Parenting

Dad Keeps It Hilariously Real With Snarky Post-It Notes About Parenting

by Valerie Williams
Image via Chris Illuminati

This dad’s using Post-It notes to share his thoughts on parenting

All parents have certain thoughts run through their heads at various points in the day and at times, they’re not things that can be said out loud — especially in front of the kids. But wouldn’t it be fun, dare we say therapeutic, to get them out anyway? That’s what one dad’s doing via his hilarious Instagram account full of snarky advice and observations about parenting.

Chris Illuminati, an author and single dad of two kids, shares his extremely relatable parenting thoughts in little snippets — all short enough to fit on a Post-it note. He calls the venture Message With A Bottle and we’re very into it.

He tells Scary Mommy the inspiration came about kind of by accident. “The original idea behind the notes was just a personal joke the first time I was home alone with my son. I keep notes for my writing jobs so I wrote a note that said ‘Feed baby. Change baby. Don’t let baby die’ and stuck it on the board with my other notes.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpc83MggmlD/

“I forgot about it and found it like a couple weeks later and it made me laugh. So I thought ‘what if I left reminders for myself on how to be a better parent’ but those just evolved into jokes. I put them online and people really loved them,” he tells us.

And so, an idea was born. A very funny idea. Over the last nine years, he’s shared hundreds of his parenting thoughts through the brightly-colored notes. Mostly hilarious ones.

But also, some very touching ones.

OK, enough of that, back to reality.

Illuminati quips to Fatherly that when asked about his advice to new parents, he doesn’t sugarcoat. “My first reaction is to laugh and respond ‘yes, say goodbye to your life’ but that always seems so cruel. But seriously HAHAHA their life is over.”

Well. He’s partly not wrong? Things change in an undeniably drastic way once kids enter the picture. Like the opinions of your neighbors, for instance.

And the availability of any and all snack foods in your home.

Oh, and your main sources of nutrients.

But at the end of the day, even though we have it pretty hard…

…we also have it pretty great.

That said, a good laugh at all the nonsense never hurts and we’re grateful to parents like this dad for providing it.