Tom Brady has candidly revealed that he “screwed up a lot” as a parent.
Speaking to a crowd at the Fortune Global Forum in New York City on Tuesday, the 7-time Super Bowl champ opened up about fatherhood, admitting that he’s not always gotten things right when it came to raising children.
“All of the parents of the room know that being a parent is probably the hardest job all of us have and we screw up a lot, and I’ve screwed up a lot as a parent,” he said.
“So I don’t want to seem like I’m some expert in parenting, because I’m certainly not that.”
Still, Brady said he tries to be “dependable and consistent” for his “three amazing kids.” He added that he will support anything his children “want to do in life.”
The retired NFL legend, 47, shares his 17-year-old son, Jack, with his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan.
He also shares two children with his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen, who is currently expecting her third child.
The exes, who split in 2022, are parents to 14-year-old son Benjamin, and 11-year-old daughter Vivian.
During the interview, Brady admitted it “sucks” to be “Tom Brady’s son in so many ways,” per video obtained by TMZ.
“There’s a lot of challenges I faced as a kid … my kid naturally are going to be faced with their own challenges,” he said. “And I’ll be there to support them a lot like my parents did. And I’ll be learning along the way right there with them.”
Elsewhere, he praised his parents, Galynn and Thomas Brady, for encouraging him to pursue his dreams at a young age, instead of shutting them down.
“The blessing my parents gave me,” he said, “was when I was that longshot as a kid who was a backup quarterback on a freshman team, they never said, ‘Man, don’t do that. It’s going to be too hard. Let’s do something different. Let’s think about another backup plan.’”
“They kind of said, ‘You know what? Go for it. Whatever you wanna be, go for it’… and that’s probably my parenting style,” he added.
Indeed, Brady said that’s how he approaches parenting his son Jack, who already stands tall at 6-foot-5 and aspires to be a basketball player.
“Unfortunately he jumps as high as I do,” he said of his eldest son. “But I tell him, “Dude, you’re gonna be a stud.’ I said, ‘Wait till you hit your growth spurt, you’re gonna be jumping higher, you’re gonna be dunkin’.’ And whether he does or not, who cares? But I want him to know that his dad’s got his back.”