Penn Badgley knows the many ways that one can be a parent.
The You star, who is married to singer Domino Kirke, shares a 15-year-old stepson, Cassius, with his wife. The couple also have a young son of their own.
Badgley opened up about parenting both in a candid episode of The New York Times’ Modern Love podcast, which was released Wednesday.
“I have an interesting situation where I have a biological son and a stepson,” the Gossip Girl actor said. “And my stepson is ― his father is very much in his life, so his father is his father, and I’m ― I’m something else. So I have two different parental roles.
“And then my biological son is only 3 1/2, so that’s a very different thing too. I’m going to need to be able to more consciously show him my vulnerability as he gets older in those years.”
Badgley is one of a few celebrities who have recently spoken about their experiences not only as a parent, but as a stepparent.
Gwyneth Paltrow, who welcomed two children with singer Chris Martin before their 2016 divorce, became a stepmother in 2018 after marrying producer Brad Falchuk. Falchuck has two kids of his own.
The Goop founder said that she likes to talk about being a stepparent because it’s one of her “biggest learnings as a human being.”
“My area of growth personally came from the initial difficult relationship I had with my stepkids, and now they’re like my kids,” Paltrow said at an event earlier this month. She added that things were “really rough” at first.
“It’s almost like you have to embody the spirit of the sun and just give and not expect anything back,” the Oscar-winning actor explained. “I just learned to try to just keep shining like the sun and never keeping score.”