Last Day Presents: "Co-Parenting Tween Triplets in NYC” (Squeezed Ep 3)

Let me know what you think about this video. What's it take to be a mentor with big brothers, big sisters? It takes 30 minutes in a cup of coffee, a video game, best 2 out of 3. It takes sharing thumbs up emojis, clapping emojis, and loaded nachos at halftime. That's how you make an impact on a young kid's life. So go on, share a few hours a month, because mentorship may sound huge, but the truth is, it takes little to be big. To learn more, volunteer or donate, go to bebignow.org. Hello, how are you doing? How are you doing? Good morning, how are you doing? Nice to meet you too, you look nice. That's so lovely out there. Nice to meet you. How are you doing, coming guys? Yeah, yeah. Wow, that view is amazing. Yeah, I know. It's 6.45 on a clear, brisk Tuesday morning. Our team is just arrived at an apartment near Wall Street in Laura Manhattan. In the living room, two big windows overlook the glistening Hudson River below. We look out on the statue of Liberty, we're very lucky, getting rid of sunsets, sun rises like we have right now. That's Matt, a native Londoner with a minimalist passion sense, thick frame glasses, thanks to him, Tucci, and a kind smile. Along with his ex-husband, Matt co-parents, 11-year-old triplets, and just so you know, we're not using the kids' names for privacy reasons. Um, I think one of them might be stirring, actually, so let's just see, are you good? Yeah. Right, we're just going to get into it, okay, I'm going to start making a breakfast. Pancakes? Sure. Okay, that's easy. At 7.25, the youngest triplet, who plays a mean saxophone, needs to leave for band practice. The clock is ticking, and like every morning, everyone's rushing to get out the door on time. You've got your bets together, do you finish that homework that I just learned about last load? Yes, sir. Is that Esther? Yeah. Hi, I've been finishing it. Have you submitted it? Ah, yeah. I'm just checking his pancakes. That's fucking pretty crispy, but he loves pretty good job, man. Late last night, Matt got back from a work trip abroad that left him scrambling to take over child care duties from his ex, and now, a couple of strangers with microphones are recording his every move. So given the circumstances, let's let Matt off the hook for those burnt pancakes. All right, I'm going to stir the other future with it now. Hi kids, morning darlings, how you doing? It's time to wake up, okay? No response from the kids, okay. But those sleepy heads are a problem for future Matt. Right now, his goal is to get the youngest to band practice on time. Okay, so it's 7.25, so we're on time for once. Well, I normally leave at like 7.30 and like speed walk, and then I think I'd be there on time. It's true, I haven't thought you had a walk faster over years. It's paradise here. There's a New Yorker. You've got to walk fast. And they're off! Speed walking along the Hudson River, neck and neck with the morning runners. Ha! Five minutes later, they're standing in front of the middle school. Bye. Listen to the teachers work hard. Okay. All right, that's one down, two to go. At 7.40 on the dot, Matt's back home ready for round two. Kids, awake, pancakes, eaten, homework, done, uh, probably. Like, because we have five minutes until we have to go to school, it's 8.05, so I want you to brush your teeth please, and comb your hair one more time. It looks like you've had a go, but like a second attempt. Okay. All right, and then, bags packed and, um, away we go. And just like every weekday morning, a bunch of the kids' six grade classmates will file out of a neighboring high rises. A sea of colorful backpacks and customized keychain streaming on to the concrete all at once. They'll run away from me and say, "Dad, I'm going to walk here." You know, cooling off. I've got to go and meet my friends. They'll just ditch me. And that's a wrap on the morning school run. Now it's time for Matt to get on with the rest of his day. Work calls, Zoom meetings, more work calls. You know the drill. Today, we're going to step into Matt's world to find out what it's like to parent three kids and juggle a career in one of the most expensive cities in the world, where a family has to make over $300,000 a year to be able to cover childcare comfortably. And that's for one kid. Matt's got three. This is Squeezed. I'm your host, Yvette Nicole Brown. Episode three, Meet Matt. Here we have a triple bunk bed. I'm on the bottom. There's one in the middle and then one on the top. That's the youngest triplet. They're the one who had to get up extra early for band practice this morning. After school, while their siblings were stuck doing math tutoring, the youngest gave us a tour of the room they all share, starting with the posters tacked up on the walls. We have a TV girl and then we have one poster of Trace Atlantic. I just like that album a little bit and I also like the name of it nostalgia. I don't know if the Arctic monkeys have more albums than those. When I was a young man, there's just a good band. In one corner of the room, Moonlight, the fish, is hanging out in his tank. It has a mini replica of SpongeBob's house in it. To the left, the triplet's desk are lined up next to each other. The oldest triplet's desk is first and it's a butitian's dream. Two vanity mirrors make up brushes stuffed into a mug, a million kinds of mascara, lip gloss, foundation. There's even a whole box down here and then here we have tailors, albums. Oh yeah, also there's a tailor friendship bracelets over here, the reputation, fearless. But there's no trace of makeup on the middle sibling's