It’s the daddy of podcasts on parenting!
Parenting Tools is a podcast “where two dads navigate the relentless beauty and hilarious chaos of parenting”, which aims to bring sanity, honesty and humour to frazzled fathers everywhere.
How do you control parent rage? How do you get out of the house quicker with kids? How do you decide whether to try for a second or third child?
These are some of the questions being posed by new parenting podcast Parenting Tools, hosted by dad-of-two Jordan Piano from Oasis Christian Centre, Long Eaton, and dad-of-one Jason Heron, who pastors Elim’s Central Church in Sheffield.
The podcast launched last June, and today is bringing a mix of listener questions, guests, dad banter and deeper parenting issues to an audience of 20,000 podcast listeners and social media followers.
It began, Jordan explains, when the pair saw a gap in the market to share dads’ perspectives on parenting with other Christian parents.
“Jason and I have been friends for ages. When it came to parenting, he had had a traumatic time with his daughter, who was born prematurely and had to be resuscitated.
Things were more straightforward for my two kids and me, but I was really struggling with a lack of sleep and feeling unable to give my best to anything.
“I suggested we started a podcast to talk about the hilarious juggling act that goes with being dads, but Jason said there were already some out there.
“I listened to Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe’s Parenting Hell, which is really popular and a very accurate picture of parenthood, but the language isn’t the best when you’re listening in the car with your kids.
“Other podcasts were the same, so I thought there was room to do something more child-friendly for a Christian audience. Jason said game on, and we started the following week.”
One of the mainstays of the show is listener questions. Another is the series of guest parents, both mums and dads, who feature in some episodes to share hugely differing experiences of parenthood.
“We’ve had Dan Blythe, the global youth director of Alpha. He travels a lot for his job and talks about managing that while being a dad.
“We’ve had Derek Osaze, who’s a professional boxer and youth pastor in Nottingham. He gave us an insight into what it’s like parenting as a professional athlete who gets up at 5am to run, trains three times a day, and goes home physically exhausted yet needs to give the best to his child.
“Then we’ve also had Jason’s best friend Sam on. He almost lost his wife during childbirth. He’d been told all he would feel would be love for his child, but actually, he was handed his baby while his wife was fighting for her life, so all he felt was panic and disorientation.”
To balance out this honest and real part of parenting with the funnier side, there is plenty of banter between Jason and Jordan as they share the weekly humour and honest struggles brought on by babies and pre-schoolers.
“We love talking about our kids, but at times it can be hard to manage everything, and we want to let other people hear that and realise they’re not alone.”
The popularity of Parenting Tools has taken the pair by surprise. Four months after launching, they had 11,000 followers on TikTok and listeners from 70 different countries.
“We didn’t expect to get to that point so soon. We thought for the first few weeks it’d be friends and family, they would drop off, and then it’d take us a year to get some listeners.
“But actually, we have people sharing funny stories and offering to come on as guests. We also have international listeners challenging us to pronounce their baby names!”
Jordan would love to record an episode with a live audience at some point. But for now, the pair are happy connecting with their growing listenership.
“Being a dad is the best thing I’ve ever done, but at times it can be hard. “Having a podcast where listeners can hear two everyday blokes talking about stumbling through seems to resonate with people who are also just doing their best to be good parents.”
60 seconds with Jason and Jordan
Jordan: I’m married to Leanne, and I’ve got a three-year-old son called Luca and a one-year-old daughter called Mila.
Jason: I’m married to Emily, and I’ve got a two-year-old daughter called Noah.
Tell us a funny parenting story
Jordan: One day, I went to the toilet, and Luca appeared before me with a cheese sandwich. He asked, “Daddy do you want a sandwich?” He got upset when I said no thank you. I told Leanne about it, and it turned out she’d told him he could watch TV if he finished his sandwich. So he wasn’t being generous to his dad – he was just trying to palm a sandwich off so he could watch telly!
Jason: After spending the best part of an hour getting our daughter to sleep, my wife and I decided to call it a day and settle down with a film. This is the moment we discovered our TV immediately resumes the last watched programme when you switch it on – at the last set volume.
The Cocomelon theme tune instantly began blaring at full volume! I saw the look of horror on my wife’s face and immediately hit the mute button. Time stood still as we prayed the noise hadn’t reached the other side of the house where my daughter was sleeping until moments later, we heard a faint shout come from upstairs pleading, “coco?”
Tell us about a parenting challenge
Jordan: I feel like I haven’t been able to give myself to work 100% for a while. Most people end the day tired after a day at work, but I start the day like that. We had a creative session recently in which I suggested something. My boss just looked at me and simply asked, “Are you tired?!”
Jason: We have a lot of listeners send us messages about the struggle of striking the right work/life balance, and to be honest, in the church (and those that work in it), we’ve not always set the best example. Learning to see parenting as part of my ministry and not just something on top of it is the constant challenge I’m embracing.
Sum up parenting in one sentence
Jordan: My kids make me laugh every day, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Some extra nights of uninterrupted sleep would be nice though.
Jason: Parenting is learning you no longer have any alone time – even on the toilet! (It’s also one of the most rewarding things in my life, but that’s not as funny).
This article first appeared in the February 2023 edition of Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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