that's just too much for me. So Sandy the Clam it is.

I put on the suspenders and I pop my head out the hole of this wide thing, and it's ridiculous. I look very foolish. But I walk myself with no handler up to the market and no one cries. And there's no violence and I feel okay. I even make a kid laugh because I look that ridiculous.

And I think maybe my dad was on to something here. It's hard because while embarrassment makes other people feel embarrassed around you, you kind of share the mood. But smiles also beget other smiles and foolish is fun.

Now, every time I see a baby, I reflexively make silly faces.

Thank you.