First and foremost, happy Father’s Day to my dad and all the awesome dads out there.
We wouldn’t be much without y’all.
Dads are always good for a variety of things, at least in my experience, like giving tough love, support, encouragement, advice, and sometimes, a good kick in the ass when you need it the most.
And in honor of today, Tim McGraw and Matthew McConaughey sat down on a recent episode of Beyond The Influence Radio to talk about what made them want to be dads, the best parts of being a parent, and Matthew reveals the sage advice he received from his own father when he decided he wanted to go to film school.
In the episode, they also got into Tim’s personal reasons for recording his #1 hit “Live Like You Were Dying,” which you can read here.
In terms of their discussion on parenthood, Matthew told Tim he knew he wanted to be a dad from the time he was eight years old, because he viewed it as the greatest success you could have as a man after watching his own dad:
“My dad was a ‘sirs’, and ‘ma’ams’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ man, and he would introduce me to his friends. I’m eight years old looking up to them and shaking their hands saying, ‘Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you, sir.’
At that moment, I had already shaken many of his friends hands through years, but at that moment in my eight year old mind, what went through my mind is, ‘Oh, the common denominator about all these men that I’m saying ‘sir’ to is that they’re fathers. That’s why they’re a ‘sir’.”
I remember in my eight year old mind going, ‘That’s when you’ve made it. That’s when you become a sir. That’s what success is.’
It hit me then, and it’s never left me as the paramount example of what being a sir or being the greatest success you can be as a man.”
He went on to say that now, as a father to three children of his own, he understands what his dad went through being a parent in a completely different way.
He feels like the most important thing to him as a dad is that his kids forge their own paths and one day follow their dreams:
“What makes a parent really happy? When their child comes to them and they don’t come bluffing. They don’t come really asking for permission.
They say, ‘I’m going to go my own path.’ Then as a parent you’re like, ‘Yes, that’s what I was hoping you would one day do is go, ‘Thank you mom. I love you. Thank you dad. Love you.’
When I asked my dad and told him I wanted to… I was asking him in a question form, but I didn’t really ask him. I said, ‘I want to go to film school, not law school.’
He goes, ‘You sure that’s what you want to do?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ How quickly I said ‘Yes, sir,’ he could tell that I wasn’t bluffing. He could tell I wasn’t asking permission.”
Then, Matthew’s dad hits him with the most fatherly advice of all time:
“Then he goes, ‘Well, don’t half ass it.'”
That was a kick in the rear end. He gave me responsibility, approval, privilege, freedom, and gave me something to go, ‘Ho, ho, here we go. We better do this one well.'”
And I think we’ve all been in Matthew’s shoes a time or two. I had a couple flashbacks of my own when I first listened to their conversation…
Thank goodness for dads, right?
And, go ahead and cue up Tim’s tear-jerker of a song, “My Little Girl”:
