Tom Brady and his model wife Gisele Bündchen have been married for well over a decade now, and seemingly live a pretty charmed life with their kids. Sometimes it can be the charmed part of their life that worries the Tampa Bay Buccaneers player when it comes to raising his little ones though. The NFL star recently was asked if it’s ever difficult to keep his kids “grounded” and he shared the “hardest part” of raising his kids when money and fame come into play. It’s a take that’s not relatable for most of us, but it is really honest.
Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen are raising their two children together and Brady has a third child with his ex-Bridget Moynahan, whom Bündchen is the stepmom of. Obviously, however, these kids don’t live an average existence, and it’s very different than what Brady and his wife themselves grew up with. While speaking with Jim Farly on the Drive podcast recently, the star opened up about his own childhood memories and how he sees things are not the same for his own kids.
It’s honestly a great question and it’s probably the hardest thing for us as parents with myself and my wife. My wife grew up in rural Brazil, the furthest state South… very small kind of farming town. Very simple girl, two bedrooms in her house, one for her parents, one for her and her five sisters. You know? I grew up in a middle class family in California. My dad worked his ass off for our family. My mom stayed at home, took care of us kids. I saw my mom work every day to take care of us, make food for us every night, wash our clothes
Cut to now, that’s certainly not the lifestyle he and his family live at all. Brady, at 44, has made an exorbitant amount of money. He's had guest stints on Netflix shows. Plus, after un-retiring, he's still playing professional football with a heavy traveling schedule to boot. And his model wife is an author and is interested in charitable causes (she left IMG models in 2021). Thus, their kids' growing up experiences have been a little different than the typical family.
I look at my life with my family and it’s so fast. We have people that clean for us. We have people that make our food. We have people that drive us to the airport if we need that, you know, we get off a plane and there’s people waiting there for us and we get ushered in. That’s my kids’ reality which is the hard part to say, guys, this is not the way reality really is...what can we do about that?
Development of their children is important for the couple. Back in 2016 when the kids were little, Gisele Bündchen even participated in the documentary The Beginning of Life about how important a child’s first years are to their developmental success later. And Brady and Bündchen are aware of what their kids miss out on as well as the experiences they get to do that most people will never be able to relate to. Still, how many kids end up on the ground at a Super Bowl, much less as their dad is winning?
He also noted though, that it’s not like they can just pick up and live a normal life.
It’s hard to make those things up to. I can’t say we’re going to go back and live on Portola Drive in San Mateo. It’s a pretty hard thing to do just for privacy purposes and so forth. So, I don’t know the right answer. I don’t know the right answer as a parent.
While some people reading this story might have the luxury of hiring someone to help clean, the concept of other people being at your beck and call and the notion of not having privacy anywhere you go, as Brady does, are foreign to all but a very small subset of people. (In fact, Mark Wahlberg and other celebs have been open about the downsides of fame with their kids as well.) That's not even counting weird things that happen in their lives, like Tom Brady playing football with Kanye West's kid or whatever. Again, totally unrelatable.
Regardless, he told Jim Farley he hopes he’s doing a good job as a parent, even though he knows he makes mistakes. He hopes his kids recognize what is “a treat” and something meant to make their lives easier and not an absolute given, as well. On that front, I think his comments are something most parents can identify with.
