Brantley Gilbert on Parenting: ‘Every Day Something Changes’

Brantley Gilbert and his wife, Amber, both became first-time parents when they welcomed son Barrett into their family last November. Although the new parents did plenty of research ahead of time, Gilbert says a lot of parenting is just learning as you go.

“My wife read a lot of the what to expect books and she kind of clued me in here and there,” Gilbert says. “But really I kind of went into it as open minded as possible, not trying to think I knew too much about it too soon. And I’ve kind of approached it from that angle. And for me, that’s helped a lot because it’s a learning process and every day something changes. He’s four months; he’s learning how to do something different every day. He’s been rolling around, he’s been grabbing stuff and he’s been smiling and all that for a minute. You just never know what he’s gonna do next. He pulled himself up the other day with my fingers. But he’s stout as an ox.”

Gilbert says the proud parents realize that they will figure it out as they go, and try to go easy on themselves.

“It’s all a learning process,” Gilbert adds. “And my wife says the same thing. She read all the books and we still have a lot of questions for the pediatrician. Every time you go in, ‘Are we doing this right? Are we doing this wrong?’ I feel like the whole thing’s a curve ball. It’s a moving target. You’re always learning.”

Gilbert sadly lost a lot of Barrett’s baby’s items, when his bus caught fire earlier this month.

“The bus is done,” Gilbert says. “We had it built with [Barrett] in mind coming, and we had just finished all the baby aspects of the bus and got it just perfect. And everything that I own that fit me is burned, a couple guitars, documents, letters, notes, pictures, all the baby stuff that was on there. It’s not so much like, ‘Awww, your bus burned down.’ It’s more like, ‘Man, my house burned down.’”

Gilbert will continue his The Ones That Like Me Tour on April 19. A list of all of Gilbert’s upcoming shows can be found on his website.