Sophia Michaels
In an interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning, Bruce Springsteen told the anchor in October “there were a lot of mistakes I didn’t want to make.”
It’s hard to imagine someone like Bruce Springsteen, who seems so affable and easygoing, worrying about how he would do as a dad. But it’s an enormous undertaking that even The Boss was daunted by.
Find out how Springsteen approached his role as dad and what he wanted to avoid at all costs.
His wife Patti warned him he needed to be home more
Springsteen in October released his memoir, Born to Run, which Entertainment Weekly called “a reminder that the one thing you can’t run away from is yourself.” In it, he shared how it was his wife, Patti Scialfa, who set him straight as it related to their young children.
In effect, she told him: ‘keep on with your musician’s hours and you’re going to lose out on your kids’ early lives.’
He learned she was right.
“. . . one day she came to me as I lay in bed around noon and simply said, “You’re gonna miss it,” Springsteen recalled in his memoir.
“Miss what?”
“She said, ‘The kids, the morning, it’s the best time, it’s when they need you the most. They’re different in the morning than at any other time of day and if you don’t get up to see it, well then…you’re gonna miss it.’”
‘A great act of intimacy’
The superstar recalled, in Born to Run, waking at 7:00 AM the next day, most definitely not in a good mood and making his way downstairs to where his children awaited breakfast.
When he told his wife he had no idea how to make pancakes, she firmly said, “Learn.”
He found a reliable pancake recipe and after “some early cement-like results, I. . . am now proud to say that should the whole music thing go south, I will be able to hold down a job between the hours of 5:00 and 11:00 AM at any diner in America.”
“Feeding your children is a great act of intimacy and I received my rewards: the sounds of forks clattering on breakfast plates, toast popping out of the toaster, and the silent approval of morning ritual. If I hadn’t gotten up, I would’ve missed it.”
Springsteen didn’t want to make the same mistake his dad made
Springsteen has not shied away from discussing the difficult days with his father that he was not eager to repeat, especially when he was starting out with three young children.
The Dancin’ in the Dark singer revealed to King on the morning show that his relationship with his father opened the door to several issues for which the singer has needed therapy, and even medication for depression, to resolve.
“Yeah, there were a lot of mistakes I didn’t want to make. And I think the way you look at it is, like, I don’t want my kids to have to dig themselves out of my hole. They’re gonna have their own hole they got to dig themselves out of.”
“That’s just part of life, you know? Now, you’re always gonna – we always pass something along,” he said. “And that’s just – that’s just life, you know? So as a parent, you do your best to not lay too much of your own bull**** on them.”
Read more: The 1 Piece of Touching Advice Bruce Springsteen Offers Parents
Written by: CheatSheet
