Tom Shillue is a popular host on Fox News Channel. He has appeared in his own Comedy Central Special, on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Last Comic Standing, Comics Unleashed, Broad City, and in the feature film Mystery Team. Shillue has been featured as part of the barbershop quartet on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon along with Justin Timberlake, Kevin Spacey, Steve Carrel, and Sting. In 2013 Shillue released twelve consecutive comedy albums as part of his ambitious “12 in 12” project. From 2012 to 2015, he toured the U.S.A. with friend and fellow comedian Jim Gaffigan. In 2014 he brought his solo show “Impossible” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in 2016 he headlined at SF Sketchfest in San Francisco. He lives in New York City.

In his new book, Mean Dads for a Better America Tom takes a nostalgic look back at his childhood and the simple American values that shaped his worldview. Growing up as one of five kids in a devout Irish Catholic family in a small town outside of Boston, Tom believes that the rough-and-tumble, rules-dominated world in which he came of age was a better America—a time and place that made him into the man he is today.

Reminiscing about his childhood, his family, and the traditional values he cherishes, Tom takes us back to a time when neighbors disciplined each other’s children without fear of being sued, when kids made it to the family table for dinner, when parents’ rules were gospel, when the occasional fistfight was considered a fair way to solve a problem, and when children were free to roam, make mistakes, and experience the first tastes of independence. As Tom celebrates the stability of family life and the sanity of days gone by, he encourages us to hold on to our sense of humor and look back at our own lives, as we work towards creating a better future for ourselves and our kids, all while making us laugh.

Art Eddy: Let’s first talk about your book, Mean Dads for a Better America. What do you hope people will take away from your book?

Tom Shillue: I recently did a chat online and I opened it up for questions. The first question was that he was a bit confused on the thesis of my book. He asked, ‘What is the difference between a mean dad and a ‘blank’ dad?’ I won’t use the word he used.

I said it was pretty simple. A mean dad, everything they do is in service to raising good children. No matter what the mean dad did it was always about the kids. I had a disciplinary dad. He wasn’t perfect. No dad is perfect. When I say mean dad I mean old fashioned dad. He would instill some fear. I call it fear in a funny way. My brother and I waited to speak until spoken to. Sometimes even longer than that. We were afraid to complain to my dad.

My dad was an old fashioned dad. He is the disciplinarian, but he used to reach for the belt. If we were acting out of line he would reach for the belt, but he would never pull it out. I understand that there are real mean dads. Abuse is real in the world and it is definitely a tragedy. In today’s world of helicopter parents and everyone talking about their feelings all the time sometimes I look back at my dad and I use him as an example in how I might want to borrow from the old mean dad playbook.

AE: You are a father of two. I am guessing there was a moment when you were out with other parents with their kids and you got inspired to write this book? When did you realize that you had this idea for the book and look to share it with the world?

TS: That is true. I was on the playground in the Bronx. It is New York. Very modern parents. I took my younger daughter to the playground. There was one other New York dad there with his son. They are playing on the jungle gym. My daughter went bang-bang. She has her hands out and says bang-bang. Then he hid behind the bars and he said bang-bang. They are going back and forth going bang-bang.

The New York dad almost dropped his phone. He come running over to his son. He looked at his son and said no guns. The little boy just put his head down. My daughter climbed down off the jungle gym and walked over to the New York dad. She held out her hand that was still in the shape of a gun and said it is not real. (Both laugh.)

My daughter kind of shamed the dad. He looked at me and I said to him you know she is right it isn’t real. She wasn’t trying to shame the dad. She sincerely thought that he didn’t realize that it was not a real gun.

Sometimes the kids are a bit overprotected. I understand why in the world that we live in today. People turn on the news and they see shootings. Back when we were kids my mother used to open the door and say get out. We wouldn’t come back until she rang the bell for dinner. There was more freedom and more roughness. I have been saying this over and over while I am trying to promote the book, dads were meaner in the old days and moms were tougher. Playgrounds were rougher and bullies were nastier, but somehow we turned out okay. So maybe we can look back at that world and laugh, but we can also take a little bit of what our parents used to dish out and maybe use it in our own lives.

