By Michaela Gordoni
BREAKING BAD star Bob Odenkirk misses his days of parenting small kids.
“Who are you jealous of?” actor Mike Birbiglia asked Odenkirk in a recent podcast.
“Anybody who’s still got little kids at home growing up,” Odenkirk said.
“There’s no question. I knew what I was doing when I had kids growing up. I was being a dad, I mean, that was my job,” the BREAKING BAD star added.
He shared he never questioned his purpose or meaning during that time. To him, it was obvious that his role as a father was most important.
“I understood my purpose,” he said.
Odenkirk is dad to Nate, 26, and Erin, 24. A couple years ago, he and Erin published poems, “Zilot & Other Important Rhymes,” that Odenkirk and his kids wrote when they were little.
“These poems were written with Nate and Erin when they were little! Between the ages of 4 and 8, at bedtime, as part of our going-to-bed ritual of reading books, we would write a poem or two a week,” he said. “The kids would suggest and idea, or an opening line, and add to it as we wrote.”
“I kept those early scribblings. Then, during the pandemic, my kids grown and sitting in their rooms doing college classes via Zoom, I started re-writing, punching up, the poems and asking Erin to make a drawing for each,” he explained.
He told Romper that he wrote most of the poems with a kid by his side or on his lap.
“And so [to write the new ones] I really needed to try to think back to what kids are thinking about and feeling and what’s in their day. … In the end, it’s defined by those two kids, Nate and Erin, when they were 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, helping me to think about how they saw the world,” he said.
Odenkirk said this year he felt jealous of his GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS co-stars, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr, who are both dads to children under the age of 10.
“I envy them,” he continued. “I envy them, as stressed as they are, because they have to do this job and it takes them away, [but] you know who you are when you leave here. You absolutely know who you are. You’re a dad.”
Odenkirk clearly relished his days of being a dad to young children, and they are full of sweet memories for him. He’s indirectly reminding all parents not to take moments with their growing kids for granted.
Read Next: Actor Jeffrey Wright Calls Fatherhood ‘The Most Rewarding Thing’
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