Parenting & Family Quote by Todd English

Todd English is selling a parenting philosophy as much as a kitchen credo: make cooking feel like air, not homework. The line knows exactly what era it’s speaking to one where children’s lives are aggressively structured, optimized, and branded, and where “family dinner” can start to sound like a moral mandate. His move is to lower the temperature. Don’t convert your kid into a mini-chef; build a household where cooking is simply what happens.

The intent is pragmatic: proximity beats pressure. “Be around it” and “keep them informed” frames culinary skill less as instruction and more as osmosis. That’s not a sentimental claim; it’s a tactical one. Kids learn what matters by watching what adults repeat with ease, not what adults lecture with intensity. English’s real argument is about autonomy: passion can’t be installed like an app. It’s contagious or it’s nothing.

The subtext is a quiet rebuttal to performative parenting. “Relay my passion” sounds gentle, but it also reveals a self-awareness: he’s a celebrity chef, surrounded by the temptation to make his identity the family’s curriculum. Instead, he emphasizes conversation and exposure, a way to share without conscripting. The rebel clause lands like hard-won experience, acknowledging the central paradox of raising kids: the moment you turn a good thing into an expectation, you poison it.

Contextually, coming from a public food figure, it’s also brand-savvy humility. He’s signaling that the goal isn’t to produce prodigies; it’s to normalize competence and pleasure in the kitchen. That’s a quieter, more sustainable kind of influence.