Sterling K. Brown is reflecting on a moment that showed him just how mature his son has become.
During a roundtable conversation for season two of his Hulu series Paradise, the 49-year-old actor reflected on how differently his sons, Amaré, 9, and Andrew, 14, approach conflict compared to him.
“I look at my children now — my children have never been in a fight. The 14-year-old or the 9-year-old,” Brown said.
He went on to recall an incident at one of Andrew’s soccer games.
“My 14-year-old was in a soccer game where a young boy spat on him, and he saw the spit and he walks up to the ref and he goes, ‘Ref, this dude just spat on me.’ And the ref was like, ‘I didn’t see it, so I can’t do anything about it,’” Brown explained.
Things didn’t stop there. After the match, Andrew was subjected to a racial slur.
“Then, afterwards, the young man came up to him and called him the N-word and just kind of kept it going. And my son didn’t tell me until after the game, and I was like, ‘Yo, man, how come we didn’t beat his ass?’ And he was like, ‘Because that wouldn’t have solved anything. He already did what he was going to do. The ref didn’t respond to it or whatnot. So I didn’t want to make you any more upset, which is why I didn’t tell you until after the game.’”
Brown admitted his son’s restraint caught him off guard. “So he’s a more evolved person than me. I would’ve beat his ass!” he said with a laugh.
The This Is Us star also opened up about how fatherhood shapes his choices, saying his kids are “the most important people in my life.”
“Being a father is the most important job that I have in my life right now. And so for the next nine years, if I can keep working in L.A. and be like the one dude who figured it out, I would be very, very excited about that, [because] I don’t want to miss too much of their growing up.”
Brown said he takes “great delight” in seeing his sons evolve and feels especially proud when he notices qualities in them that surpass his own.
“That’s all you can do is try to do a little bit better than what your parents did for you. And hopefully he’s able to do a little bit better as well,” he said.
