The Funny Kid Becomes the Dad: How We’re Raised with Kenan Thompson

really shaped the whole trip. It overlooked the mountain tops, and there was this sweet little porch where I could sit in the morning and drink my coffee. If you were following me during

that time on Instagram, you saw me post from that exact location. Also, there was just this incredible

coffee machine that somehow made my morning routine feel intact, even across the ocean. And I was also just able to get sunshine before a full day of conversations. All those quiet moments in the morning, they grounded me. Oh, and this touch I just loved was I got three bars of Swiss chocolate left by my host, and I can confirm they were all gone by the end of my three-day stay. When I travel, I don't just want a place to sleep. I want a place to land, a living room where

I can decompress in a space where I can do bedtime over FaceTime and feel at home when I'm away from home.

“That's why I booked homes on Airbnb. It helped me find places that feel grounding, not just convenient,”

because when where you stay, feels good, everything else feels a little better, too. One of the biggest kind of ironic situations that a lot of comics are dark people, but I want to be a light person. You know what I mean? I want to be a person that provides joy, but also has joy. And what are we going to do? If we want to dwell on, you know, negativity's like I would much rather try to spin towards the light.

Here's something I think about a lot. The roles we play as kids. The funny one, the responsible one, the easy one, these roles don't just disappear and we grow up. They often become the traits the world sees us as or rewards us for. And when all this happens early enough, they can shape how we move through every room we enter. My guest today, someone a lot of us feel like we grew up with. Keenan Thompson started performing as a kid in Atlanta and became a household name on Nickelodeon

shows like all that and Keenan and Cal. Today, he's the longest serving cast member in history of Saturday Night Live. For decades now, he's been the person who can walk into a scene and make it funnier. Later, but what interests me most isn't just that Keenan is funny. He's also incredibly steady in an industry that's known for chewing people up, especially people who start young. Keenan has built a career defined by consistency, generosity, and longevity. And he's also

the dad of two daughters, which means he's in a very different role now. Not just performing for a room, but shaping the environment his kids grow up inside. Today, we're continuing a series called How We're Raised. Conversations about the homes we grew up in and how those early experiences shape the way we live, lead, and time today. This isn't about celebrity or comedy. It's about the kid underneath the performer. The roles we learned early, the gifts those roles gave us, and sometimes

the pressure that came with them. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is good inside. I'm so glad you're here.

I mean, I feel like second kids are in a little more like wild and free of like a lot of the

pressures of being like a first-born child and just like that first-born child for some reason just

“has the mentality of like I have to get it all right basically. I mean, I think like a second”

child is somewhat free of that a little bit. And kind of got a little bit of a cheat code within older siblings to be able to just kind of like either ask questions or watch an observed and learn a lot faster and kind of take or leave the pressure a little bit and be a little bit of the tension breaker, honestly, because you have that perspective where it's like why are you guys arguing what happened, you know like okay they didn't read one assignment like is it worth

all this like anger and stress like I remember kind of being in that position when it wasn't my fault it's just like all right well you know let's all just kind of you know figure out a way to turn this energy in another kind of way or something or try to tell a joke but you know at a young age you don't really you know overly identify with what's happening necessarily you just kind of want everybody to feel better. So yeah I remember kind of just been witnesses to you know tensions

and wanting to break it basically were send it in another direction. So zoom out or just maybe zoom

“back before we come back here. So one of the things I think a lot about in families and why I love”

working with parents and kids is I think about a family a lot as a system yeah and I feel like within a system we all act individually but we're all really impacted by the system we're in and we can take on roles and we kind of with our siblings like we'll see what's left over, we'll pick up what's left over. So if I if I go back you're identity is someone who I don't know how you would describe it. Is it is funny seeks humor creates humor can find a nuanced in a moment when

of TV early because we're cable generation kids so same yeah we grew up watching you know movies

over and over and over again because I mean latch keyish you know kind of just being in one place where you know parents kind of know your safer whatever you know TV was a companion so what do you watch pretty much in those days it was coming to America's and trading places and things like that but like also like spies like us and ghost clusters and a lot of SNL people's work in general

