Jason Kelce was a rare breed when he retired from the NFL following the 2023 season. Drafted as a 6th-round pick in 2011, he took over the starting center job as a rookie. After an injury midway through the 2015 season cost him four games, he went on to start an impressive 135-game ironman streak in the regular season and playoffs. One would think that after a run like that, he’d take it easy in retirement. But that has not been the case.
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Kelce is now embracing all the other non-football aspects of his personality. He’s a pundit on ESPN, he hosts a podcast with his brother, Travis, and he started his own online late-night TV show this year as well. However, his most important post-football job is as a father to his brood of three (soon to be four) children.
Jason and wife Kylie announced in November that they are expecting their 4th child (and 4th girl). Little baby Kelce will follow Wyatt, 5, Elliotte, 3, and Bennett, who was born in February 2023. With so many youngsters running around him for the past half-decade, Jason is ready to impart some pearls of parenting wisdom to the rest of the world.
The future Hall of Famer talked about how parenting partners should bring different strengths to the kid’s table on an episode of Fitz & Whit.
“Not a chance [I’m not better than Kylie at anything in parenting]. The only thing I’m better at is, I think I mess with the kids more. I bully them. It’s not even to toughen them up. I think Kylie is such a loving figure—I think it’s important for kids to not feel like they’re that loved. They need to be kicked a little bit. (Laughs) “
Clearly, Kelce is a fan of the tough love style of parenting. While that might seem harsh, the caveat that his wife is “such a loving figure” means that his kids are experiencing the best of both worlds in a way.
After talking about the pros and cons of maintaining the Tooth Fairy lie with podcast hosts Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth, Kelce also came out with a nugget even better than “you don’t want your kids to feel too loved”: you should lie to your kids.
“I’ve gone on record on this, I think it’s important to lie to kids… I grew up thinking my dad knew everything. And then you get to an age and you’re like, ‘Oh my dad was a moron.’ He was just filling me with—some of it very good, great dad—but some of it you realize later that he doesn’t have everything figured out like I thought he did,” Jason recalled before sharing his own approach as a father.
“So I go out of my way to lie over frivolous things. There’s no chance that it’s true I’m just seeing what I can get away with,” added the former center.
Jason and his wife Kylie’s brood are all under the age of five, so how well his unorthodox parenting strategies work remains to be seen. However, if Kelce is as fun with his kids as he is on TV or with fans, there’s no doubt they’re having a blast with their dad on a regular basis.
The white lies will do for now, but surely, he can’t wait until they hit 21 so he can start shotgunning beers with his little ladies. That’s real father-daughter bonding.
