"They knew that when we were 18, we were going to need to take care of ourselves," Bryce shared.
Ron Howard is best known for writing and directing the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind, which won both the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards. The well-known filmmaker shares four children — daughter Bryce Dallas Howard, an actress and director, the twins Jocelyn Carlyle and Paige Howard, and their son Reed Cross — with wife Cheryl, his teenage sweetheart, with whom he tied the knot in 1975 following a five-year courtship. When it comes to raising his children with his wife, the well-known filmmaker employs odd but effective methods. To educate his kids on the value of money, Howard just wouldn't hand his kids cash.
Cheryl wanted her children to be raised with distinct principles when they became parents. Howard's parents were modest and hailed from a tiny country town, so his family didn't have much money. In an interview with Graham Bensinger for his show In Depth With Graham Bensinger, the director revealed, that they had a big house and employees at home but didn't live lavishly. Howard later went out of L.A. and moved to a countryside house for a better upbringing of his children with his wife. They took the difficult decision to leave for a better upbringing of the children and to teach them the values of life.
Talking about their strict upbringing, Bryce, the daughter of Howard shared, "My mom was very strict, and she was strict for good reason." She added, "My parents weren't gonna give us their money. They don't believe in that. They knew that when we were 18, we were going to need to take care of ourselves."
The father of four left no stone unturned to teach the children to live a self-dependent life with some important life skills. In an interview, it was revealed that Howard taught his children how to clean live tidy as well. When asked why they decided to leave Los Angeles, the Thirteen Lives director said that they had found it to be "emotionally constricting." The couple also came across tales of kindergarteners fighting over their well-known parents.
Bryce also told Bensinger on the same show that a preschool buddy had given her a screenplay to pass along to her father. Bryce shared, “Being raised in Los Angeles, so much of the culture of the city is centered around the entertainment industry. They didn't want to raise us in an environment that felt that singular.” Howard agreed with his daughter, saying that Cheryl didn't want the kids subjected to that scrutiny regularly. Although the director was growing his business and relocation entailed continual travel, she still felt passionate about it.
The actress also told The Guardian, "My dad is the most humble man on the planet. He never showed us Happy Days or any of his acting roles. But in school holidays we would join him on film sets." They relocated to the East Coast where they resided on a farm surrounded by nature. Bryce said that her mother wished for her children to experience childhoods devoid of affluence. And so the couple together nurtured a family away from the limelight.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bDsr-nA0jA&t=67s&ab_channel=GrahamBensinger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LhjMRFQjqg&ab_channel=GrahamBensinger
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/oct/29/bryce-dallas-howard-the-help-family-values
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Stuart C. Wilson