“basically because I think those are the main kind of comedy you know powerhouses they were actually”

you know putting movies out like spies like us I don't think you know no names could have gotten that done just because it's such a crazy story it was just like us story but you know since it was you know chasing acroite it got done kind of thing so yeah it started early you know and my we used to take road trips because my parents are from you know Virginia and we grew up in Atlanta so to pass the time this is before anything you know kind of electronic was concerned like yet maybe

what was it like scene say or something like what was the most low five digital thing back in the day those road trips were long and boring yeah I mean and we used to just quote coming to America

back and forth and white first yeah exactly yes it is my birthday yeah from from moment one

“and so did you was it then we like all my brothers were kind of funny or like no I kind of had a”

snack for the moment and I kind of was one making a run-off I've been a both like my dad for sure my dad's a joke teller my mother side of the family were like country people they were out in the woods kind of thing and they stayed in the house at night when like once a summer down there dark out there so it's like five o'clock still you know so that so many hours in the night and we're all just gathered around the kind of like the stove to keep everybody warm

who's gonna entertain us you know not these three channels that they have on TV someone's got to be kind of like that you know the the party person like my dad had that personality so it was nice to be able to relate to that and also not necessarily have to be that kind of thing and then

“yeah me and my brother just had this bond of you know our senses of humor being very very similar like”

what we were struck by in those movies were very similar yeah did did your sense of humor being funny is that and ever anything that you feel like worked against you only in times where I was naive to how other people were taking it you know like I was I've been you know kind of confidently naive and you know certain circumstances where it works in my favorite like auditioning for things and not being afraid to you know throw a joke out there and then you know pretty much

just assume people gonna laugh at it kind of thing you know this is a word assumed that I was coming across in a charming kind of fashion or anything like that like I was very kind of naively confident like that in that sense but I wasn't necessarily too aware of in normal settings that someone might be like getting annoyed by this or you know I'm being you know pestering them in some sort of way like once I started going on a tangent I couldn't tell if it was annoying

until I actually would have a reaction you know this I didn't know where the finish line was until that person behind it kind of thing and yeah it was usually a negative response that was the teacher

basically so we kind of know what your Saturday nights look like but your Sunday your weekend

and ordinary Tuesday give me a sense yeah I mean I'm all about like chasing the family around you know when I'm not working that's just like that's my happy place there's known what the little ones are up to so busy you know I want to be around him as much as possible basically you're not that little right well yeah no there's seven and eleven now and it is going way too fast like I just had a two week break and I can't believe it's over already and what is yeah what is let's say a Sunday in your house

there kids like yeah I mean New York is such a good place to live just be out based on so we go to dinners or we go to you know museums ice cream museum the other day was a lot of fun what might people maybe expect of you as a father based on at least the version of you they know you know from TV or maybe what might someone not expect I mean I guess like people don't see me in like the disciplinary role because they don't know me like that you know what I mean but you know

I'm a father so like I have to you know show where the boundaries really are kind of thing you

them so I think that's one of the more surprising things you know when I'm just like straight

“straight face dad over kind of thing or whatever but you know we still have a good time”

do you think about that especially in the context of I don't know raising kids with fame around them like the boundaries matter that much more that they've tried to try to try and to avoid that what classic entitlement around that yeah I mean in the beginning like when they were when they were young I was very you know kind of territorial around you know picture taken and stuff like that you know out in public or whatever and then

they got to a point where they kind of were just like dad won't you just take the picture kind of thing so like once they felt fine about it you know it didn't bother me as much because I just wanted to protect you know they're childhood you know you only get you know you're one child who had kind of things so I wanted my time together to kind of be pure of that if you will kind of

thing and just have it be as normal as possible like you know at home I'm just dad basically as

opposed to like you know keen and tech it's so funny when people call me by my first in last name I'm like you don't know me very well you know like no one just like calls their friend by their first in last name yep it's a it's a pretty like immediate indicator that you're a stranger yeah and I remember you went from keen and then kale to keen and Thompson you know called keen and people used to call me keen and then kale people used to call me kale people

people call me tracing Morgan a lot like people call me a lot of different things and then once people started like calling my last name I was like oh wow I'm really out here basically you know all of the people call me my whole Instagram handle on the street doctor Becky I couldn't decide I'm okay okay all right thank you thank you yeah and I'll take a quick picture but yeah

