Have you ever wondered what happened to the notorious politician Anthony Weiner after his highly publicized sexting scandals? Well, wonder no more, because he recently spoke to Alec Baldwin for WNYC Studios’ podcast “Here’s The Thing with Alec Baldwin” about life post-scandal and what it’s like to be a stay-at-home dad.
When Baldwin asked what Weiner is currently up to, he was surprisingly candid about his new role as a primary parent, and how marriage is all about compromise, stating:
“You know, I have a 4-year-old at home that I kind of like the stillness of being the guy that’s taking care of him. It’s funny, I was very self-conscious about this idea of being, like a stay-at-home dad is a little bit of an exaggeration–but being a dad…that’s my job.
With Huma being on the road as much as she is and my sense of obligation like giving her some space for her to be able to do her things now. She sat, unfortunately, and helped me do my things, I’m going to let her do hers and she has stuff they didn’t resolve in 2008. [I wanted] to give her the sense that she can she can do whatever she needed and Jordan was going to be OK.
Weiner also went on to say how being a politician means there are huge parts of his life, like fatherhood, that the public doesn’t see. In his case, it can be frustrating, as he is still often painted as a villain by mainstream media, stating:
But there’s another element to it, it’s kind of like why does my redemption as a politician, as a public figure have to be as a public person and a politician? Why can’t it be just doing this other important element of my life really well?
Like, no one may see me being a dad and it might not be something you can measure like I got these number of votes or this many number of people who wrote me a positive letters or this many number of times I was on hard ball or something, but I know I’m really good at it and I’m doing it every day.”
Of course, being a dad, as any parent knows, means that you want your kid to be the best version of themselves that they can be. In many ways, Weiner’s scandal has given him a more nuanced, compassionate view of the world, which he wants his son to understand and emulate, stating:
“I want someone like Jordan to have this notion of perspective. Like you know, there’s bad stuff, there’s not so bad stuff. There’s complex people doing good and bad things in life and we lose a little bit of that nuance. And I’m not saying that in defense of me, so much that I’d say I view the world a lot more that way.
No one should be defined by the [expletive] thing they’ve ever done. And I think we are in a world that in a weird way we have this cacophony of information going on. But everyone is tugging from this absolute pure place. Like, we’ve lost this…nuance is lost…
And I guess I want him to be someone, to grow up being someone who sees complexity. That sees that good stuff happens and bad stuff happens…and sees that kind of stuff and not be so sure that you’ve got it right.”
Regardless of Weiner’s personal life and flaws, as well as his politics, he does raise an important point: Life–and the people within our lives–are complicated. We, by nature, are neither all good nor all bad, and we are all capable of doing both great and awful things–and that is definitely a lesson any child should learn.
Listen to the rest of the interview here.
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