Esai Morales: “Kids Come To The World More Prepared Than We Know”
Audiences first fell in love with Esai Morales in the popular ’80s biopic La Bamba. The 49-year-old actor is now known for his roles on NYPD Blue and Caprica. Esai is starring in the chilling true story of one woman’s fight to get her husband released from the hands of kidnappers in Mexico in We Have Your Husband, set to premiere on Lifetime on Saturday, November 12th at 8pm ET/PT.
Esai opened up to Celebrity Baby Scoop about his new role that will raise awareness for an “ongoing problem” about “social cannibalism,” his thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, his “very willful” 1-year-old daughter Mariana that has taught him “you can’t force any situation,” and his reservations on welcoming a second child. Check out what he has to say in the exclusive interview.
CBS: What’s your best advice to parents?
EM: “Teach your kids to learn by learning yourself. The best and most direct form of this is learning from them directly and thanking them for the lessons that they teach you, because they do teach us. If we allow ourselves to learn, we can do some of the important un-learning that has been done to us.
Kids come to the world more prepared than we know – then we educate them out of their natural genius. They ask, ‘Why,’ and we say, ‘Never mind, I don’t know.’ We get jaded as adults because we don’t want to know! So, I think one of the best responses to ‘Why’ is, ‘Very good questions, I don’t know right now. I’m going to find out and get back to you.’ And actually go and find out why!”
CBS: So what has your daughter Mariana taught you in her short life so far?
EM: “That she will not eat anything I try to give her [laughs]! She is very willful. Her mother knows how to work her. And she has to look at it – she cannot just eat blindly. She has to look at the food and determine if she wants to eat it or not. And I’m like, ‘But you don’t realize this is for you!’ But no, she has to look at it first.
She’s teaching me that you can’t force any situation. Children are children and they can’t be reasoned with the way adults cajole each other. We all agree upon certain rules. But children go beyond that and they are just going to exist in a rhythm of their own. We as parents should learn their rhythm as opposed to conforming them to our expectations. They need to know that there’s a limit to patience and generosity, but at the same time we should not be blind to learning a different way. You would think my kid is starving because my wife is always offering her something, but she just wants to know that it’s there and she’ll have it when she wants it.
Sometimes parents fret because kids aren’t molding quickly enough. It’s tough! But it’s so beautiful to wake up and see this completely innocent face. Just thinking of what dreams are going through their little brains. What could they possibly be thinking of. That kind of stuff makes you think about eternity.”
To find out how fatherhood has changed him or whether he and his wife are having any more kids continue reading at Celebrity Baby Scoop.
