My Dad’s an ageing musician AMA

[12FreeRangeEggs]

Dad is an internationally famous musician. AMA (apart from who he is)

I see him from time to time. I live in UK now, we moved back a year ago. I thought i would see more if him but i have seen him once in that year. Now i have my own family and am happy he lets me be, so to speak. DCs love him when they see him because he is a very likeable fun person but that isn’t often.

Pressed post too quickly......So did you tell people What your dad did once you settled back in the uk I meant to add

Dad is technically still playing...

Was/is he a heart throb, did you have people befriend you to meet him?

Ohhh is he very well off? When will he retire? Did you go to private school in this country?

Do your children understand who he is?

Nobody i have met since moving back to UK knows who my Dad is. I am quite a shy person and i neither inherited his musical talent nor mum’s good looks. For the last 20 years i have made a point of hardly telling anybody. When i do eventually tell me it is uncomfortable.

The worst is when someone i hardly know - say a boyfriend of an old friend makes a public announcement about dad being who he is. I think that a lot of people expect me to be like him and be cool but i am not. I have casual friends who i have known for a few years who don’t know who Dad actually is.

School run, back in a tic...

It all sounds a bit difficult for you. Do you wish he just had a 'normal' job?

Do you see any benefit of his wealth? If I was a millionaire rock star I’d like to think I would buy houses for my children etc.

Was your mum a model? ( just curious about rockstar model cliché)
We’re you born in the US?
Did you go back to theUS after growing up in he English countryside ( because you said you have only been back a year)
Do your dc know your dad is famous.
Did he go on to have more children / more wives
Did your mum remarry / if so what sort of person did she marry ( wondering if it is completely opposite to rockstar husband, eg a farmer)

Are any of your siblings in showbiz or have they got normal jobs?
Did he give you away at your wedding?

Do you have siblings/ half siblings and if so did they experience the same upbringing you did or do you have quite different experiences? (Lots of biographies of famous peoples' children I've read seem to have various half brothers and sisters who all seem to have had very different upbringings).

Your description of you makes me think of Saffy from Ab Fab - I'll bet you're not really plain and not talented .... most people have talents and are attractive in different ways

How old are you? Is your dad English?

My eldest children's father (my EXH) is a musician. He wasn't famous while we were married, but he's seemingly headed that way now. They have a stable home life with me and my now DH, but see their father 2-3 times a year and it's fairly obvious to everyone that he prioritises his career and lifestyle over them. They're 7 and 8.

Do you have any advice for them? Or advice for me to be able to help them have an easier time with it all?

Is he a rock star?

Do you like him?

You say he's charming etc, but even if you love him as your Dad do you think he's a nice person?

How much of his personality has been shaped by his fame?

Sorry if that sounds a bit rude but I was aquatinted with someone who had a famous mother. Their relationship wasn't great (love yes, but like, not much I'd say) and she said as "lovely" as her mother appeared to be it was very much a public persona and in private was a real "diva" who expected family and friends to accommodate a lot of rude/entitled and erratic behaviour over the years.

Benefits to his wealth - some, obviously. DH and i bought our own house and i have never borrowed money from Dad. DH is wealthy enough in his own right, though obviously not on the scale of Dad. Dad is generous and sporadically buys gifts. Some are amazing. He doesn’t know the exact date of my birthday but remembers the month and most years he sends / brings me something. We stay in his houses whenever we want, though there are often other people we don’t know / vaguely know also staying there. DH finds found that wierd so now we have DCs we have stopped doing that.

I’m glad you had a wonderful mum.

Dad is English.

I was born outside UK, don’t want to say where. DH’s job means we have lived overseas a few times.

DCs know that Grandpa is in a band but it means little to them and nobody asks kids what their grandparents do, rather they are asked what their parents do instead so they have yet to face any barrage of questions AFAIK.

DH and i married alone for other reasons, unrelated to Dad.

I am the last of Dad’s kids, that we know of. I always feared that a half sibling would turn up one day and be “just like Dad”; charismatic, talented etc but that hasn’t happened...yet.

Advice - gosh. Not sure what to say. It isn’t something you choose, you are born into it. I think some people forget that.

I would advise they avoid telling people who their father is, they need to learn to have their own lives without expectation cast on to them and their achievements. But inevitably people will find out. I was a child in the 80s when the paparazzi were not as ferocious as they are now, unless i was with Dad I wasn’t bothered at all. I think times are different now. Obviously having a famous parent is a great springboard if you want it, look at Brooklyn Beckham.

Don’t want to reveal too much...I have a half sibling/s we are not in touch. I don’t think that their relationships with Dad are any better than mine.

I love Dad. I had a fab childhood. Mum was amazing. Dad is Dad, mum never bad mouthed him to me, i think he was a good husband a lot of the time. The fame and the individual are two different things.

I am very happy with my life. But i have always disliked the expectations that people have of me because of who my father is.

Mum has not remarried but has dated a variety of men. Some are surprisingly similar to Dad. I guess she has a type.

Yes people have befriended me because of who Dad is.

As a kid i remember being invited to kids parties and not knowing the birthday kid. Now i realise that the parents of these kids were bods in the music industry who probably wanted to befriend Dad.

Is there an unexpected upside to having a famous father?
Something besides the obvious.

Hard to say what is unexpected or not. DH is usually the best gauge for normality versus wierdness in my life. I have always been told that if i need anything i can call one of Dad’s people. I have never abused this but one time we were on a weekend break in another country and i had my bag stolen. I contacted one of Dad’s people and within a short amount of time a local fixer turned up, some strange guy i had never met, and he completly sorted me out - gave me a wad of cash, a new phone, dealt with the police report for me etc. DH found that experience bizarre.

And free tickets to events is a definite upside but probably not that unexpected!