Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is a proud dad to four daughters — but that hasn’t stopped him from thinking about what life would be like with a son.
Stafford, 37, addressed the idea of having a boy on the Monday, June 9, episode of wife Kelly Stafford’s podcast, “The Morning After,” admitting there’d be added pressure to walk in his NFL footsteps.
“I thought it would be extra challenging if we did have a boy,” Matthew said. “I’ve known what it’s like to have expectations since I was 15 years old or so, probably. I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t have that from six to 15.”
Matthew and Kelly, 36, who got married in April 2015, are parents to twins Sawyer and Chandler, 8, Hunter, 6, and Tyler, 4.
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“I was able to just be a kid who could throw a ball a little bit and was good at other sports and had fun and didn’t have to worry about what my Dad did, and whether or not I was going to live up to whatever somebody else thought I was going to have to live up to,” Matthew said. “I didn’t have that until I was somewhat grown enough to kind of figure it out myself.”
He continued, “If I had a son or if we had a boy, that was a possibility for a kid to be 8 years old and everybody at the park looking at him going, ‘Hey, why doesn’t it throw it a little better?’ When I was 8 years old, I didn’t have a care in the world as to what was going on around me.”
Matthew also gushed about the memories he’s been able to make with his daughters, especially in the midst of the NFL offseason.
“I have so many good, sweet moments with my girls,” he said. “Being a parent, for me, is the least outward facing thing I can do. When I am with them, I am totally focused on them one hundred percent. I could care less about what somebody else is going with their kid, or what kind of cool trip they had.”
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He added, “My moments with them are like magic.”
While Matthew is doing his best to stay in the present, he admitted that seeing his daughters get older “scares the hell of me,” especially when Kelly insists on sending him “videos of fathers giving their daughters away on their wedding days.”
“I get all teary-eyed. It’s awful,” Matthew said. “I think about having to do that four times. I mean, what an amazing moment, whether it happens or it doesn’t.”
He added, “I can’t even imagine not having that. I know it’s going to be tough. It goes both ways for me. I’m like, ‘Oh god, what a killer.’ But at the same time I’m also like, ‘Man, what a lucky guy to have been a part of that girl’s life for that long.’”