“but I'm thinking for what you do you know one of the things I think about a lot is”

something I call porousness like how porous are we to our environment how much do we notice things and take it in versus how much are we kind of a little more self focused and one's not better than the other they both kind of matter but being attentive to your audience wanting to get their reaction versus really kind of paying attention to your own mind of thought and like allowing a kind of a pause to not totally throw you I'm trying I'm trying to think where

you are in that spectrum because I'd imagine both matters in a line of work you can't be totally taken by the audience's immediate reaction but you're probably also then you kind of track it

yeah and before us and then I think I was always like well that's not my responsibility you know

like I didn't write this you know or whatever I'm just kind of just doing whatever someone else asked me to so yeah if it's revenue wrong you know it's not on me like I think we all apologize together kind of thing or whatever and then that's when you know that relationship between you know Carlos finds this real basically because it's like oh no they want you to write and they want you to write well not just the people at the show the audience you know I mean this

is an audience there's people out there that have watched every single show you know I mean and you have the audacity to come in and try to present what you think is funny but good luck with that because it's a pressure cooker and it's also everybody's dream job is doing comedy or voices or sketch you know I mean there's a lot of people that want to be an opposition kind of so it's not like you can just assume everybody's gonna let you figure it out

for the sake of being fair you know I mean I got very lucky but I was able I think to service the shows in other ways while I figured out the writing part of it all thank God so yeah no it's it's intense yeah people have described you as kind of calm and flappable is that something that you voted I get flappable you got your flappable oh okay we're gonna now describe you as flappable yeah yeah I get flappable I get very concerned you know like what's the hardest part of your job for you

it's funny myself I was just reading my something myself said he's like the most annoying part of the show is coming up with the next funny thing doing comedy as far as comedy is concerned on that part of my job that is I think the hardest thing is just to constantly find new things you know it's tough when you have success does that does that kind of I don't make the stakes it can feel like you can make the stakes even higher for the next time

“yeah because it's like now you have to validate this success but it's like the success was the”

validation in the first place and people missed that part you know because they're like all right well let me just re-establish and we're next but then on the next one and it's like

you're kind of competing with an infinity mirror like you'll never see the the point where you're

from people if you will so you take the success at the moment you know I mean and then remove I guess the pressures for the next one and then the success on the next one starts with you how do you feel about you know I mean did you enjoy that skills that you put up in blah blah blah and like you can't lie to yourself even like yeah I'm the one that liked it with the room in life like that's not a success you know I mean like can't be not even that way

but you can kind of let the finish line be with yourself if you will parents makes so many decisions every day what's for dinner where are the shoes did anyone brush their teeth

it feels like it never stops so anytime something small can become a fun routine instead of a

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check in if your brain feels like it's holding everyone's schedule except your own

you're not doing it wrong you're carrying a lot I see this all the time school emails activities chores dinner plans and somehow it all lives in one person's head usually moms and that gets exhausting that's why I love skylight calendar it's a smart touch screen calendar that takes everything swirling around in your brain schedules chores meals grocery lists and puts it in one place where the whole family can actually see it and participate it sinks with Google Apple Outlook all of it

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for a full refund no questions asked right now you can get thirty dollars off a 15 inch skylight calendar at my skylight dot com slash Becky that's m y s k y l i g h t dot com slash Becky something I talked parents a lot about is we have to gaze out in the world and notice something I did how did it land and how did my boss think about my project or whatever it is

“but we live in a world now where I think we gaze out at the complete absence of gaysing in”

like gaysing in like did I like it yeah that doesn't mean you get about self right that's not the whole truth either but without that you you completely completely lose yourself yes because you're starting with your sense of humor or your idea or what you think is humor is about any given specific subject matter you know I mean so why leave yourself out of it at the end you know right it's like no it's like keep yourself kind of involved it's not necessarily about you

but your instincts your taste you know I mean is a large part of this you know and you shouldn't like gloss over that just for the sake of trying to please the audience if you will that's right I guess I'm picturing a circle of kind of what I think is funny no one really cares what I think is funny oh come on of course and then the other circles like what the audience thinks is funny and obviously kind of success probably happens up you know that the intersection but it is something

“that happens and it's not just in comedy I think it's with sports with anything we start to”

do as a performance is we start to have success because we do have something inside of us that taste the unique perspective and it has an overlap with an audience but if we completely lose that focus internally and we start to just focus on externally yeah I think we drive ourselves into the ground and I don't know a just an example of it going that way you know I mean when everybody starts micro focusing on everyone else except for themselves right you know what I mean yeah you just it's unfair

to yourself and I think at some point subconsciously you start to acknowledge that like like hello I would love to be acknowledged in this whole thing like everybody else is feeling good about something

and I didn't even get a chance to like really understand why or just have a moment you know what I mean

