Atlanta-bound Jim Gaffigan balances parenting duties with lots of stand-up

Instead, the 59-year-old Gaffigan has doubled down on complaints focused around his five children.

One form of escape from parenting? Hitting the road to joke about parenting.

“My life at home is like the opposite of this experience,” he said during his recent Hulu stand-up special “The Skinny.” “When I came out, you guys greeted me with applause. At home, I’m not even acknowledged. I’m not saying parents should be greeted with applause: That’s not enough. I think parents should receive a standing ovation.”

“It’s good to change things up,” said Gaffigan in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “These smaller intimate shows are probably better for the audience. And I like getting the reps in. I am always tinkering and fine-tuning my jokes. By the end of the weekend, they’re better.”

Gaffigan regularly develops stand-up material in his home city of New York at local clubs, rubbing shoulders with other A-listers who do the same. “I just saw Jerry Seinfeld,” he said. “I did two shows last night and will do two more tonight. My wife is very generous. I do try to get home by 9. Then I can help wrangle screens from the teens and plan the overall insanity of our lives.”

Gaffigan claims to be the disciplinarian.

“I’m much more the enforcer parent,” Gaffigan said. “But I do appreciate it when they try to be funny even if it’s obnoxious.”

He and his very patient wife Jeannie don’t do a lot of date nights. “If we go out to dinner on our anniversary, we bring one of the kids,” he said. “Having five kids means a lot of juggling.”

“There’s no real assignment,” he said. “It can be whatever I want it to be. I can talk about gardening or complain about my kids. It can be stuff that might end up in my act. Usually, it’s stuff that isn’t necessarily right for my act.”

This past year, Gaffigan has tackled cucumbers, fireworks and Mother’s Day, which he jokingly noted on air “ushers in Father’s Day Month.”

Gaffigan has never been asked to host “Saturday Night Live” although he got to play Minnesota governor and former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz last season during the presidential campaign.