AE: Are there things about your parenting style that you changed since writing this book?

TS: It is funny because now I have a reputation. I have a book lying around that says Mean Dads for a Better America. (Both laugh.)  I don’t like to get angry around my house. I like to do everything with good humor. So I say to my kids you know that I love to take things away. Nothing dad likes more than taking things away. I say it with a smile.

I sometimes turn it into a game. So sometimes when they don’t listen to mom when she says turn off the TV and set the table for dinner. If they don’t do it I clap my hands and say I love to take things away, so no TV tomorrow. I turn off the TV with a smile. It really bothers my kids. I think they would rather be yelled at. (Both laugh.) I start celebrating and they get mad and say, ‘Hey dad!’ I then reply you know me do you want me to take another day of TV away? I do it with a smile. I try to have fun with it, but something tells me that I think it is more irritating to my kids then my dad’s style.

There was no room to get irritated with my dad. He turned the TV off and my brother and I would just look at each other say I guess we are not watching TV anymore.

AE: What was the first few thoughts that popped into your mind when you found out that you were going to be a father for the first time?

TS: I first thought to myself what the heck were we waiting for? I remember during my wife’s first pregnancy and just after my wife had our child we would take her across the street with us to Jim Brady’s Saloon and have a beer. She would fall asleep in her basket. I would say to my wife what were we waiting for? What did we do before we had our daughter? She said, ‘I dunno. I guess we went out to dinner.’

I was like how many dinners could people have? I spent a decade trying to be a swinging single guy in New York. I was a stand-up comedian. I was trying to pick up waitresses and have a good time. I wanted to live what I called my Maxim Magazine lifestyle that every young man is promised in men’s magazines. Then I got married. I have my wife and I thought we were going to be this young cool couple. We were going to go out to dinner and go to Manhattan parties.

It took us about three and a half years to get pregnant. After we had our babies we were thinking what were we doing? What good was it being this couple without children. It is funny I had my first child at 40. I look back and say well that was a waste of 20 years. You can’t go back and I am glad that I didn’t get married right out of high school, but that is another thing. My parents got married right out of college and they had kids. My dad, by the time he was 40 he had kids going to college.

We are probably not going to have people go back there. People are having children later and later. One thing I might tell single people in their 30s is just get settled down and get married. Once you do it and realize that in your old life you were wasting part of your time you know that parenthood is where it is at. If you are thinking about starting a family don’t think, just do it.  

AE: What are some of the core values you look to instill into your kids as they grow up?

TS: I love the old fashioned values. Sort of raising our kids in the Catholic Church like I was raised. There is not a lot of religion in the book, but the thing that I like about it was that I wanted to have a best seller that was secular, but just treated religion in a respectful way. It was a great part of my life. There are a few scenes in the book where I am sitting in the pew of the church before mass talking to Father Corrant.

Just showing that I had a good relationship with the priest in my parish. I didn’t like getting up and going to church on a Sunday morning. It was a pain, but we did it. Just showing that I grew up in a religious way and that I had a good experience with it. Whenever you see churches portrayed in television and modern culture it is often time in a negative way. They are going to bring in a priest as an authority figure that was a bad influence. I just wanted to show people that I grew up in a religious way. I don’t talk about God or anything, but we go to church on Sunday.

I decided to raise my kids the way I was raised. We go to church. We say grace at dinner. Like others we live most of our lives in a very secular way. I like having religion on our lives. I try to be as much as a disciplinarian as I can be. I can’t go back to my dad’s old ways, but I want my kids to have freedom and to learn how to make mistakes on their own. When they go out and play I try to stay as far away as possible.

