Jim Gaffigan: Children are not pancakes

If you have children, you’ve probably heard that pancake analogy: “Your first kid is like your first pancake. You always mess up your first pancake.” 

Do you?  How bad are you at making pancakes? Why are we comfortable comparing the impossible task of parenting with something simple like making a pancake? 

I’ve spent a lot of time with my children, and I’ve never thought, “This is just like making pancakes!”

The pancake analogy is intended to be cute commentary on how new parents are finding their way through the challenges of raising children. “Like making a second pancake, you get better at it.” 

But do we? Are we better parents of that second child? Doesn’t feel that way. If my first child was like making a first pancake, my second child felt more like baking a soufflé. (And in case you are wondering, I don’t know how to bake a soufflé.)

My real issue with the pancake analogy is it ignores the birth order theory. As you may know, birth order stereotypes were created by the same people who brought us astrology. Like reading a horoscope, a birth order stereotype sounds like it could be true, but you also know it’s total garbage. If we follow the birth order theory, the second child/pancake is a bigger challenge. 

Why are we having cake for breakfast? 

If you have a third child, then you are confronted by the middle child syndrome. When you have three children, the second child/pancake becomes the middle child, who is ignored, because the youngest child, the third child/pancake, is spoiled. Maybe the third child/pancake is a chocolate chip pancake? I guess you spoiled the third youngest child/pancake because the second child/pancake was so hard, but … you also ignored them?

You know what? I would never ignore a pancake.

Look, I have five children, which is overwhelming. Too many. Having five kids is like… eating five pancakes. The stack is beautiful and inviting, but that initial giddiness always gives way to regret and disappointment. I mean in myself. 

And my children. 

Either way, I’m never having pancakes again. 

     
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Story produced by Lucie Kirk. Editor: Emanuele Secci. 

     
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