desk. Instead, a color-coded map of the US sits front and center with a blue and pink pop fidget toy off to the side and a sports jersey stuffing to a plastic bag. And then there's a basketball on my sibling's desk. It's like a little mini basketball and I can throw it into the middle. As they're saying this, the youngest is tuning a ukulele, sitting at their desk that's scattered with plane cards and unfinished rubik's cube and one of those tech deck finger skateboards that were every teacher's nightmare in the early arts. I can tell how much joy Matt gets from just being around his three pre-teen babies, but having a good authority that even one kid is a handful. So I can only imagine just how lawless a household with three of them can be. We're in that fun, pre-adolescent stage event. Oh yeah, yay. Right? It's yay with a question mark. It's like, yeah, we have a big question mark. Yes. I'm kind of enjoying the calm before the storm, but yeah, the oldest is the most conventionally girly. She's the oldest one, so she's a caretaker, and then the middle one, I think she's going to be a lawyer. If it's like she's grilling me already. What did you do last night? How did you go out with? This is what I don't have them on my non-custody nights. But she's great fun. Yeah, she sort of holds me to task and keeps me in check. And then the youngest is very much the sort of free spirit, read things about the meaning of life of it. It's like quite heavy stuff for an 11-year-old, the beginnings of the universe. So it catches me out with these sort of very deep questions, you know, well, we're making breakfast or something. In addition to being the family's philosopher, the youngest triplets started to question fixed ideas of gender about two years ago when they were in fourth grade. And they've been, they've been since fifth grade. I'm trying really hard, but she gives me in her other, they give me in their other father a pass. But from the get-go, they were all, you know, asserting their own identities and personalities and so that's been riveting to watch and it continues to evolve and it's, it's magnified by the fact that there's three of them. I love to see how your little face changed. You just came alive talking about your children, which I think is just really, really wonderful. So how would your children describe you? How would my children, you're starting with the big ones. I think they'd say I'm probably the stricter father, possibly because of, you know, my British upbringing, like background, they love to sort of blame that. Their father is American and they're like, oh, he's so lazy, fair, he's so relaxed, you know, we get away with Blue Murder with him and so I think that would be their sort of initial response. I love it. So let's now go back in time. you at first moved to New York as a single gay man living your best life. What was that first year like for you in New York? For me personally it was a very exciting time. I'd always wanted to live and work in the U.S. and I managed to get here through my work, I worked in marketing, and it's a gay mecca as well of it, you know. And I had no idea how long I'd be here and here I am, you know, 15 years later. So yeah, yeah. Okay, so how did you meet your ex-husband? So we met at a gay bar, would you believe it? But yeah, we met outside and now to fund gay bar in the Lower East Side of East Village area. And we were exiting this club, me and a couple of my friends, and I just saw him on the sidewalk. And we got talking and then, you know, we hung out after that and I think one of the reasons why we sort of hit it off quite quickly was because he was one of the few gay guys at the time who wanted to have kids as well. So we both wanted to have children. About two years into their relationship, Matt and his then partner got in touch with the surrogacy clinic to make their dreams come true. And in 2012, they tied the knot in Canada, because let's not forget, same sex marriage wasn't legal in the US until 2015. On a spring morning in 2012, the newlyweds woke up to an email from the surrogacy clinic, but it wasn't exactly what they were expecting. There's a there's a big difference between let's have a baby and finding out that you're having three at one time. So can you take me back to that exact moment, like make me feel like I'm right, so you don't tell all your business. But let me know how it feels when you get that call or the email or the doctor tells you, guess what, you're going to have three. I mean, I mean, I'm going to be really candid with you over. I just sort of walked around and happened with my head and my hands going, holy cow, how I like gone from zero to three. And how we're going to do it, you know, like it was it was euphoria, but there was also like, I had it planned all three, you know, freezer, he's three's a lot to go from zero to three, you know, without, you know, just wanted to begin with. So I did sort of despair event for a few weeks and then I got it together and said, you know, you know, we'll be good. This was just the first of many major pivots in Matt's life. Like many caregivers, Matt was in for some serious ups and downs over the next few years. First time dad duties, divorcing, co-parenting, budgeting for three, and doing all of this away from his support system in London without his people to lean on. Talk about rough. More on how Matt survived the unexpected after the break. If there is one thing I am happy to invest in, it is getting a good night's sleep. I need it and Quince makes it easy to bring a little everyday luxury into your nighttime routine or maybe just find a thoughtful gift for someone on your list. I recently picked up the bamboo sheets from Quince and I'm just so impressed. They are incredibly smooth and comfortable and honestly getting into bed at the end of a long day has become something I'm looking forward to even more. It's such a simple upgrade but it makes my whole bedtime routine feel a little more luxurious. Quince price is everything 50 to 80% less than similar brands by working directly with ethical factories and cutting out the middlemen so you can give luxury quality without the luxury price take. