During an appearance on the February 23 episode of the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown explained why he doesn’t shy away from posting pictures of his sons on social media.
Brown, 49, and his wife, Ryan Michelle Bathe, share two sons: Amaré, 10, and Andrew, 14. He provided the reason behind sharing photos of his sons on social media after he asked Dax Shepard why he keeps his two daughters out of the public eye, PEOPLE reported.
Shepard, 51, explained that “safety” is his main focus, and he wants to afford his two girls the chance to “be anonymous and make mistakes.”
And though Brown had no issues with the reasons that Shepard gave, the 49-year-old explained that he posts photos of his sons on social media because he ultimately wants them to be safe.
“Your children are obviously White. My children are Black. I feel like the more I put them on social, the safer they are,” Brown explained. “Any proximity that Black boys can have to some sort of celebrity or access or … status [or] leverage. I’m trying to make sure that they make it home.”
Brown also explained why his family has a “policy of no pictures” when they’re out.
“If I am out with Ryan and the boys, we have a policy of no pictures. And the policy is because they deserve to have a regular night out. It’s their time,” the Black Panther star stated. “Because Ry and I have a certain amount of spotlight or whatnot, doesn’t mean that they should receive less of us.”
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Brown is very outspoken about his relationship with his sons. During a previous roundtable discussion for the second season of Paradise, Brown reflected on an incident where someone called his son the N-word during a soccer game, and how the teen handled the incident, Face2Face Africa reported at the time.
The 49-year-old said that though he possesses an “intense” personal trait, his sons are different, PEOPLE reported.
“And it’s interesting,” the three-time Emmy winner said at the time. “I look at my children now — my children have never been in a fight. The 14-year-old or the 9-year-old.”
Brown added: “My 14-year-old was in a soccer game where a young boy spat on him, and he saw the spit and he walks up to the ref and he goes, ‘Ref, this dude just spat on me.’ And the ref was like, ‘I didn’t see it, so I can’t do anything about it.’”
“Then, afterwards, the young man came up to him and called him the N-word and just kind of kept it going. And my son didn’t tell me until after the game, and I was like, ‘Yo, man, how come we didn’t beat his ass?’ And he was like, ‘Because that wouldn’t have solved anything. He already did what he was going to do. The ref didn’t respond to it or whatnot. So I didn’t want to make you any more upset, which is why I didn’t tell you until after the game.’”
Brown also admitted that his teen son is “a more evolved person” than him, as he “would’ve beat his ass!”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Brown also touched on his career and how his sons have an impact on it, saying that they are “the most important people in my life.”
“And to anybody who’s been a parent or […] has young children — to see how much they change, especially when they’re young, as they accrue new skills and learn new words and stuff; it is the most magical thing to be in the presence of,” he said.
“And so I can tell you — truly, truly, between doing season one [of Paradise] and then the hiatus where I went, I did Voltron in Australia. I went and did a movie in France and I did a movie in Louisiana and they were all wonderful experiences, but I had to FaceTime [my kids], and I didn’t get a chance to tuck [them] in and finish reading book seven of Harry Potter to my youngest or whatever it was,” Brown added.
Brown continued: “Being a father is the most important job that I have in my life right now. And so for the next nine years, if I can keep working in L.A. and be like the one dude who figured it out, I would be very, very excited about that, [because] I don’t want to miss too much of their growing up.”
Brown also said that seeing his children mature gives him “great delight.” He further stated that seeing his teen son show more maturity and compassion than him when he was his age makes him proud, PEOPLE reported.
“That’s all you can do is try to do a little bit better than what your parents did for you. And hopefully he’s able to do a little bit better as well,” he stated.
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