Nate Bargatze Teaches Kids to Gamble

Nate Bargatze stopped by to promote The Breadwinner, his new film that pitches itself as a modern Mr. Mom. Mandy Moore plays his wife, a stay-at-home mom who invents something, goes on Shark Tank, and flips the script at home. Bargatze takes over the kids, badly, which is the whole point. He name-checks John Hughes as his template, saying this script fit his stand-up persona better than anything else he could have made for a first film.

The conversation quickly drifted into the real-life version of the bit. Bargatze admitted that when his wife leaves town, the menu is Taco Bell and McDonald's, and sometimes it stays that way when she is home. He just does not have to make eye contact about it.

Rich pushed on the marriage logistics. Bargatze pointed out that kids work the system when parents have not talked, and the only fix is a morning huddle plus a code word for real-time overrides. He floated spaghetti as the safe word, undercover-cop style, for moments when one parent needs the other to just back the play in front of the kids. Rich refined it: when there is no time to huddle, the floater defers to whoever is in the thick of it, and you back that play 100 percent. Bargatze agreed. Otherwise, blowback.

Asked where he is actually competent at home, Bargatze gave a clean answer. Logistics. Mapping things out. Making the call when his wife hesitates on the small stuff. He is great at Disney, in particular, plotting which park to hit and when to swing through Animal Kingdom.

Then came the gambling story. Bargatze taught his daughter and his niece and nephew, all around 10, a dice game called Grego. First to 100. Roll too many ones and you reset. He put 20 dollars on the table. His niece got to 99, rolled two snake eyes, and went all the way back to zero. She started bawling. His daughter hit 97, won the cash, took the money from her cousin, and also started bawling. So he split the money.

Bargatze offered his assessment. Grego, at a certain age, turns into a game where everyone cries. By the end of it, the kids were barely holding the dice, terrified of rolling ones. It lasted 40 minutes, which he counted as a win. Rich framed it the right way, which is that parenting, like March Madness, is mostly survive and advance. Bargatze said his niece might be a different person now. He got through the day.