The Biggest Rock Star Flex Is Bringing Your Kids Onstage

As far as stereotypes go, rock stars aren’t supposed to be good parents. But there they were all summer—music’s biggest superstars, performing on stage at some of the season’s biggest concerts next to their kids.

Jennifer Lopez performed “A Thousand Years” as a duet with her child Emme at Dodger Stadium. Dave Grohl invited his daughter Violet to sing “Show Me How” with the Foo Fighters at their show at Glastonbury Festival, as she does on their album. P!nk sang her single “Cover Me in Sunshine” with her daughter Willow during opening night of her Summer Carnival tour. And then there’s Beyoncé, whose 11-year-old daughter Blue Ivy made a surprise cameo dancing alongside her mother at the “Renaissance” tour in Paris in May, and has been making appearances ever since.

Forget sex. Forget drugs. It’s the era of the family-friendly rock star.

Gavin Rossdale, the laid-back leader of the English rock band Bush, is known for touring with his kids Kingston, 17, Zuma, 15, and Apollo, 9. Zuma joined him onstage in Cleveland, playing guitar to a crowd of 15,000 people.

“I’ve got the pictures of it. I’m over backwards holding a note, and he’s playing and not even looking at me. He’s way too cool,” Rossdale said. For him, having his kids on the road with him adds to the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, rather than detracting from it.

“I don’t think [bringing your kids on tour] really infers that people don’t have an adventurous and fun life,” he said. “It’s not at the cost of that.”

Having a family—and bringing them on the road—was once seen as antithetical to the subversive and hard-partying rock-star image. “I think we’ve softened, and that’s a good thing,” Rossdale said.

Chris Carrabba, who heads up the emo project Dashboard Confessional, decided his son Caden was old enough to play drums onstage when he was 13. The singer-songwriter was careful to wait until he could “navigate the world a little bit more independently.”

“I’m lucky enough that we share that interest and passion,” he said. In mid-August, Caden joined Carrabba onstage once again at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, where he received a standing ovation.

While Carrabba believes people are still drawn to the idea of rock stars being dangerous, he thinks a lot of fans are just looking for themselves in music stars, too. “You either want the musicians you look up to have lives like yours or lives totally different from yours,” he said.

There’s a relatability factor to showing up onstage with a child, said Glenn Altschuler, the Litwin professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

“I’m not persuaded that bringing your kids with you on the road and having them as part of the show is necessarily a sign of greater wholesomeness,” he said. “It’s a different way of connecting with an audience.”

For women artists who are mothers, the move toward bringing kids on the road has been especially striking.

“It’s a reflection of how gender roles have changed over the years—the expectation of a mom to be at home versus building a career, whether it’s as an artist or as an executive,” said Veronica Sanjines, general manager of Arista Records. “So much of that has shifted, and it’s more about including kids into your life versus changing your whole life for your kids.”

Rachel Platten, a singer-songwriter who has two daughters, was inspired by the many musician-moms bringing their kids on tour and making it work. After having her first child, she got back on the road relatively quickly.

“I think I could have waited like a year, but I was so determined to not let it change me because of the fear that I had from that old-school thinking of like, ‘you can only have one or the other,’” she said. Her recent song “Girls” is an homage to how those two identities—artist and mother—can co-exist.

Shenandoah Davis, CEO and co-founder of Adventure Nannies, a company that matches nannies with traveling families, said that more acts are “trying to figure out how they can make it more sustainable for their family.” Most often, she said, that means bringing everyone on the road with them.

“We have also seen it changing the ways that the bands will book shows,” she said. “People are spreading out dates a little bit more and spending two or three nights in the city because the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of sleeping on a bus in the middle of the night or staying out until 5 a.m. is not possible when you have a toddler or a newborn.”

Singer-songwriter Pebe Sebert, whose own daughter is pop star Kesha, said there are limits to who can actually tour this way. “I think [you would need] the budget for friends, nannies and teachers when you were too busy to take your kids out and show them around the city,” she said.

But she noted that touring has become much more of a “family-friendly atmosphere,” as musicians have come to prioritize health and wellness on the road over hard partying. “Most of the tours that I’ve ever been around, including my daughter, have been PG,” she said. “People really have rigid schedules and have to be on time and have to be prepared to sing and play.”

Could these musicians be paving the way for the next generation of stars?

Rossdale said his eldest son, Kingston, might pursue a music career. He’s all for it. “When your kid finds a passion, you support it with no pressure,” he said.

Both of Carrabba’s children have aspirations to play music professionally. They’re writing music, making demos and playing shows, he said. “I’d like to see them just be kids a lot longer, but then again their hunger for creativity is incredibly youthful,” Carrabba said.