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How American Values Shaped Fox Funnyman's Life

SIMPLE AMERICAN VALUES
Tom, 50, grew up in Norwood, Massachusetts in a large Irish Catholic family in the 1970s.  He says on July Fourth and Memorial Day, his family would watch the veterans march in yearly parades.  “We waved American flags and saluted the soldiers as they walked by,” says Tom.  “There may have been protests about all kinds of things happening on faraway college campuses, we didn’t hear much about them.”  He says the secret to his childhood was in the contrasts.  They were surrounded by the art and music of the peace movement.  Their family drove around in a Volkswagen bus with a Nixon/Agnew bumper sticker on the back.  “Somehow my mother managed to embrace the hippie aesthetic of the 1970s without succumbing to its worldview,” he says.  So as they looked as if they were a collective commune, they were actually headed to church together.  “I might have grown up in the 70s,” says Tom.  “But I was raised by the 50s.”  

“My dad was like Darth Vader,” says Tom.  “We never misbehaved because we were afraid to.”  When Tom started skipping church to attend David Bowie concerts and dyed his hair orange, his parents weren’t concerned.  “They were disciplinarians until I was about 12,” says Tom.  “Then they let me find my way.”  He says he believes they felt a sense that they had done their job as parents and weren’t worried about him.  “I had my radical teen years, then I came back to those conservative values.” Tom recalls everyone being tougher back then.  “Dad was tough but my mom was tough, too,” he says.  “She would make us fight back against the bullies.”  He says kids seemed to turn out better back then and there seemed to be a lot more respect.

HELICOPTER PARENTS
Tom spent years trying to break into show business.  “Those years were frustrating,” says Tom. “And there were a lot of false starts.”  Currently Tom sings in the most well-known barbershop quartet in history, The Rag Time Gals.  They have performed with Justin Timberlake, Kevin Spacey, Steve Carrel and Sting.  Their videos have been watched 50 million times on YouTube.  “Nothing really happened for me until I got married,” says Tom.  It was the love of a great woman and the responsibility of raising children that gave him the focus he needed to put his career into motion.  He had been working as a comedian, but not with any kind of momentum until he had a family.  “It was that change in my life that changed everything for me.”  He was the opening act for Jim Gaffigan, The King of Clean Comedy and performed in 46 of the 50 states.  He gave that up for his own nightly show on the Fox News Channel.

Raising a family in New York City is different than how Tom grew up.  While his kids go to the park, Tom tries not to hover, or be a helicopter parent.  Instead he tries to be more of a “golf-cart security guard.”  “I circle the perimeter but stay out of the way,” he says.  “We let them go a little way into the woods to explore and pretend without any interference or assistance.”  If there happens to be a little neighborhood rumbling, Tom is the parent who tells the kids, “Work it out!” He’s known as the “work-it-out-guy.” “I try to teach my kids the same values that I learned as a kid,” says Tom.  When his daughter, Agnes, was 5, she was playing with a little boy whose dad was with Tom.  He heard Agnes say, “Bang!” and she was pointing her fingers, gun-style, at the boy.  He returned fire, “Bang!” he said.  The other dad jerked his head up so quickly, he almost dropped his phone, and yelled, “I told you, no guns.”  Agnes walked up to the dad showing him her hand on both sides.  “See? It’s not real.”

“If I parented exactly like my own parents,” jokes Tom, “Child Services would probably come a-knocking.”  So in order to avoid being judged by the touch-feely modern parents, Tom learned to speak their language.  Sometimes, the Shillue style seeps out.  “I’m proud of how I’m raising my kids,” he says.  “Some of the things may sound old-fashioned or out of step, but they work.”  Tom attends church in NYC with his family.

Mentioned in the Video

Guest Info

Guests
Credits

Fox News Host

Comedian and storyteller

Member of Rag Time Gals, a barbershop quartet that regularly appears on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and whose videos have more than 50 million views

Host, Red Eye with Tom Shillue on FoxNews

Married, 2 children

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