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was last day. It's the best way to support the show. The drug landscape has changed and most parents are working from information that's out of date. Fake prescription pills made with fentanyl and other dangerous chemicals are promoted on social media. Pressed to look like Xanax or Adderall. THC vapes can hit 90%. Nothing like the cannabis we remember. Cretum sits on the counter at the gas station, marketed as natural and it can be habit forming. You don't have to be an expert to start this conversation. Lead with facts, not fear. Teens can tell when you're exaggerating and they tune out. Ask questions. Listen, it's not one big talk, it's a series of small ones. And morning teens, what not to use, doesn't teach them what to do instead. Helping them build healthy ways to handle pressure gives them better options. The new drug talk is free, science-backed, and made to help parents start these conversations. Visit thenewdrugtalk.org. Welcome back. Before the break, we met Matt and his three sixth graders. We've got the skincare connoisseur, the prolific reader, and the basketball player who moonlights as a lawyer. Since the triplets were five, Matt has split co-parenting duties with his ex-husband. They live a few blocks apart in Battery Park City and even have joint family dinners every now and then. Battery Park City is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan. And if you can afford to live there, you're off to a good start because the public schools nearby are great. But no matter where you find yourself in the city, the cost of raising three kids is a logistical nightmare that bleeds a lot of parents' dry. Especially because New York is facing its worst affordability crisis in decades. So I asked Matt for a reality check. So single dad, triplets, New York, crazy high child care costs, and then also you famously said you don't get a discount for triplets. So can you just explain this whole story of like, oh my goodness, this is where I am and how do you make it work and how expensive is it? Sure. The child care costs are insane. Before they went into the public school system, there were daycare costs. And I remember going to see my accountant, perhaps when they were two or three of it. And the child care cost for the three than that, you were $72,000. Wow. And my account was like, you must have this wrong man. $6,000 a month for the three of them in the daycare on the corner of my road. And, you know, there was like discount, but no, they're ruthless down here. But then other costs come in. One of my other daughters had to go private for a couple of years as well because she had a few sort of learning issues. That was an enormous cost. I'm not going to drop the number, but let's say it's more than Harvard, the tuition for Harvard in one year. But yes, they're the big ones and then the day-to-day costs. I mean, just the the grocery cost, you know, I've got three 11 year olds now. They eat a lot, they eat me out of house and home of it. And those costs have ballooned as well as the during the cost of living crisis over the last couple of years and so on. Phew. I'm sitting here sweating bullets after hearing all those big numbers. Let's not forget that in between footing the daycare and the private school bills, Matt was going through a divorce. And FYI, divorces can get expensive. Not to mention they can be traumatic and disrupt all the big and little parts of your routine. Like the kids footsteps as they race to wake you up and the man pancakes for breakfast or their hushed voices whispering secrets back and forth after tucking them in at night. Matt had to accept that there would be mornings and nights without these sounds. And as he was wrapping his brain around that, he also had to weigh his options at work. It just was really really hard to, you know, do the usual eight till six work and then, you know, be around and be present for the children as well. So I sort of decided to, you know, leave my, you know, permanent full-time role and I went independent. And so I had them for half a week and my ex had them for the other half of the week. And if I'd stayed in that role, I would never have seen the kids. So I decided to go independent. I became a freelance marketing consultant, which I I still am six and a half, seven years later. And I could be with the children of it. So, you know, I'm glad to be able to say that I'd be able to do that since, you know, they were five, six and then then our 11. So I've been really lucky to be there and I'm really present during this, um, this part of their life. I asked you the question about deciding to leave your job. I had to make the same decision. I've been a caregiver for my father who has dementia for 10 years. And I ended up having to leave a television show, asked to be released from a contract to be able to do it. So can you describe your inner monologue when you were deciding between keeping your job and that paycheck versus time with my children? Need the money? Need to be a good dad to my kids. So, so what was that inner monologue like and