Craig Melvin is a pretty proud pop!
The TODAY anchor is featured on the June cover of Parents magazine alongside his wife, Fox Sports reporter Lindsay Czarniak, and children Delano, 7, and Sybil, 4.
"I’m surprised at the kind of dad I’ve become," he told Parents. "I’m not very strict. It’s easier to manipulate me than I would have expected. I’m quite mushy.”
Though the pandemic has kept the Melvin-Czarniak family close to home, the dad of two revealed a sweet silver living of spending so much time together.
"We love our children, but we learned that we really like them, too," he said. "They’re funny."
"We’re all doing the very best we can, and most of the things we obsess about aren’t even the things our kids will remember."
There's one topic Melvin isn't joking about when it comes to his role as a dad.
"Just the other day, while Del was watching TV, he suddenly said, 'Oh, Dad, I have Black skin. I’m Black! And Sibby is white, just like Mom'," the anchor shared, noting that while they may have different skin tones, the world will see both his children as Black. "Growing up, my mother went out of her way to make sure that we didn’t look at the color of someone’s skin first. She wanted her kids to assimilate, and that helped me in my life. But I also learned that when you get out in the world, you realize that most people don’t have the same view."
Melvin shared that having kids of his own changed how he thought about his own dad, Lawrence, who struggled with alcoholism during Melvin's childhood.
“I’m proud knowing where he was with his struggles and where he is now," he shared, adding that Lawrence, now sober, regularly uses FaceTime to chat with Del and Sybil.
His own father-son relationship was the impetus of Melvin's book, "Pops: Learning to Be a Son and Father," which debuts on June 15.
"Writing this book was cheaper than therapy," he shared. "I spent hours interviewing my dad, which was deeply cathartic. His response to the book was my chief concern, and he said that it was accurate. He blessed it."
When asked what he'd like to remind fellow fathers, Melvin shared, "We’re all doing the very best we can, and most of the things we obsess about aren’t even the things our kids will remember."
And despite his multiple roles at the network with TODAY, MSNBC Live and Dateline, he added that his favorite job is dad.
"When I get home and both kids and Lindsay are there and I get the 'Daddy!' and the leg grab or the hug and the kiss," Melvin said. "It never gets old."
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