Chris Grady has a 7-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter. For the past five years, Grady has been turning his experiences as a dad into comics.
But Grady’s comics aren’t just any comics. Many of his drawings offer wonderful life lessons about empathy, kindness, and tolerance. He also gives a humorous look into the stereotypical parenting struggles such as tantrums and noise.
Gray is also an elementary school teacher in Toronto and created his comics, called Lunarbaboon, as his own personal form of therapy.
“I needed a positive place to focus all my thoughts and found that when I was making comics I felt a little bit better,” he told Huffington Post. “After posting the comics on social media for a few months, I began getting messages from many people about how they connected to the comics and it gave them hope and strength as they went through their own dark times.”
As Lunarbaboon started to gain popularity, Grady decided to really make the focus of his comics something positive. He touches on social issues such as gender issues and xenophobia.
“I think it is impossible not to be influenced by the world around you. There is a lot of bad things happening in the world, but there is also a lot of good,” he said. “I try to find the good or humorous in the difficult things that happen to us every day.”
As a teacher and a father, his main goal is to help mold the minds of young people into caring and kind members of society.
“I want both my kids and my students to grow up to be good people,” he explained. “Kids are always watching adults, and they look to the adults as role models. I try to show them that even with all my flaws and weaknesses, I am still a good person, and I can still make a positive change in the world.”
Grady credits his wife for much of his influence and inspiration.
“I am very lucky to be married to a very smart, strong, opinionated person who is constantly fighting against injustice,” he explained. “A lot of what she and I talk about on a daily basis makes it into the comics.”
Now, Lunarbaboon has close to one million followers on Facebook. Grady also released a book with a compilation of his drawings called Lunarbaboon: The Daily Life of Parenthood.
“Although we don’t have complete control over our thoughts and emotions as we go through life, we do have control over our actions,” he said. “So do good things with your life.”
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