how, how swiftly could you make that decision? Mm hmm. I think I still have nightmares over that period. It was, it was, it was so many competing influences and forces and so many strong emotions. Um, you know, I felt confident in my abilities to do my job. I wasn't that worried about the work. I was like, you know what the work will come? I'll be able to get the, the work. But perhaps that was sort of naivety or, you know, I'm not sure, but it did come, thankfully. But yeah, it was hard to leave that salaried role with all the benefits and healthcare for the children, the foreign care and so on. So, um, so it was a bit of a jump into the dark and I never I never thought I would be raising three children in Manhattan by myself. I was never in the live plan of it. I never thought, oh, get a new to New York City and I'm going to have three little ones. They're going to raise them by myself. So I still think it would be a lot, it would be a lot easier to do this somewhere else. But because we have shared custody, we're always going to be in New York until the children leave home. Even though it's a really tough place to raise kids, you have to be pretty resilient. You can have a good sort of support network around you. And yeah, just keep going. It's a tough undertaking. It's not easy to choose to leave your job while co-parenting to be more present for your kids. In Matt's words, it was a risk. And those kinds of risk often come with a level of privilege and flexibility that not everyone has. In our country, many lower income families are spending one third of their paycheck on child care. And when you find yourself in a position like that, you're less likely to take any job-related risks. Because your livelihood is already too precarious. That's where the village comes in. For many, it can be a literal saving grace. It can put food on the table for your kids and it'd be the difference between barely staying afloat and thriving. More on how crucial community has been for Matt when we come back. Hey, it's Julia Louis-Dreyfus from The Wiser than me podcast among other things. And I've got a little holiday wisdom for you. Hosting during the holidays means lots of cooking and that means your trash is going to be full of smelly, rotting food. Yuck. So here's the wisdom. Get a mill food recycler. I did. We've had hours for years and it has totally transformed our kitchen. It's unbelievable how much less waste and less odor there is now. Plus, it's so easy to use. You toss in basically any food you don't eat. Peels, pits, meat, dairy, bones. Last year we put in a whole turkey carcass, really. While you sleep, mill automatically dries and grinds all your food waste down to about a fifth of its size. That means at night you can fill it after a big elaborate dinner. And by morning, they'll be room for breakfast. Nothing rots, nothing stinks, no fruit flies. And my favorite part using mill means none of our food ends up in landfills, which means we're doing a little good for the planet while keeping our kitchen tidy. If you want to manage your food waste in a cleaner, calmer way, this holiday season, go to mill.com/wiser for an exclusive offer. That's mill.com/wiser. Happy hosting. Hi, I'm Elliott Glazer. You might recognize me from Broad City or my new bestseller, the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad gay. But if there's one thing I know for sure, it is not sports. And that's exactly why I'm a new podcast. So you think you can sports, I sit down with some of the most iconic figures alive. Charles Barkley, Becky Lynch, Mike Reeny Greenberg. Because all I really want to know is, what's the deal with sports? So you think you can sports, new episodes out now or ever you get your podcasts. Okay, guys, let's see how's it at school. Good? Ballroom dancing was fun. Ballroom dancing was different. Here's Matt, standing outside the school doors with hundreds of kids swarming around him. So it's three o'clock, so it's the end of the school day. So we're going to head home now, right? And get a snack and then straight into a Matthew ring. I can't go in second, I can't go in second. So two of them have Matthew teetering and then this one does not. The youngest and I've been giving it such a nice day. Those 900 kids in that building, half of them will be in that way. But the fun continues, so we'll go outside I think. Those playgrounds are representative of the kind of community that's available to the kids and parents of battery park city. For any parent, that community is nice to lean on. Before an expat like Matt, it's the difference between being really lonely and feeling like your home. Family spend a lot of time in these playgrounds because we all live in small apartments. And you get to know everyone. So you create these great bonds down there. And you know, you share all these sort of rights of passes, all these experiences with your children. Yeah, you find, you find your group, you find your parental group that, you know, have a similar style to you. That was the big unlock in terms of like, you know, finding, you know, my community here in New York. And there's a huge sort of community of gay dads I'm sort of tapped into here in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We just go out, we go out of cocktails and it's primarily parenting stuff and a little bit of, you know, so that gave relationship stuff as well. What do you think your experience would have been like without these families to rely on without your community? Yeah, I think it would be really hard because I don't have any immediate family here, I don't have any family in the US. You know, there was no