Michael J. Fox on parenting and Parkinson’s disease
For well-known actor Michael J. Fox, being a parent comes before all of his performances. I’ve been married to Tracy Pollan for more than thirty years, and we have four kids together. Fox said in a lighthearted interview with Reader’s Digest that there are moments when it feels like five.
“Always be available to your kids,” Fox advises, highlighting the need of being there for his children. When you say, “Give me five minutes, please,” it will actually take fifteen or twenty minutes. And whatever lesson they were trying to impart on you will have been forgotten by the time you get there.
In 1991, Fox received a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. He expressed gratitude to his children for their resilience and empathy. He frequently discusses his closeness to them on Instagram. “Our children are beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, empathetic, independent, compassionate, adventurous, lovely people,” he wrote to Pollan on Mother’s Day in 2022. You are to blame for that.
Fox has two sons: Sam, the eldest, is employed in entertainment, and Aquinnah and Schuyler work in media and education. His youngest child, Esmé, studies at Duke University. Over $2 billion has been raised by Fox for Parkinson’s research.
