Parenting Panel with Timothy Knight

For Timothy Knight, songwriting has always been a way of saying the things that can be difficult to say out loud. For more than four decades, he kept much of that writing private, filling poems, lyrics and stories with the experiences, regrets, fears and hopes that shaped his life. Fatherhood changed that perspective, bringing with it a new kind of vulnerability and an overwhelming desire to become a better man for his son, Pierce.

Now, with Pierce approaching his sixteenth birthday, Knight can see how deeply that journey has informed both his life and his music. His songs explore the quieter battles that often go unspoken, particularly the emotional realities of being a man and a father.

His track “Best of Me”, written for Pierce, perhaps captures that most directly: a deeply personal promise to pass on the best parts of himself, while accepting the mistakes and struggles that came before. Here, Knight talks openly about fatherhood, creativity, vulnerability and why sometimes the most important thing a parent can do is simply let their child live.

How many children do you have? And what are their names and ages?

I have one son, Pierce, who is almost 16. Somehow I blinked and went from worrying about keeping a tiny human alive to watching him become his own person. And I’m incredibly proud of the young man he’s becoming. So apparently I accidentally got at a couple things right.

Did you have fears or concerns about how becoming a parent would interfere with your artistic endeavors?

I never really worried about parenthood interfering with music, other than him having to hear criticism about me or my music. Turns out all of his friends think I’ll “chill”, I guess that’s good? I was much more terrified of parenthood itself.

I’ve written music, poetry and stories for most of my life, and I’ve always written best during the harder, darker periods. Becoming a father gave me an entirely new collection of things to worry about. How am I going to screw this up? Am I going to fail him? Can I protect him? Can I give him a better start than I had?

Oddly enough, all of that created more music, not less. But he also gave me something I hadn’t written about nearly as much before: the good stuff. Hope, purpose and a reason to keep going when life got ugly.

In what ways has parenthood helped your creativity, if any?

The good, bad and ugly of parenthood is pretty incredible creative material.

It forces you to discover things about yourself you probably would have preferred to leave undiscovered. Fear, anger, vulnerability, protectiveness, regret, and occasionally the realization that you have absolutely no idea what the hell you’re doing. Zero.

For me, it also created this overwhelming desire to become better. Not perfect. That was never an option for me. Just better than I was yesterday. A lot of my music comes from that struggle.

What has parenthood taught you about yourself, your music, or your creative process?

It taught me how afraid I was of failing someone I loved that much. It taught me you can’t run from that fear, or think it will finally go away, it doesn’t. But it also showed me how much more fight I had left in me when something mattered more than I did.

I think that eventually became an important part of my music. There aren’t enough conversations about the emotional side of being a dad. We’re often expected to provide, protect, discipline, prepare them for the world and somehow always know what to do. Meanwhile, we’re scared to death, always conflicted, and often loneliness underneath all of that.

I write about those silent battles quite mostly. Men and fathers aren’t always rocks. We’re trying to pull through, we’re afraid, we feel the weight of the world, and sometimes we have absolutely no clue what we’re doing. I think we’d all be a little better off admitting we’re in tough place sometimes.

How do you juggle your family and your career? Who’s your support system?

I was lucky. Pierce’s mother has always encouraged creativity, vulnerability and allowing him to be himself. I traveled a lot during most of our marriage and it was tough for her to feel like a single mom, a lot. She never complained and was always supportive of my career and adventures. Pierce is very lucky to have the mother he does. 

Today, I personally have a very small group of people, whom I’ve known for most of my life. We talk daily. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been able to say, “I have no idea what to do here,” or “I’m pretty sure I’m screwing this up,” and know I’m going to get an honest answer. Sometimes more honest than I was hoping for.

I think men especially need that. We’re notoriously bad at admitting when we’re struggling because we don’t want to burden anyone. Having people in my life with whom I don’t have to pretend I have everything figured out has probably saved my ass more times than they realize.

What’s one thing you wish someone had told you before you became a parent? Any advice for others?

