Matthew McConaughey Shockingly Knew He Wanted To Be a Dad at the Age of 8

Matthew McConaughey opened up last week about his experiences as a father and how long he’d wanted kids. Spoiler: a long time.

Matthew McConaughey has always seen fathers as figures to be respected.

In last Wednesday’s episode of Beyond The Influence Radio with Tim McGraw on Apple Music Country, McConaughey spoke with country singer Tim McGraw about why he wanted to be a father so badly as a child. He began by explaining the respect for others his father cultivated in him as a child, saying, “For me, it was the motivation to continue, but hopefully be able to maybe evolve and improve it. It was when I was eight years old is when it hit me. I wanted to be a father. I remember what it was. My dad was a ‘sirs,’ and ‘ma’ams’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ man, and he would introduce me to his friends.

He then realized what he was actually meant to respect about his father’s friends. He continued, “I’m eight years old looking up to them and shaking their hands saying, ‘Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you, sir. Nice to meet you, sir.’ At that moment, I had already shaken many of his friends hands through years, but at that moment in my eight year old mind, what went through my mind is, ‘Oh, the common denominator about all these men that I’m saying ‘sir’ to is that they’re fathers. That’s why they’re a ‘sir.”

From that moment foreward, Matther McConaughey knew he wanted to be a father too, as that was what “success” was to him. He finished my explaining, “I remember in my eight year old mind going, ‘That’s when you’ve made it. That’s when you become a sir. That’s what success is. It hit me then, and it’s never left me as the paramount example of what being a sir or being the greatest success you can be as a man.”

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Matthew McConaughey has been a father for over a decade now, but he still has things to learn from his kids.

McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves McConaughey, have three children, sons Levi, 12, Livingston, 8, and daughter Vida, 11. In December of last year, Vida joined her father on Amy Jo Martin‘s podcast Why Not Now? While their, the girl revealed the big thing she thinks her father should work on.

She said he could be more “Trusting, I guess, when you correct us. A lot of times you’ll correct us and then you’ll come back and you explain why you corrected us. But usually, we’re just like…”

“‘We got it the first time,'” Matthew McConaughey finished, to which his daughter replied, “Yeah.”