David Foster got candid about being a father again in his 70s.
The music executive has five adult daughters from previous relationships and, in 2021, added a sixth child to the family when his wife Katharine McPhee gave birth to his only son, Rennie. Now, he’s opening up about what parenting is like at this stage in his life and how it feels to have a boy after five girls.
“I had all daughters until my son and I love all my daughters immeasurably, but having a son is a little bit different,” Foster, 73, told People.
The Grammy Award-winning composer and producer also said it was different being a dad again in his 70s.
“Not better or worse, just different,” he added. “I still work, I'm still gone a lot, but maybe the time is a little more precious to me because I got more runway behind me than I have ahead of me now.”
He compared raising his five daughters in the past with being the father of a toddler now, saying he was more patient now. He explained that he lacked patience when he was young and “was arrogant and just on the move.”
However, there were advantages to being an older dad.
“I think that I can offer one thing to Rennie even though I won’t be around when he’s 50 or 40 even, or 30 maybe,” Foster said.
What he could give Rennie, he said, was “wisdom” from his 70-plus decades on earth, which he hoped wasn’t such a “a bad trade-off.”
In a previous interview with People, the Canadian musician said it was great being a dad again because he now had more time, unlike before when he was always working and rarely saw his other children.
“I’ll cancel anything just to hang with him,” he said.
Rennie, now almost 2, is Foster’s son with 38-year-old American Idol alum McPhee, whom he met in 2006 when he became her guest mentor in the competition. They got married in 2019.
His five daughters are Allison, 52, Amy, 49, Sara, 41, Erin, 40, and Jordan, 36.
