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Dad’s Viral Post-It Notes About Parenting Are Hilariously Relatable

He says what every parent is thinking.

by Amanda Tarlton
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Originally Published: 
Message With A Bottle/Instagram

There are some things every parent knows to be true, like constant exhaustion, whiny kids, and the sheer joy of rare alone time. And one stay-at-home dad is capturing all of those relatable feelings in a series of hilarious Post-It notes on Instagram.

“A mom just told me she often gives herself timeouts where the kids can’t talk to her for 10 minutes and WHY WASN’T I TOLD THIS BRILLIANT IDEA SOONER?!” Chris Illuminati, who runs the parenting advice website Message With A Bottle, writes in one note.

Another reads, “Parenting doesn’t come with instructions but if it did, they would be more frustrating and harder to follow than anything Ikea has ever printed.”

And the single dad’s Instagram page is filled with many more brightly-colored quips about parenting, each one as funny and true as the last.

Illuminati explains on his website that the idea actually came to him after he found himself constantly having to write down reminders from his ex-wife on Post-it notes with a black Sharpie.

“As a joke (because I’ve never taken anything in life seriously), I wrote down even the simplest of tasks and pinned it to my bulletin board,” he says. “The notes immediately struck a nerve with readers… It’s parenting advice from a single father that’s real, honest, and most importantly, it’s funny.”

The dad of two also jokes that when people ask him for tips on being a parent, “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.”

Take a peek at some of his snarky notes below…

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