Judd Apatow does not shy away from talking about his parenting experience.
The famous funny man and his wife, actress Leslie Mann, have two daughters ― 20-year-old Maude and 16-year-old Iris. Over the years, he’s opened up about fatherhood during press tours, red carpet appearances and even his stand-up routines.
In honor of his birthday, here are 13 quotes about parenthood from Judd Apatow.
On Parenting Teens
“You know the love you feel from your daughter right now? Soon that’ll be gone.”
On Uncool Dads
“My kids don’t find me funny, which really pisses me off because that’s all I have. I think every kid thinks their dad is goofy. Even Johnny Depp’s kid must be like, ‘Oh, God, my dad with those freakin’ scarves. This isn’t a pirate ship, it’s Costco, Dad.’”
On His Daughter’s Dating Life
“I have this thing with my daughter where I hate any boy that comes by ― like, in my bones, I hate any boy that is circling. But there’s this kid that is like a super-goofy, nerdy kid, who I realize, ‘Oh, that’s me. That’s exactly who I was in high school.’ And I’ll say ‘What about dating that guy?’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, he’s such a nerd.’ And I’m like, ‘You don’t understand him. He’s special. He’s going to fill out one day. He’ll show everybody.’”
On Being The Only Guy In The House
“I live with three women, and I’m like the weird guy in the house because they have so many things in common they can talk about ― they talk about their hair and how to make the curl look right and how to wax their eyebrows. And I’m just like the weird guy going, ‘Can you pop a zit on a testicle?’”
On Trying To Censor What Your Kids Watch
“This idea that we’re shielding kids with an R rating is just the funniest lie. They watch everything on YouTube. It becomes more about talking about it with them and having a relationship where they’ll ask you questions ― or maybe even listening to you if you tell them not to watch it. Sometimes, I’ll say, ‘Maybe you don’t need to see the ‘Chucky’ movies. Wait until you’re older. That’s a nightmare machine for you.’ And if you have that relationship, they’ll censor themselves. Our movies are adult-themed, but they’re smart kids, and I cover their eyes during the two or three bad parts, and they can handle it.”
On Not Getting Any Respect
“No. I get zero respect. I always think at some point they’ll realize I worked on ‘Superbad.’ But that never happens. I’m just the goofy guy picking them up at volleyball.”
On Parenting Fears
“Basically what I’m saying about parenting is that in a faster-moving world, a world that encourages less quiet and more vanity, there are new challenges to raising kids. Probably the kids are fine; it’s the parents who are having the nervous breakdowns. Every generation deals with this stuff. When I was a kid I used to watch TV from 3:30 in the afternoon till 1:30 at night. I watched ‘The Merv Griffin Show,’ ‘Dinah Shore,’ ‘Mike Douglas,’ ‘Happy Days,’ ‘Laverne & Shirley,’ and then Letterman and ‘The Tonight Show.’ My parents were terrified, and because I wouldn’t stop watching TV, they bought me a KX80 motorcycle, the most dangerous machine, just to try and get me to go outside. That’s how concerned they were. And the way they felt about TV is how I feel about social media: Is this OK for my kids? It probably is, but my terror is funny.”
On Having A Kid In College
“You know kids are getting obliterated with alcohol, so you try to make concessions based on what you know the realities of college drinking are. You start out saying, ‘No, don’t drink.’ Then that turns into, ‘OK, two glasses of wine. Can you please just do two glasses of wine?’ How do you teach your kid to be satisfied with a gentle buzz? That’s the challenge.”
On Directing His Kids
“Half my day is spent begging them to eat fruit and not M&M’s. Otherwise they crash, cry and want to go home. Then there are days when the kids don’t even realize we’re shooting a movie. They just sit down, I roll film and they start arguing with each other about things like whether Iris is old enough to watch ‘South Park.’ They’ll go to war about that, and that’s the scene.”
On Answering For His Work
“My kids do hold all the cursing against me. But I tell them the characters talk like that because it’s ridiculous, and that’s what makes it funny. Cursing makes you sound stupid! As for sex, writing ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ brought up all sorts of questions — including ‘What’s a virgin?’ It’s very difficult to go years without answering that question, but Leslie and I found a way to do it.”
On Raising Kids In The Internet Age
“I said to my daughter, ‘What have you seen that really freaked you out — that you shouldn’t have seen — way too early?’ She said, ‘Once I accidentally saw a giant penis go in Santa.’ I was like, ‘What are you searching for?’ How do you stumble on that?”
On Guilt-Parenting
“I think of lots of things I could say to make my kids feel guilty. But the difference between me and how I was raised is I try to not speak. If my daughter says, ‘I don’t want to watch TV with you’ ― in my head I say, ‘Fine. I won’t be around forever, and one day you’re going to regret that you didn’t sit down with me and watch “Shameless.”’ I’m fully programmed by guilt masters to think of the worst things you could say to anybody, and it takes enormous effort to just shut up and to realize how wrong all of that is.”
On Not Making His Kids Laugh
“Everybody thinks their dad’s jokes are corny. I don’t get a free pass on that. In fact, Iris said to me once, ‘Most of your stuff isn’t funny at all. But I’m always surprised you make it work.’ I thought that was a pretty sophisticated way of attacking me.”
