Giancarlo Esposito Says to Be a Good Dad, You Have to Shut Up

From Men's Health

When our third daughter, Syrlucia, was seven years old, my ex-wife bought her a puppy.

Because my ex-wife and I are cordial, I was invited over to her house for dinner to mark the occasion. Before we sat down to eat, Cia locked the dog in a room. During dinner, and unbeknownst to all of us, the puppy also made a meal of the bottom of the wooden doorframe.

I chased the dog around the house. Cia chased me. I told Cia to get me a rolled-up piece of newspaper. She kept repeating, “No, Papa! No, Papa!”

The pursuit ended in Cia’s bedroom, me with the newspaper baton at the ready and explaining that the dog needed “to register the punishment with the event,” the dog cowering in a corner, and Cia finally crying out, “No, Papa! That’s not the way you raised me!”

I left the room. I cried. I came back. I apologized. And I learned an important lesson that day: A good father shuts up.

My father had a voice that could stop anyone—dog, human, horse—dead in their tracks. It was loud and booming— and it was a weapon, if he chose to employ it. I’ve tried my very hardest not to yell as a father, which sometimes is in direct conflict with me trying to help raise four (yes, four) independent and powerful girls.

But the Puppy Incident proved to me that I could still be threatening and dictatorial even if I wasn’t yelling. What I should have been then was silent.

My daughters are now all grown, and although I’m no longer tempted to raise my voice at them, I am tempted to interject in their life decisions my opinions, suggestions, and general “advice.”

Instead, I presented them with an offer: Come to New Mexico, where I was filming Breaking Bad and am still filming Better Call Saul, and hike with me in the foothills of the San Andres Mountains.

It’s so quiet there that I am forced into silence. The sky is huge. The peaks tower, unmoving. Everything is still.

On those hikes, I don’t say anything. I wait, and, inevitably, my daughter will ask me a question and we’ll talk. I’ll ask her questions back. I rarely give advice unless solicited. What often results is a lot of me listening, hardly any of me talking, and almost always a sincere “Thank you” from one of my daughters.

This last fact is always amazing to me. As a father, I thought that, like my mother and father, I had to be direct and powerful to have an effect on my children as a parent. My mother used to say: “Do as I say, not as I do.” My version: “Do as I do, which is not to overdo.”

You Might Also Like

• This Workout Torches Fat in Under 10 Minutes

• How to Cool Down After Your Hardest Workouts

• What’s the Deal With Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss?