Today we have Thomas Pappas on The Mag. Thomas is the host and founder of New Dad Podcast which Christianne was recently a guest on! Read all about him below.

Tell us your story! We’d love to hear a little bit about yourself and your job and your podcast.

I am the oldest of four kids. My parents had me at the age of 22 and the context surrounding their relationship is something out of a movie.

My mom came from a family somewhere between wealthy and upper middle class. Her dad (my grandfather was very involved in the community and well liked). My dad was a hellraiser from Chicago whose dad moved the entire family out of Chicago to rural Illinois (Woodstock) the summer going into his senior year.

John Pappas and Teresa Leucht became star crossed lovers (John was a Greek Orthodox ruffian not fit for my very Catholic Grandfather and my mom was keeping my dad back from a football scholarship). Despite protests from both their parents they moved into together and a few short years later they learned they were having their first kid and got married.

They were young without college degrees and little support from their families. My dad bounced from construction job to construction job and my mom worked as a receptionist/book keeper at a car dealership.

They had 3 more kids and eventually my mom left her job. Money was always tight. There were times we had no heat (living in the Midwest), phone, or electricity. My mom struggled with drugs and alcohol and my dad struggled with his anger.

The home was explosive and full of inconsistency but there was a lot of genuine love too. My brother and two sisters grew extremely close and despite their faults we loved our mom and dad a lot (even if we all said we would grow up to be different).

I excelled in sports and throughout grade school and high school. I don’t know where I would be without sports. Some of the closest friends I have today I met playing sports as a kid and it was an outlet as well as provided me with a tangible sense of self worth.

I ended up going to a very small college to play football but injured my knee before ever playing a down. Without sport it felt a lot like my identity was taken away but quickly learned I was as good at partying as I was playing football.

I partied much of my way through college and when I had an opportunity to graduate with a degree in history and minor in media studies and go be a ski bum in Steamboat Springs, CO with one of my best friends from high school I jumped at it.

I eventually moved back to Chicago and bounced around sales jobs as I learned breaking into documentaries was a lot harder than I had thought back in college. My life would take a dramatic turn one fateful day when I received a call from an unknown Chicago number that I thought was a potential employer…it turned out to be a girl I had worked with over ten years ago in the past.

She was trying to reach a different Tommy and as fate would so have it I hadn’t changed my number in the ten years since she put it in her phone. She played the wrong number off as if it was on purpose and we learned we lived within walking distance of eachother.

Truth be told I had carried a flame for this girl since the summer we worked together at Papa Cory’s in Lake Geneva, WI. I was promptly put in the friend zone just as I was ten years prior. I am not a man who likes to toot his horn very often but breaking out of the friend zone to eventually marry this woman will probably be the greatest accomplishment of my life.

Maybe it was the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s maybe it was the Molly but after a summer of being in the friend zone Lida Merino decided she might just like me. The rest as they say is history.

We got married (our wedding was so raucous the venue stopped having weddings afterward) and we will be celebrating our 8th year of marriage this September.

When Lida and I first met she was nannying for a family and I hit it off with the mom and dad right away. The mom was a CFO at a small company and offered me a job in collections knowing I was unhappy in sales. I worked my way from collections, to auditor, to billing specialist, to financial analyst where I have been a few years now.

A few months ago I finally pulled the trigger on something I had been talking about for a while and started a podcast about my journey as a dad called New Dad. It has been a million times more rewarding than accounting and very humbling.

How many kids do you have, what ages?

I have two sons. Shepard Wilde Pappas is about 21 months old and Solomon Leo Pappas is 5 weeks old today!!!

What are your top three tips for parents going from 1 to 2 kids.

Tip #1 (if you have two kids under two like me) is get your downtime in wherever you can and make sure your partner gets their downtime as well. I cannot stress this enough. If you have 14 yr old and new born this tip is probably not as key as people with younger kids but one adult on two small children can be overwhelming…even for someone as skilled as me (jk). Those moments you get to read without worrying about a new born waking up or toddler asking you to play mean everything.

Tip #2 prepare your first child for baby number 2 well before baby arrives. We picked up multiple babies from the dollar store of all different races (just in case I wasn’t the father) and got our oldest Shepard used to cuddling and being gentle. We weren’t sure there was much we could do about the attention issues people run into but so far he has been an amazing big brother. Sweet, gentle, and just a little indifference

Tip #3 dates will be harder to come by so making the time for them is super important. I realize I type this as we are under what essentially is a nationwide quarantine. Things will normalize and when they do its gonna be even more important to go to our favorite restaurants and bars and rack up huge tabs with bigger tips so use this time cooped up to start planning those dates.

Where do you go for inspiration on the web and in real life?

Gosh this is a hard/excellent question. If you listen to my podcast I talk a lot about being gifted this incredible group of friends who also became parents around the same time we did. There was no pregnancy pact it just happened that way. Most of those dads (and some of the moms) have appeared on the podcast as guests. I guess I look to them for real world inspiration.

Music inspires me very much. Not so much in the realm of parenting but we do try to emphasize the value of music with both kids. Bands that I will listen to for creative inspiration include the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sigur Ros, Rage Against the Machine, Arcade Fire, David Bowie, and Hiromi (a dope jazz pianist). Depending on the mood or what Im trying to achieve.

I feel it would be bad form for me not to also mention my favorite author George RR Martin. What he is able to accomplish with his books is nothing short of miraculous. They are amazing on face value but with each reread more and more entertaining. I have never read a book twice but some of his books I have read over 7 times and still find something new. Just last night I found something new I never realized regarding the Red Wedding. He is and will be the greatest American Author to ever live in my mind. I cannot imagine someone surpassing him in my lifetime. He made me realize what a shit writer I am. (whoever is reading this probably realized Im a shit writer already)

From a podcast standpoint the people inspiring me are the good folks at History of Westeros (Aziz and Ashaya) putting out the best A Song of Ice and Fire podcast in existence. Bill Simmons and a number of shows on his Ringer Network. Finally is another parenting podcast I highly recommend Pot Moms Podcast which is trying to shine a light on the false stigma surrounding pot smoking and parenthood.

What are you three favorite Instagram accounts to follow?

What is on your to do list for today? (EDITORS NOTE - this interview was completed in early March prior to the “shelter in place” order)

Dress my child up as Dwight from the office
Having Snacks and Bubble Guppies yelled at me no less than 150 times
Being lead around my house by my index finger by a 30 pound toddler while being told to “PLAY”
Watching Bubble Guppies
Praying to Zeus Shepard doesn’t shit in the tub when we take a bath tonight
Edit the Dads around the Globe episode of New Dad
Watch Mandy featuring Nicholas Cage