cool dads – Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka say their 15-year-old twins, Gideon and Harper, see them as “cool” dads—while describing the very specific rhythms of parenting high schoolers and the question of who actually teaches them to drive.
Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka didn’t have to wait long for the answer.
At the 2026 Tony Awards, the couple sat down for an interview with E! News and asked a simple question: do their kids think they’re cool? Harris smiled and delivered his verdict—“I think so.”
Burtka was equally confident. “I’m told from [their] other friends that they like us. We’re the cool dads,” he added, as the conversation shifted from celebrity polish to the lived-in details of family life.
Harris and Burtka’s twins, Gideon and Harper, are 15 years old. The pair welcomed their children via surrogacy in 2010, and they spoke openly about what fatherhood looks like right now: not the early years of constant caretaking, but a stage where independence is the default.
Harris described the kids as “high school teenagers” who are “super fun, super independent.” Burtka put it more plainly. “They really don’t necessarily want you there, but you need to be there if they fall,” he said.
Both men also pointed to how much work they’ve put into their parenting—and the payoff of watching their children grow. Harris praised his husband’s “amazing parenting. ” then added that “We both worked really hard to. you know. give them opportunity. and it’s so fun to watch what they do… They’re amazing kids. We love them.”.
That balance—distance and devotion—comes through again when the interview turns to the future. Asked whether Gideon and Harper might follow in their famous fathers’ footsteps, Harris and Burtka said they “wouldn’t be surprised.”
But Harris offered a more cautious take on acting as a path. He said he “wouldn’t encourage that necessarily. ” pointing to his “single path of starting as an actor young” as “really unique.” What he does hope for is education first: “I think they’ll probably be actor adjacent. I hope that they… go to college and actually study it and then perform.”.
Driving, meanwhile, is its own mini plotline. Harris revealed that neither of their children is especially keen on learning right now. “They’re New Yorkers. so they take the subway everywhere or Uber. ” he said. before adding that their household is leaning into modern mobility: “We’re getting into the [self-driving] Waymo car world. So I don’t even know if they’re gonna have to ever touch a steering wheel.”.
Burtka sounded less certain about the timeline. “I think this summer we might get them in the car around the driveway,” he said.
Even the humor in the house is part of the parenting story. Harris said the twins have “really. really great senses of humor. ” and he laughed as he described the way the laughter works in practice. “They laugh at our jokes sometimes, which feels like a win. It’s probably just more performance on their part. They’ll laugh at our jokes so they can ask to get money for a matcha. But I’ll take it. Any laughs I can get,” he joked.
Harris and Burtka have been together since 2004. tied the knot in 2014. and have been raising Gideon and Harper as they move through their “high school teenager” chapter—cool dads. occasional referees for the falls. and. for now. not the ones who might actually get their kids behind a steering wheel.
Neil Patrick Harris David Burtka cool dads Gideon Harper twins parenting 2026 Tony Awards surrogacy Waymo