Drew Scott Details "Heartbreaking" Wake-Up Call From 4-Year-Old Son
Drew Scott is sharing how he learned his parenting needed a fixer-upper.
The Property Brothers star—who shares son Parker, 4, and daughter Piper, 2, with wife Linda Phan—detailed how a "heartbreaking" moment with his son ultimately became a wake-up call for him to rethink his approach to his work-life balance.
"I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you run a mile a minute, which I tend to, I think you might relate to this story," Scott shared in a June 23 Instagram video, which was a part of his Blueprint For Life series. "I came home one day and I saw Parker, and I'm like, ‘Hey Parker, give me a hug.' And he sort of ran away. And then he went and picked up one of his toys and held it to his ear. He actually started walking around and going, ‘I'm on a business call.'"
The 48-year-old realized Parker picked up the behavior after watching his dad be on his phone so often.
"It was heartbreaking for me because he just saw me on calls all the time," Scott explained over footage of Parker playing with a phone. "So that was a wake-up for me to not be on my phone when I'm around the kids. To show them that I'm actually present, I'm listening to their questions, I'm answering, I'm playing with them."
As the HGTV star emphasized, the "balance with family is very important," before bringing up an example of how he came home during his lunch break from filming to be able to attend his daughter Piper's music class.
“It's a small thing but for me to be present there, I can see it in Piper's face, she gets excited. And for me, it's heartwarming and I love it," he shared, while a video of the toddler in her class played. "But if I was just to be in my busy, busy work pace, I would do calls over my lunch and I would skip that. Then all of a sudden I would look back years from now and think I missed these crucial points in my baby's life."
Now, after learning this lesson himself, the real estate expert is passing on his advice to his followers.
"Establish what your priorities are," he explained. "Even if you don't have kids, maybe it's nice to spend a bit more time with your parents, maybe it's nice to spend some time with your siblings or your best friends.”
"It's going to feel pretty empty at the end of your career or at the end of your life if you look back and all you did was work," Scott added. "And don't be that person checking your phone when you're hanging out with family."
After the TV personality and his wife of eight years became parents for the first time in May 2022 following a years-long fertility journey, Scott shared how fatherhood made him realize his heart could get even bigger.
"It unlocks a side you didn't know you had," he told Entertainment Tonight in an August 2022 interview. "You think you know. I have this deep love for Linda but then, all of a sudden, that's the shallow pool. I'm not saying shallow with Linda, I love Linda, but there's a whole other depth to Linda and my love together with Parker."
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