Neil Patrick Harris on raising 12-year-old twins: 'They were once babies. Now they're excited to leave the house every chance they get.'
Welcome to So Mini Ways, Yahoo Life's parenting series on the joys and challenges of childrearing.
When you first become a parent, everyone says you’ll blink and your baby will be a young adult. It’s a feeling that Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka, soon to be dads of teens, can certainly attest to. “We have kids that are getting older by the second,” says Harris. They were once babies. Now they’re excited to leave the house every chance they get.”
But Harris applauds seeing his 12-year-old twins Harper and Gideon get out and explore the city they live in, especially when they might otherwise be tied to screens. “We’re trying to keep them looking up and out and not just down,” he says. “Technology is tricky when you're dealing with kids who have grown up with screens as part of their social interactions with their friends. Trying to manage and compromise on screen limits is certainly a constant conversation, because they would love nothing more than to have unlimited access to their friends and their games and their apps.”
Still, Harris’s parenting philosophy is that “life is best done in moderation.” He notes, “So as long as we're providing some other things for them to do, then hopefully, they won't get too single-minded about it. We live in New York City, so thankfully, there's plenty of outlets around every city block.”
In fact, the actor recalls spending a particularly memorable day walking in Washington Square Park, enjoying the “amazing spring weather” with the family’s dogs. “They have an amazing dog run there, and so we took the kids and brought the dogs up from our farm where they get to run around more often,” says Harris. “We got to take pics of all of them.”
Both kids are into photography these days, says the proud dad. “They love taking pictures, but they are of a younger generation,” he explains. “Gideon likes to take pictures of things and oversaturate them and make them almost look like an ‘80s or ‘90s pop art painting. And Harper's just in full selfie mode. She's just texting pics of everything to all of her friends. She's deep down the group thread rabbit hole.”
Capturing and celebrating everyday moments is something Harris has been thinking about more lately as he recently partnered with Amazon Lifestyle to share his gift picks for Father’s Day. His wishlist spans beauty to fashion to kitchenware categories and includes choices like the Maxine Dog Backpack Carrier and Panasonic LUMIX FZ80 4K Digital Camera, both of which he loves using on family outings.
“I first heard about [the carrier] through Emerson Brooks, who is on Uncoupled,” shares Harris. “A friend of his owns the company and said, ‘You have to have one of these for your two smaller dogs.’ I feel like [they] want to be humans, and so when they're up at eye level, they're much happier. And I’ve been trying to deal with digital photography a little bit more. When we're out on proper adventures, it's nice to be able to document things with much more resolution.”
When the family isn’t out on an adventure, low-key moments at home can make for sweet family memories. Harris recalls Burtka preparing his famous spaghetti bolognese recently alongside “a salad with vegetables that were grown in our garden and a baguette from Eataly down the way.” The result: “I had wonderful dreams at night as I slept soundly and happily,” notes Harris.
And like Burtka, Harper enjoys experimenting in the kitchen. “Harper’s been cooking these new kinds of pancakes that she must have learned about on the socials somehow,” says Harris. “They're these super-fluffy pancakes that you have to steam on top as well as down below. They almost look like a super-thick pancake cake.”
Harris recalls seeing an admirable side of his daughter when she didn’t nail the recipe right out the gate. “I was really proud of her because her first attempt at them was less successful, and I thought that she would lose interest,” shares Harris. “Instead, two weekends later, she tried again with much better results, and they were delicious. And I appreciated both the pancake and her acumen — her ability to push through and improve.”
He and Burtka were also inspired by the kids’ performance in their middle school choral concert. “They both sang in the choir and hadn't really practiced around David and I or let us know what the songs were,” says Harris. “They were interested in kind of surprising us with it. And it was just remarkable and amazing to watch them. They're both gifted, and I love watching and hearing them sing. So that was a real special treat.”
As the twins become more independent and “have more agency and the ability to go to school on the subway by themselves or have playdates and sleepovers,” Harris feels like he’s “suddenly witnessing people” and not just his kids. “I'm so proud of them and the decisions that they make and the way they process information,” says the delighted dad. “They have great senses of humor and are relatively kind to others — others being each other. They are twins after all. They're great. I can't wait to continue to watch them mature.”
This phase has also led Harris to applaud his husband as a parent. “I'm impressed with David's adaptability,” he notes. “When you're the parent of infants, it's just a different skill set than being the parents of toddlers, and that's a different skill set than being the parents of kids. And so being able to shift into or acknowledge that you don't have all the answers is a fairly selfless thing to recognize. And David's just a miraculous parent. So it's been a joy to watch his process through it all.”
The couple’s “hands-on parenting” is undoubtedly a cause for them to be celebrated this Father’s Day. And the fact that the twins are nearly teens means they can sit back and relax. Harris jokes, “Maybe since the kids are older and able to make pancakes, we should just demand that they make us breakfast in bed.”
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