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Parenting Is Like Joining A Frat

Plus: The 2 Sigma Problem, Exercise and A Key Conflation

Author

Blake Bottrill
October 18, 2025

Everyone wants the job title that comes with responsibility — until they realize the responsibility part wasn’t optional.

Parenthood mimics this idea.

Sadly, I don’t see anyone presenting a realistic expectation of parenthood is today.

Here’s what it isn’t:

  • Choreographed gender reveals.

  • ✨Aesthetic✨ playroom tours for TikTok.

  • Matching sweaters.

  • Perfectly organized nurseries.

  • 6 playdates a week.

  • Sitting down for longer than 3 minutes.

Here’s what it is:

  • Beautiful chaos.

As we’ve arrived at an age where our friends and acquaintances are starting to have kids, I’m realizing far too many of them want to become moms and dads, without becoming parents. That is to say they want the title, without the responsibility.

You don’t get to cosplay being a dad.

I’m not advocating against having kids. I’m advocating against Instagramable parenting. 99.995% of your day as a parent isn’t going to be worthy of the Gram.

Here’s a story for Alex Hormozi on pledging a fraternity and how it relates to parenting.

Way back in my day, I was like you — a party promoter — but I was in a fraternity. It was my first semester as president, and we threw this huge party to launch the new class.

The next morning, everyone wakes up hungover, people have vomited in the corner, the place is trashed. We’re like, “Great, clean it up.”
They’re miserable. And they’re saying, “What the hell? This isn’t what I signed up for?”

Two weeks of this go by. Then they ask to meet with me—on their turf. So I go, and I just ask a couple of questions.

I say, “Who here, before pledging started, said they wanted to be part of this house?”
All the hands go up.

Then I ask, “Who here thought it would be hard?”
Again, hands go up.

And I say, “Guys… this is what hard feels like.”

More days than not, parenting — at least the stage that I’m in — feels like scrubbing vomit off the frat house floor after 5 hours of sleep. Usually it’s just mushed up raspberries off the kitchen floor, but sometimes it is vomit 🤷🏻‍♂️

Who here thought parenting would be hard… this is what hard feels like.

But, the good news is, parenting also comes with its fair share positive frat party equivalencies.

  • The Spontaneous Rager: When your kid suddenly starts belly-laughing at something you didn’t even mean to be funny.

  • The Dance Floor Moment: When you’re holding your kid and they start bouncing to music — not on beat, not even close — but you join in anyway.

  • The Late-Night Heart-to-Heart: Those 2 a.m. wakings when you realize it feels wholesome to take care of this blubbering idiot.

  • The Initiation Ritual: When you survive your first public tantrum, diaper explosion or illness without calling your own parents in panic.

  • The Brotherhood (or Sisterhood): When another parent locks eyes with you in public — and you exchange that silent “I see you” nod.

  • The Legendary Storytelling: Every disaster turns into lore. The time the baby pooped in the bathtub or the yogurt incident of 2024.

This isn’t just a treatise on parenting.

It’s a mirror for everything else we confuse for accomplishment.

It’s spending 80% of your vacation taking pictures to prove you were on vacation.

It’s, again, the job title you think you want.

It’s the 5,000 sq. ft. house that needs a full-time caretaker — and that caretaker is you.

What’s important isn’t the title of mom, dad or CEO.

What’s important is how you show up when there is vomit that needs scrubbing. Do you clean up with a begrudging smile or wait for it to attract a few flies and call your mom to come clean it up.

Shoulder the responsibility, or learn the hard way that titles earn admiration — only responsibility earns love.

Words I Wish I Wrote

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

Maya Angelou

  • Bloom's 2 sigma problem refers to the educational phenomenon that the average student tutored one-to-one using mastery learning techniques performed two standard deviations better than students educated in a classroom environment.

  • The importance of difficult exercise.

  • Rogan’s Difficulty/Value Conflation: “Look at the car he’s driving, look at the watch he’s wearing, look at the girl he’s with. That’s unattainable to many people, so it seems valuable. But when you attain it you realize that it's not valuable, it's just difficult to get."

Psst… DSTLLD has a podcast now, too. I know — like the world needs another podcast, right? But here’s the thing: if you can tolerate my written rambles, you’ll probably find my in-person yammering… well, moderately tolerable. It’s basically me and a guest chatting about the same offbeat stuff you read here, except now you get to hear me stumble over big words in real time. I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the universe (trust me, I’ve listened to it), but if you like DSTLLD, there’s a good chance you won’t hate it. Win-win! Subscribe or follow on your favourite podcast platform:

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