“like when we did electric shoes I got a DM from someone showing me their mute autistic child”

singing along to it just humming it you know and humming the notes and like they were like in Chick-fil-A or something and then like he watches this every day you know what I mean and it brings him so much joy this is kind of the only time he makes noise if you will and it's like that's just our silly little idea you know I mean like bringing so much light into you know these people's lives basically so that was when it's like all right that's the power of what we're

doing here basically so don't let that like other side you know bring you too far down because the upside is so high like being you know a gift to others is such a high thing to be involved with in my opinion has has comedy taught you how to deal with failure maybe failure I don't love that word it feels so final but struggle something not landing I thought that was going to go

“well turns out it didn't I think comedy but like also like you know being in the business or like”

working young you know kind of taught me that you know there's always more opportunities you know

I mean so I don't necessarily have to wallow and failure too much like okay I failed there you know but here comes another opportunity where it's like you might succeed on this you know based on what you learn from this previous situation or whatever if you can look back at failures without too much emotion and try to find a lesson in it yeah not a lesson in everything you know I mean sometimes a lesson is that I wasn't funny but you know if you can find tools for the

next kind of thing it's great and as to know especially as another kind of like don't dwell on this one specific show there's another show coming opportunity will continue

to come you know as the sun rises kind of thing so yeah yeah yeah it's definitely helped with

not wallowing is that perspective helpful in your parenting with your kids yeah absolutely especially trying to convey that message you know and I guess there's no better example than by leading by example so like all right if you need an example look at what I do you know I mean like I've done so many different kinds of projects not every one of them is great but if I dwell on the fact that I did a bad one I wouldn't have been able to do a good one

following behind it you know I mean like yeah Peter cotton tail is not going to be the same as trolls but we try the hardest you know and do our best each time and things turn out to it not to say that Peter cotton tail was bad it's just it's just different you know I mean and success wise it's like night and day you know like trolls is a ginormous global thing kind of

“thing and Peter cotton tail I think was on DVD you know so very specific kind of audience but”

we have to be careful how you look at your successes and failures and stuff like that not micro focus on either one of them and just trying to continue building and continue being creative and continue servicing as long as it is servicing both yourself and the honest it you know just like yeah we're preaching to acquire you know with this kind of like balance talk in life but that's really what it is and so many different ways it really is yeah when your daughters are

upset or having a hard moment what shows up for you panic and also like wow you know I mean like okay because I'm not I guess over I'm not a big choir so to see tears come from it was like yo like why was that like let's pull back and like stop the tears please by by any means you know there's a kind of thing and get to a place where we can discuss the differences between what you would like to have happen and what you know a parent's discipline you know should allow to happen

kind of thing and just find a little ground without showing much crime but not necessarily diminishing you know them going there emotionally and like it's a reminder of me like we're all human you know mean like I should maybe I should allow myself to be more emotional but you know I've been blessed you know not a very emotional or you're an emotional kid for you know not really I mean I'm just kind of like even killed like yes I get you know more like upset angry wise about things

when they don't you know when they I guess it's a sad thing because like I'm such a logical thinker anything sad makes me mad so you know I try to like not get so temperament to kind of like

alright well that happened and like what are we gonna do like we're gonna move figure out ways to move

“forward or we're gonna like dwell on you know negativities like I would much rather try to”

spin towards the light you know if if possible like not necessarily not few of the moments you know but I don't want it yeah I don't want to engage in sadness you know I don't engage in you know being angry I don't want to engage in another I want to engage in the good times like I do comedy for you know yes it's the toughest thing in the world and it's one of the biggest kind of ironic situations that a lot of comics are dark people but I want to be a light person you know

I mean I want to be a person that provides joy but also has joy yeah are there things you want to do differently as a dad for your girls then what was true in your childhood yeah we used to get weapons man you know so start there we've already been doing that like very like no hands you know hands off of everyone feet to yourself kind of thing you know and then use your words if you will that's that's for if you will have to stop it but yeah that's kind of the approach these days

and it's a huge one because I mean there's arguments for you know being straightened out dramatically unfortunately but you you feel me but at the same time like no we can we could definitely raise children without switches and belts and you know spanking some stuff like that whatever and you know there's plenty of cases to prove it so like why not go that route and like yes you may have to have a little more patience or say things a little more often or be a little

more on top of situations when they do arise but that's your responsibility. Are you proud of yourself for that? I am very you know for being open to learning that approach you know and not just doing everything that you know I was raised around not to say that it was a negative but it was just you know probably my parents raised ten times worse than that kind of thing you know and just gets less and less as the generations go on or as generations learn or evolve whatever it is

but yeah I'm very proud of myself for that approach because it's just more loving you know it's just it's warmer and it's you know I feel like it's a closer knit bonding experience to kind of go through the the rights and wrongs of raising a child or raising a child to see right and wrong.

