When I first stumbled onto Jordan Call’s Substack, I felt like I was reading my own husband’s internal monologue. Jordan walked away from an accelerating career in the higher echelons of Law, chose diapers over depositions, and started writing candidly about the daily vertigo of being a full‑time, faith‑anchored dad chasing creativity on crumbs of nap‑time energy. We speak about trading anxiety for the slightly adrift day-to-day of parenting, gentle‑ish limits, toddler ferality, masculinity jitters at Sam’s Club, parasocial weirdness, and how to keep ambition alive until the kids finally sleep through the night.
Jordan Call is a writer, and his Substack is:
Chapters
00:01 Why Jordan’s writing hit home for Alex.
02:02 Leaving law: expectations vs. reality; anxiety relief; creative trade-offs.
04:19 Invisible job costs; status, collaboration, & Substack as replacement community.
11:18 LDS framing; “trad” motives/role reversal; masculinity moments; “Mr. Mom.”
16:48 How men & women react to his role, generational differences.
18:24 Parenting tactics: Manuals vs. Improvisation: Sleep, Solids, Systems.
22:15 Gentle parenting—useful, overextended?
27:05 Independence, boredom, “Anxious Generation” vibes.
32:07 Splitting labor with multiple kids; couple time scarcity.
37:30 Dearth of “daddy blogs”; mommy status economy.
50:12 Writing about kids: privacy, consent, future selves.
58:17 Parasocial relationships; scaling audiences; burnout.
01:08:52 Building an audience with small kids; long game.
01:18:08 Jordan’s rec: Tim Rogers (maximalist game critic/storyteller).
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