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Robert De Niro has seven children. The 80-year-old actor recently had a new baby, Gia Virginia Chen De Niro, with his girlfriend Tiffany Chen. In a new interview, he’s opened up about parenthood and the differences between having a kid when you’re young and then when you’re older.
In an interview with The Guardian, De Niro admitted that while he loves being a father, parenthood is always tough. “It doesn’t get easier…It is what it is. It’s OK,” he said. He reveals that his girlfriend does the heavy lifting with his newborn daughter and that they also have help. “I mean, I don’t do the heavy lifting,” he said. “I’m there, I support my girlfriend. But she does the work. And we have help, which is so important.”
When asked about the differences between being a parent now and being one in the past, he said that everything is different for him. “With a baby it’s different [than] with my 11-year-old. My adult children. My grandchildren. It’s all different….I don’t talk to the adult children the way I talk to my baby or the way I speak to my 11-year-old, though she’s pretty smart,” he said.
De Niro also discussed his own age, and how things have changed the older that he gets. “You think more about time. Every summer, every new season, everything, you say, ‘Well, I’m going to use these few months of the summer to be with my kids, my family.’ I can’t wait until the next—I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “So each thing becomes more important. Everything I do, time-wise, is important.”
De Niro’s children are Drena, 52, Raphael, 46, Julian, 27, Aaron, 27, Elliot, 24, Helen, 11, and Gia.