“What role maybe now maybe when your kids are younger did children's books play in your home?”

I mean I feel like they go hand in hand which I would like there's nothing better than things that are for you for your world and that's kind of what you know kids books you know kind of glowing the dark toys anything you know just felt very much for me in my time. And what prompted

unfunny bunny? unfunny bunny came from wanting to do always kind of wanting to do a kids book

when I did my first memoir book I was like well I want to make a book you know for readers that would be fun but along that journey I learned about kind of my colleagues all had done memoirs and the kids you know and it's such a fun space and the titles were so good like you know this book has no pictures and you know there's a monster at the end of this book and a lot of blinds I was like this is such a fun world and I had such a good time growing up in an environment where it was like kids rule kind of

“thing that's what like the Nickelodeon kind of overall theme was and it's like this is our world kind of”

yeah and what you hope the book does between parents and kids when they read it. This sort of thing you know let's all put a key here put a you know maybe we're you're at your lake house where you're sitting by a fire and it's a Christmas tree or you're in the you know in the car or you're on a train you know just any sort of time passing together is you know my my main goal with that. But you're also doing something powerful on your body movements like children's book has a way of literally

bring a kid and a parent together like you're in a lab there's touching there's closeness it's like

this is our moment I always love the conversations that happened after I read a book because I

think even with this one to have it is what they're you've told jokes publicly or not we all take risks we all try something you know it doesn't go the way we want such a nice opportunity to share a moment you did that with your kid I always find kids are amazed to hear the stories of us when

I was caught and every time I tell that to my kid they're like what yeah because we forget that we're

“so capable like we put on our shoes well yeah we pour milk without spilling like generally”

spilled milk in years you know I'm giving this credit for that but our kids see that and they're like oh you are

amazing and it's really hard to learn anything from someone who seems like an expert in anything like

if I do want to get better at comedy no fence like I'm not calling you like you're just not my first call I'm like you're you've made it like I'm not learning cooking from a professional chef and we're so good at so many things that we don't even realize to our kids that to have a book where there's a little bit of a struggle and share your own moment after I just and also find out who your kids are

“you know because we always see them as little people they see themselves just as themselves”

so when you get a little glimpse of like who they really are with their personalities are kind of

and they just come out in certain preferences and things like that it's fascinating yeah it really is because they stay true to it like the things that they like they like and they don't like it it'll be a pattern of like anything in that world I don't like it like how many times I'll have to tell you like I don't like that and it's like okay you are your own person you know who you are yes right here's something I keep thinking about after talking

with Kenan parenting is so hard there's so many moments that are heavy and things that live in our brain we have to figure out and problems we have to work through and sometimes there are more opportunities to introduce humor than we realize sometimes we can laugh sometimes we can add a silly move sometimes we can read a book that brings a smile to our face with our kid and sometimes that moment of humor is the

exact thing we need to kind of break tension I know I'll be thinking about that before we go I want to zoom out for a moment this conversation is part of a series we're calling how we're raised where we explore how the homes we grew up and shaped the way we show up as adults and leaders and parents every couple of weeks will be bringing you another conversation like this one every day in the good and side community parents are having honest conversations like this

exploring the things they inherited and the things they're trying to change I encourage you to check it out at goodinside.com if this interview resonated with you let us know if there's someone who's story you'd be curious to hear in the series we'd love to know that too you can reach

out to us at [email protected] now let's end the way we always do place your feet on the ground

and to hand on your heart and let's remind ourselves even as we struggle on the outside we remain good inside I'll see you soon

“before we wrap up I want to name something important needing help doesn't mean you're failing”

it means you're human parenting and caregiving takes so much and none of us are meant to do it alone care.com makes it easier to find trusted background check support whether that's care for your kids before or after school help activities or even support for an aging parent right now you can use the code good 35 to save 35% on a care.com premium membership because when you have support you don't just get relief you get more space to show up as yourself