Forgive yourself ahead of time. There is no parenting manual, there is no perfect parent, and you are absolutely going to screw something up. Your kids will see the weight and burdens you carry, without you knowing. Be ok with screwing up, teaches them it’s ok for them too.

Savor little moments, the little quick ones you didn’t anticipate. Live in them for a second, take the mental photograph and appreciate it.

Show up. Be present. Love them with little personal acts and gestures, not just words. Give them structure. Talk to them about the uncomfortable things long before you think you need to. My parents didn’t talk to me about anything, nothing… emotions, internal conflicts, sex, sexuality, god forbid we talked about feelings, nothing. That was my generation. I talk to my son about everything! Nothing is off limits. Always have, and it’s paid off. He knows dad lived it too, it builds credibility. Plus it’s fun to embarrass him!

Most importantly… let them live.

I think sometimes we love our kids so much that we become risk managers instead of parents. We try to prevent every disappointment, mistake and bad decision. Especially now that my son is a teenager, sometimes I actually want him to do something mildly stupid. Go have an adventure. Break a rule. Get your heart broken. Get in a little trouble. Learn something. Have fun! You’ll survive. 

My job isn’t to remove life from his path. It’s to prepare him to handle it.

Two very practical pieces of advice: don’t be afraid of germs, let them get sick early and then they won’t be endlessly sick later on. Thank me later. When they’re babies, be loud when they’re sleeping. Trust me they’ll sleep through it, and adapt quick! We made all the noise in the world from day one. Pierce has always been able to sleep through absolutely anything, including apparently every alarm ever invented. So maybe don’t follow all of my advice.

Do your children inspire / inform your music?

Absolutely. In fact, Pierce is a big part of why people hear my music at all.

He was going through some things, and I kept telling him that it was okay to be vulnerable, that everybody struggles, and that he wasn’t alone. Eventually I realized I couldn’t keep telling him to be courageous enough to show people who he really was while I kept decades of my own writing hidden away. That felt a little hypocritical.

So I started putting it out there.

That became bigger than music for me. Someday, long after I’m gone, I want him to be able to look back and say, “My dad put himself out there. He wasn’t afraid to let people see the scars.”

If one of those songs also reaches somebody fighting their own quiet battle and makes them feel a little less alone, that’s enough for me. I never really needed the attention. I just wanted the songs to matter to somebody.

Have you ever written a song for or about your kids? If so please share a description and a link.

Yes. I wrote a song for Pierce called “Best of Me,” and it remains one of the most personal things I’ve ever written.

It came from some of the darkest periods of my life and the realization that this kid had given me a reason to fight incredibly hard to become a better man. The title really says what I wanted for him: whatever mistakes I’ve made, whatever damage I’ve carried, I wanted to give him the best parts of me.

Now that he’s almost 16, I can actually see some of those parts showing up in him. His heart, his humor, his resilience, his independence. There’s something incredibly humbling about looking at your child and realizing maybe you didn’t screw this parenting thing up quite as badly as you thought.

More than anything, the song is my promise that wherever his life takes him, I’ll always be in his corner.

Listen to “Best of Me” here:

About Timothy Knight

Timothy Knight has been writing about his life for over 40 years. For most of that time, the poems, lyrics and stories stayed private. Music became somewhere to put the things he couldn’t always say out loud.

The people he still misses. Apologies never made or made too late. Fatherhood. Regret. Anxiety. Depression. Addiction. The need for validation. And the darker thoughts that come when living hurts more than you know how to explain.

Knight finds beauty in sadness. He writes about the things we’re scared to talk about, ashamed to say and sometimes don’t even want to admit to ourselves.

Musically, that can mean a haunting vocal over a single piano or acoustic guitar, or massive riffs, sweeping orchestras and choirs. Power ballads sit beside darker, heavier rock. The music can get big, sometimes very big, but the reason for it rarely changes.

It’s still about what people carry.

“Men feel a lot more than we admit. We just get very good at not talking about it.”

There aren’t many heroes or villains in Timothy Knight songs. Just people fighting wars inside themselves nobody around them can see.

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