Harry Connick Jr. is open about his experience as a parent.
The singer and his wife Jill Goodacre have three daughters ― Georgia, Sarah Kate and Charlotte. Since first becoming a father in 1996, he’s opened up about his family life, from lessons he’s learned to hopes for his kids.
In honor of his birthday, we’ve rounded up 12 quotes related to parenthood from Connick.
On His Proudest Parenting Moment
“My wife celebrated a birthday recently, and I told the girls, ‘You need to do something really nice for Mom.’ When my wife came home that night, they must have created 40 or 50 pieces of artwork for her. They made drawings that were covered in glitter and stickers. On one piece of paper, they’d traced their hands, and they’d written, ‘When you put your hand on this, it will be like we’re holding hands.’ I was really blown away, and so was my wife.”
On Work-Life Balance
“It’s definitely the hardest part about being a father. In general, my job balances out really well, because I can be home for months and months. But then, I’ll have to be on the road and I won’t see my kids for a few weeks at a time, and it’s heartbreaking for me. Now they’re at an age where they seem to be able to handle it, where my leaving doesn’t disrupt the normalcy of their lives. But to tell you the truth, that also makes me a little sad, because I realize they don’t need me as much anymore.”
On Serenading His Kids
“I sing to them like any parent’s gonna sing, and it sounds really kinda goofy, I guess.”
On Parenting With His Wife
“I married my best friend and I married a woman who I look up to infinitely. We have the same values so it’s easy for us to try and impart those on our children.”
On What Fatherhood Taught Him
“Being a father has taught me so much about what my parents did for me; it seems obvious, but I don’t believe I appreciated it until I had kids of my own.”
On Parenting Instincts
“I can’t imagine not wanting to comfort a crying child of mine. If you do what is instinctively right, there’ll be a mutual respect and love and a friendship. I just think it’s important to do what your gut is telling you to do.”
On His Approach To Parenthood
“I realized I don’t need to push my girls in any one direction; they’ll figure things out. And it means more to them when they discover things for themselves ― as opposed to getting information crammed down their throats. My kids take piano lessons, they play soccer, but at the same time, I want to let them find their own way.”
On How He Spends His Free Time
“With my girls, I just like doing everyday things, like walking with them to school, or helping with homework, or watching the Discovery Channel. And my wife and I will have a date night, where we’ll go out to dinner or a movie, or spend some time with friends. But you know something? We wind up talking about our kids the whole time.”
On Embarrassing His Kids
“You constantly hear stories about kids who get embarrassed by their parents or daughters who get embarrassed by their dads … and I’m not saying this to be cool, but we never really got into that. It was never really that, ‘Can you drop me off a block away from school because I don’t want to be seen with you?’ It was never like that with us. We never had that, and I don’t know why, but we’ve always had a unique relationship and it’s been pretty great.”
On The Girl Dad-With-A-Shotgun Trope
“I think that’s such an antiquated way to talk about young women. It’s almost presuming they don’t have the good judgment to go out with a guy that’s appropriate for them, so like dad has to come in and save the day. Man, the way I raised my daughters, and Jill, the way we raised our kids, hopefully they will have enough self-esteem so that they’ll be able to attract guys of a certain caliber.”
On Slowing Down
“About five years ago, when my oldest daughter was 2, I wanted to take her to the park. I was anxious to get her there as fast as I could because I only had a couple of hours to spare before I had to be somewhere. As I was hustling her to the car, she bent down and picked up a rock — you know how kids kind of squat so their tail end is almost touching the ground? I just kept telling her, ‘Come on, we gotta go, we gotta go.’ It didn’t occur to me that she was discovering something right then.”
On His Own Father
“As I get older I see more of my father in myself. It’s more than what he said to me, it’s his nature, his backbone, his sense of morals. He’s a hero to me, and I don’t know if I can live up to that. He has pretty high standards. I hope that I bring something like that to my girls.”
