‘Breaking Bad’’s Aaron Paul Reveals Emotional Promise He Made to 7-Year-Old Daughter & People Have Big Feelings About It
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Everyone talks about kids and screen time, but what about adults’ screen time? If you’re anything like me, then you spend way too much time on your phone just scrolling when you could be connecting with your kids (or knocking things off your never-ending to do list). Aaron Paul is looking to change that in his own life. The Breaking Bad star, who is dad to 7-year-old daughter Story and 3-year-old son Ryder with wife Lauren Parsekian, revealed the emotional promise he made to his daughter about his phone.
“I try not to use my phone in front of my kids,” Paul said in a talk at WSJ Tech Live. He then shared the story of why he decided to make this drastic decision.
“My daughter comes running in and she’s asking me a question, something,” Paul said. “And I’m trying to just finish this quick email. And then she stopped asking, and she kind of went and started playing.”
Afterward, he felt bad about brushing his daughter off and tried to make it up to her. “I put my phone down and I went to her, and I go, ‘I wanna say I’m sorry for not being responsive to you,’” Paul recalled, adding that he made “a pact” with her. “I want to promise, Daddy’s not going to be on his phone when he’s with you anymore.”
“She did a one-word response. She looks at me, and she goes, ‘Really?’” he continued. “It broke my heart. It really did break my heart. I go, ‘I promise you, I won’t.’ And she just jumped up and threw her arms around me like she won the biggest prize. We owe it to our kids to at least give it a shot.”
In the comments, people had mixed feelings, with some saying that they appreciated this commitment to no phones and others joking about how un-realistic this take is.
“Me: “Hold up kiddo I’m watching Aaron Paul say something deep on instagram right now,” one person wrote, receiving over 12,700 likes. Another wrote, “😂 literally me right now. ‘Aw, I should do this!’… I say as I’m in my phone and my toddler crawls all over me.”
Others said it’s OK for kids to have to wait. “I think the kid can deal with having to be patient for 30 seconds lol,” one person wrote.
Many people praised Paul. “She did win a prize!!!! ❤️❤️” one person wrote. Someone else said, “what a beautiful example of fatherhood ❤️”
“All kids want is to spend time with their family. To them it’s genuinely the greatest thing in the world,” someone else said.
Mel Robbins, bestselling author of The 5 Second Rule and The Let Them Theory, opened up about parenting in the digital age in an interview with SheKnows in August.
“You actually have way more power than you think,” Robbins said. “The research is very clear on this: if you use your phone too much and don’t have good life/phone boundaries, neither will your kids. But the opposite is also true. If you start with yourself and you develop better phone/life boundaries — you don’t sleep with it, you don’t have it on your person … when you can have those sort of small boundaries, then you have the presence, and you’re signaling to your kids what that feels and looks like.”
Maybe this looks like Paul’s approach of going completely cold turkey on being on your phone around kids, or maybe you are intentional about setting aside daily no-phone time for yourself. However it looks for you, your kids will benefit immensely from the quality time with their parents in the real world.
Before you go, check out these celebrities who have shared their technology rules for their kids.