Why Matthew McConaughey Teaches His Kids ‘Responsibility Breeds Freedom’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Matthew McConaughey recently opened up about how parenthood has broadened his perspective and shared his parenting goals.
“When you become a parent, your peripheral vision becomes better, whereas before you’re a parent, you can have tunnel vision,” he told Extra.
“You can take one-trip tickets to anywhere you want to go. No more on-trip tickets when you become a parent,” McConaughey continued. “It’s round-trip tickets because you know you have to get back and you’ve got dependents.”
The actor shares his three children, Levi, 15, Vida, 13, and Livingston, 10, with his wife Camilla. They recently took a big step in their parenting and allowed their oldest—Levi—to join social media for his 15th birthday.
“After two to three years of talking about the pitfalls and the upfalls and the downfalls, and him shadowing me on my IGs and his mother on hers and picking out people that he looked up to and talking to them about it, we felt he’s got enough information and is mature enough to tell his own story,” McConaughey told PEOPLE.
This decision illustrates one of the major lessons he hopes to instill in his children: “responsibility breeds freedom.”
“You take care of your stuff, chores, you take care of yourself, you will have more freedoms in the future,” he said.
However, this does not mean that McConaughey wants his children to grow up fast so they can “take care of themselves.” Rather, his parenting style focuses on letting his kids be kids and not putting the pressure of the world on them.
“Try to put what they love and what they have an innate ability to do in front of them,” the actor said. “Kids feel pressure more now. Feel like, ‘I gotta know what I’m gonna be.’ No, you don’t. Please don’t. Not yet. Now is the time to try a whole bunch of things out that will come. And I don’t want out kids to miss out being a kid.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
With their fame trickling down to their families, many celebrities have had to decide if their kids should be on social media or if they should be shielded from the public.
Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila recently allowed their son to join social media for his 15th birthday. Although Instagram allows users to join as early as 13, they wanted to keep him off the site until he was secure in his identity.
“We’ve been preparing for this, talking about this for three years now,” McConaughey and his wife shared. “All his friends have had it for a long time, we’ve been holding out. [Levi] knows who he is. He’s knows what he’s going at. And [we] think he can handle it.”
