‘This Is Us’ Star Sterling K. Brown Explained the Mechanics of Sex To His 5-Year-Old
NBC’s critically acclaimed drama, This Is Us, is back for season 5 with Sterling K. Brown and his continued journey as Randall Pearson. He portrays a father of two girls and an adopted daughter on the show. Brown is no stranger to parenting; he has two children of his own and even explained the mechanics of sex to his 5-year-old. Readers might be shocked that the actor went into such details at a young age, but Brown has a unique parenting style.
‘This Is Us’ star Sterling K. Brown’s life is similar to Randall Pearson’s home life
Sterling K. Brown’s life on This Is Us as Randall Pearson is similar to his life outside of work. He has a few things in common with the adopted Pearson brother. Both men are happily married with children and met their wives freshman year of college.
Brown is married to actor Ryan Michelle Bathe. The pair met at Stanford University in 1998 in their undergraduate dorm. They dated on and off in college and then married in 2007. Randall also met his wife, Beth Pearson, during his first year at Carnegie Mellon University.
While Randall has three girls, Brown has two young boys — Andrew Jason Sterling Brown, 9, and Amare Michael Ryan Christian Brown, 5.
Brown explained the mechanics of sex to his 5-year-old
In 2017, Brown sat down with a journalist from the web series A Drink With to share the inspiring story of his first Emmy Award win over a drink. Brown gave details about his night of celebrating after winning Best Supporting Actor for his work in The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. He added that the next morning he had to get up and get his kids to school. In one conversation with his son Andrew, who was five at the time, Brown admitted that he gave him full details about the mechanics of sex.
Andrew had numerous questions about where babies come from because he had watched the movie Storks. So, Brown thought it was best not to hold back.
“I just go straight in and say, ‘They come from sex,'” Brown told his 5-year-old. “And he’s like, ‘What’s sex?’ I said, ‘It’s usually between mommies and daddies. The daddy puts his penis inside the mommy’s vagina and fertilizes the egg, and then nine months later, the baby comes from the mommy’s womb.’ He said, ‘Ew!'”
The actor feels it is important not to lie to his children or sugar-coat anything.
“I figure the easiest way to do it is put it out there,” he explained. “If I make it seem like it’s weird and crazy, then he’ll think it’s weird and crazy. I just ripped the Band-Aid straight off.”
‘This Is Us’ star Brown also believes it’s important to fight in front of your children
“Arguing is part of a relationship,” Brown told Us Weekly. “It’s not the end of a relationship, but don’t go behind closed doors, so they don’t see the reconciliation. Then if they just see fighting and they don’t see the makeup, they think the relationship is about fighting.”
Rather than trying not to fight in front of your children, the This Is Us star believes you should be open so that they know how relationships work.
“The relationship has cycles,” he continued, “and you’ve got to share all of it with them so when they go out into the world, and they’re looking to partner with somebody to share their life, they’re like, ‘Look, we may argue, but we’re going to come back together when it’s all said and done.’ They’ve got to see it all.”
It sounds like Brown is a lot more like Randall on This Is Us than fans ever imagined.