sort of like grandma grandpa to go to on the weekend and dump the kids and say, "Can you watch these for a few hours?" Well, I sleep, you know, and yeah, my parents would visit once or twice a year. And then those visits kind of fell away as the children got a little bit older and then the pandemic happened and said there weren't any visits. But, you know, there was a lot of calls, a lot of face times, you know, so we could sort of, you know, build and maintain those relationships between my parents and the children. Matt's parents and his two siblings live in London, they all live close to one another and this was especially important in 2020 when Matt's dad was diagnosed with cancer. I felt a long, long way from home at that point. I've always felt like three and a half thousand miles away without felt like three million miles away. I do get a bit sad about that event. I do miss the fact that they won't really have as much exposure to my family as they would have if I still lived in the UK with them, you know. So, but anyway, that's why you have to lean on others, you know, friends and neighbors and so on. Yeah. Yeah, I would say if your friends say we want to help you, let them help you. Like I've gotten to the point now where I'm starting to say, could you sit with daddy for a couple of hours, just want to go, you know, take a break or get some coffee. And I'm surprised at how many people are like, absolutely, I will love to come over and sit with your dad. So that would be my advice to let others help you. Yeah, I don't think I'm quite there yet there. I still feel like I'm very, I sort of pride myself, myself sufficiently. I think I need to get to that level. I mean, as I said, I've got some really dear friends who I do probably reach out to in a really extreme pinch, but there's a lot of day to day stuff where perhaps I could lean a bit harder, but I choose not to. I mean, the thing is also that, you know, they have to nail fathers. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff coming up, you know, periods and puberty. Which is, you know, new to me. Yeah, bring the brain trust in you're going to need them. You're going to need them. So I've, yes, I've got lots of good girlfriends, mums, and they've heard that, you know, they won't be through all of that. But again, bra shopping event. That's, that was a new one for me. It's a thing. Yeah. So that was quite difficult as a gay man, just trying to figure that out. Yeah. And then, yeah, the hormones now are just just raging. I mean, when they, you know, the three of them gang up with me and start slamming the doors, I'm like, can you leave the doors alone? Like those poor doors. You got it. You got to accent it with the door. It has to happen. A lot of doors slamming about a lot of doors slamming. Yeah. This is the sad thing about not having, you know, landlines anymore because also slamming that phone down when you're upset is part of it too. I love that you took the leap. I love that you chose where you wanted to live and you moved there. I love that you're, you're bobbing and weaving with grace as life has changed. And I think as wonderful as the surprise of these three babies, I think there are more wonderful surprises coming your way that will delight you in the same way these three little ones have. I just sort of support and nurture them if they feel supported, loved and me and their other data behind them and that's, that's enough for me, that's success. There's so much to celebrate in that's life. He and his ex has been a raising three healthy kids who are finding their own way in the world who feel safe enough to express their identities freely. Who are kind, funny little humans with big hearts, one look at them and all the pivoting and juggling in the world feels completely worth it. But that's not to say that the past few years haven't been difficult on that. Yes, he's found his footing and is able to cover the cost of childcare, was spending enough time with his kids, finding job security and continuing to build community has been a tricky balance to strike. I'm not sure that anyone could strike that balance to be honest, especially since childcare costs have spiked 30% across the country since 2019. So the cost of living crisis Matt was talking about doesn't only apply to New York, we're all living it. See you next time on Squeezed. do you want to go say some saxophone to the sun, entertain the masses, yeah? Well I'm not going to specifically like practice where I do at sport because I love it. How are you going to freestyle? I love it. That was random. I like that. There's more squeeze with Limonada Premium. Subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like previously unheard clips from all our voices in this series. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts. Squeeze is a Limonada media original. Crystal Genesis is our senior producer, Julia Yurt, Tess Novotny, and Hannah Buma-Shine are our producers. Field production by Crystal Genesis, Julia Yurt, and Ivan Kurayev. Our theme music is by Andy Kristen's daughter with additional music by APM Music. Ivan Kurayev is our engineer. Jackie Dan Zigger is our VP of narrative content. Executive producers are me, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jessica Cordoba Kramer, and Stephanie Riddle's wax. This show was created in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a leading national philanthropy dedicated to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime and pave the way together to a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Follow Squeeze wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.