We are not going to be neglectful, but I want them to have a chance to explore. If they go into the woods I want to make sure I want to make sure that I can still hear them, but maybe they are out of sight for a little bit. I let them get into fights. I let them solve their own problems. When they come to me and say so and so just pushed me I say work it out. I send them back to work it out with each other. I am known around the neighborhood as the work it out guy. The parents will look at me and say oh boy there is the work it out guy. (Both laugh.) I know that my daughters can be tough sometimes. I want my kids to work it out because that is what we did. I had bullies. I had to stand up to them on my own. There were no parents around.

Freedom is another thing. Maximizing the freedom, but having that discipline. So when they come home at night and go to bed they know that they are in a safe and ordered world just like I was.

AE: What is the one piece of advice you have for new dads?

TS: Time. I would say time. Some of my best memories came out of expediency. I would come home and my wife would be exhausted. She would be on the verge of tears. I would take the baby and put it into the Bjorn and take a walk. I keep on mentioning bars and I am not an alcoholic. (Both laugh.) I used to like to go to a bar with the baby and she would fall asleep in the Bjorn. I would sit there and have a pint.

That alone time with the baby was so important to me. So much of our lives are scheduled. I am not a planning type of guy. Waking up on a Saturday and not knowing where you are going and saying let’s just go outside. Grab the kids and go outside. If my wife was exhausted I would say give me the baby and I would walk away. I didn’t know where I was going, but I would just take the baby for a walk.

When I think back I most treasured that alone time. Whether I was out at a coffee shop trying to get the baby to take a nap or taking a walk or taking it to a bar at night because she couldn’t sleep. I have two daughters. It was so wonderful when they were tiny. Just daddy alone with his daughters. The alone time is something that I will never forget. So don’t forget to have alone time with the baby.

Life of Dad Quick Five

AE: Do you guys have a favorite family movie that you all love to watch together?

TS: Lately we open up the Apple TV and my kids will ask if we can watch movies. When they say can we watch movies that phrase means to watch the old family movies. We have all the movies in the cloud. We just sit and watch all of the family movies.

AE: Do you guys have a favorite song that you all like to sing to or dance to as a family?

TS: Lately it is Taylor Swift. I raised my kids on The Beatles and Steely Dan. I am glad they got that because they got a couple of years of The Beatles and Steely Dan. They do appreciate The Beatles. They do love a nice 1970’s jam band, but my daughters are obsessed with Taylor Swift. So we all sing Taylor Swift together.

AE: Describe the perfect family vacation.

TS: I love staycations. My favorite thing to do is to stay home. We live in the Bronx. We go to the Bronx Botanical Garden. We go to this place called Wave Hill. To me that is my ideal vacation. It is the way I grew up because we never went on vacation. My dad would say why would you go on vacation you had the View Master. (Both laugh.)

AE: Favorite comedian you had growing up was….

TS: I grew up in a household where dirty words were not allowed. So there was no George Carlin. There wasn’t even Steve Martin because Steve Martin’s album had swears on them. I grew up with Bob Newhart and The Carol Burnett Show. We would watch The Carol Burnett Show as a family. I love old fashioned comedy. I love Dick Van Dyke. I love Bob Newhart. I love those old sketch comedy shows.

AE: Favorite venue to do did stand-up is…

TS: I came of age in the club. When I first went on stage it was in Boston. It was very dirty and there were a lot of drunks. You had to be hard edge to make yourself heard. This was in the day of Denis Leary and those type of Boston comics. I moved to New York and played the clubs. That is where I met Jim Gaffigan. When I went out on the road with Jim and performing in these theaters was where it really kicked in. Going out in American and in the heartland and playing these thousand seated venues. I love a nice theater where you start off with a nice and respectful crowd. You keep it clean. You tell stories and try to make people laugh.

Follow Tom on Twitter at @tomshillue and pick up his book Mean Dads for a Better America where books are sold.