Many parents document the first years of their kids’ lives through photo albums, home videos and baby books. But Jonathan Jui has his own way of remembering the ups the downs: drawing cartoons.
The London-based dad illustrates life with his 18-month-old son Milo and posts the drawings on Instagram under the name @jonajooey.
“Within 24 hours of becoming a dad, my brain was ready to explode from all the new, funny and frustrating things that were going on in our lives,” Jui told HuffPost. “It was all just going by so fast and of course I am never able to get a photo while in the trenches of parenting, and I didn’t quite have the energy to write a journal entry that would do a memory justice ... so a cartoon felt like the right medium.”
“Plus documenting it all via cartoons forces me to find the humor and silver linings when I’m getting peed on or subsisting on coffee,” he added.
The cartoons cover a range of topics from potty training to breastfeeding to all things toddler chaos. In the text, Jui often refers to Milo by his nickname, “Baobao,” which is Chinese for “little treasure.”
He told HuffPost he’s been overwhelmed by the positive response to his cartoons online.
“I was initially hesitant about putting my parenting-related thoughts out there. I was afraid people were going to laugh at me and tell me I’m parenting all wrong or call me a bad parent for highlighting my frustrations,” he said. “But I’ve found most parents have no idea what the hell they’re doing and part of being a parent is just trying to make sense of it all.”
Keep scrolling and visit Jui’s Instagram for more relatable parenting cartoons.
