If it were up to Brad Pitt, he’d have enough kids to make a football team.
In a new interview with The Telegraph, Pitt, 51, got candid when discussing his deeply private family, and how being a father has changed him both as a man and in his career.
“Everyone talks about the joy of having kids – blah, blah, blah,” he said. “But I never knew how much I could love something until I looked in the faces of my children.”
Pitt and his wife, Angelina Jolie Pitt, are parents to six children together, Maddox, 14, Pax, 11, Zahara, 10, Shiloh, 9, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 7.
And with so many kids living under one roof, there are sure to be a few hectic moments – but it’s the chaos that Pitt said he loves the most.
“[There’s] a lot of love, a lot of fighting, a lot of refereeing; a lot of teeth-brushing and spilling,” he said. “Chaos, total chaos. But so much fun.”
In fact, Pitt admitted that having a big family has always been a dream of his, and that if it were up to him, he and Jolie Pitt would have even more kids together.
“Listen, Angie and I were aiming for a dozen, but we crapped out after six,” he said with a laugh.
But he revealed that his home life with Jolie Pitt s a far cry from his Baptist upbringing in Springfield Missouri. The oldest of three children, he says his childhood was “never that raucous.”
“[My father was] very, very, tough,” he shared, but added that “he could be a softie.”
And while the actor says he has shed his religious upbringing with “all the Christian guilt about what you can and cannot, should and shouldn’t do,” there are still key lessons he learned that influence the way he parents now.
“One thing my folks always stressed was being capable, doing things for yourself. He was really big on integrity – and that informed a lot of what [we] try to do now,” Pitt explained.
He said he tries not to be over disciplinary, and instead help guide their kids to find their own paths.
“I feel like my job is to show ’em around, help them find what they want to do with their life, put as many things in front of them, and pull them back when they get out of line, so they know who they are,” Pitt noted.
