Sterling K. Brown and Ryan Michelle Bathé Reveal the 2 Times They Broke Their Own Parenting Rules (Exclusive)
The couple is parents to sons Amaré, 8, and Andrew, 12
Mike Coppola/Getty
Sterling K. Brown and Ryan Michelle BatheSterling K. Brown and wife Ryan Michelle Bathé agree that they have to let their kids decide who they want to be.
As the couple gears up to launch their new podcast, We Don't Always Agree, they tell PEOPLE about a few parenting rules they set in place before welcoming their two sons Amaré, 8, and Andrew, 12 — and the couple of times the parents broke them.
"There's this idea I think that both of us agree on, most of the time, is that they're not to be molded into versions of us. That they kind of are who they are when they come to you," Brown shares with PEOPLE. "And we're just trying to shepherd them to become the best version of who they already are, right?"
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The proud dad then shares when his wife strayed away from this idea. "Ryan tried to make [our son] into a dancer for a hot second. He's a very good dancer, a very good dancer," he begins. "And he looked around in ballet class and he's like, 'I'm the only dude. I'm out.'"
Bathé chimes in, sharing that she has no regrets from the scenario, because, "It was so cute."
"Okay, can I just get a little shameless plug for my baby?" she says, explaining, "They put him in a little bow tie for the final performance and they put him in the middle because it was all the girls, and they did all of this little choreography around him and he looked so handsome."
The proud mom adds, "It was so sweet, and he was so good. He was like the best... He plays soccer now."
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Bathé also tells PEOPLE why "a lot of things" the couple agreed on as parents were set in place before their kids came.
"A lot of things about parenting we got settled and agreed on before the children came, so whatever big issues we may or may not have had, we had hashed them out," she shares. Because of this, "There were not a lot of surprises in terms of, 'Oh, this is the kind of parent Sterling is,' or, 'This is the kind of parent Ryan is.' I had no idea she was going to be so lackadaisical. I had no idea he was going to be the fun guy."
One thing the parents didn't initially agree on was the consequences for their kids and Bathé explains how Brown's actions with Andrew helped them settle their dispute.
"So he used to put my baby outside," she says. "We used to have this door and it wasn't outside, outside, so we had a little backyard area, and he would close the door and be like, 'When you're ready to come in and be with the family, you can.'"
She continues, recalling the discussion around this type of punishment with her husband. "Andrew would just freak out. I was like, 'This is trouble.' And so he was like, 'Okay, I'll find another way.' I was like, 'Please find another way. Do not put this baby outside.'"
"That's why he doesn't like spiders to this day. That's probably why," she jokes.
Brown adds, "Yeah. It was like a timeout. He wasn't behaving in the house so I was like, 'If you can't behave in my house, go outside.'"
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