Sarah Michelle Geller and Freddie Prinze Jr. have been together for 27 years and married for 22 years. They have two children, Charlotte, 15, and Rocky, 12. Sarah and Freddie are a low-key couple and hands-on parents. As we talked about the other day, summertime’s here, and that introduces a whole new set of challenges for parents. Sarah and Freddie are no different! Both of their kids have a lot going on this summer. Thanks to all of Charlotte and Rocky’s many activities and social engagements, the Prinze parents are currently feeling like they are in their Chauffeur Era.
Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar know exactly what their two kids are doing this summer, and it’s a “tough battle.” The couple, who married in 2002, share a daughter, Charlotte, 15, and a son, Rocky, 12. Both kids have hectic social schedules, particularly in the summer when school isn’t there to take up a portion of the day.
“You get a little unbalanced because a lot of kids’ friends are on vacation, or they go to camp at someplace else, or they’re busy with camp locally, so you are more present,” he tells PEOPLE of summer parenting. “They’re not running away from you as much. Like, ‘Dad, can you take me here? Can you take me there? Can I see this guy? Can I see that girl?’ We try to keep our kids pretty active. You’re definitely more necessary, and you might feel like a chauffeur, and that’s a normal feeling for a parent to go through, but you’re definitely more necessary in the summer.”
The key to it all, Prinze, 49, says, is patience, which he says is his wife’s parenting superpower.
“The practicing of patience in the face of teenage power is a tough battle. It’s like All Might versus whatever horrible villain he was facing in My Hero Academia, that level of difficulty,” Prinze says, referring to the popular anime series. “Patience, I think, is the ultimate power, and if you don’t have it, it’s a muscle you have to work out. So, definitely put the time in because it will help you win all the arguments.”
While Gellar, 48, is a natural at patience, it wasn’t something the I Know What You Did Last Summer actor mastered early on.
“I had to learn it more than I was born with it. Sarah was better with it initially,” he acknowledges. “Patience was something I learned and got better at over time, like anything else.”
One thing the Scooby-Doo star has always been good at, though, is cooking. As the chef of the house (who even has his own cookbook), he finds himself often cooking painstaking high-end meals for his kids.
“They have a lot of different requests, man. French onion soup is a big one. We make that from scratch,” he tells PEOPLE. “I got a creamless tomato soup that my mom taught me how to make back in the day that they really like, but these are all things that take a long ass time to cook. So, all their favorite stuff takes hours to make properly. They like when I make New Mexico green chili chicken enchiladas. I’m like, ‘Yo, that’s six hours over the stove. Are you kidding me right now?’ But that’s what they like, so that’s what they get.”
He admits that the children do enjoy a simple grilled cheese sandwich, but adds that they prefer to pair it “with the soup that takes me an hour.”
Charlotte is 15 years old, which means she is almost old enough to get her driver’s license. It’s totally a rite of passage for parents to start to feel the toll of driving their kids everywhere in the year or so before their eldest can drive, right? I bet Sarah and Freddie are starting to feel that itch. My parents were very overprotective, and even they got to a point where they couldn’t wait for me to be able to drive myself to my various activities. My kids are still close enough in age that they are doing camps and meeting up with friends in the same locations. That will all change next summer, but I am enjoying how uncomplicated their activities schedules are this year.
Also, I somehow missed that Freddie is a master chef with his own cookbook! It’s pretty endearing that he’s so into cooking that he’s willing to spend that much time cooking for his family. I don’t love cooking, but I also don’t mind doing it. (Anything is tolerable if you can do it while listening to a good podcast!) My food love language is bread and cheese, so I would totally give his French onion soup and grilled cheese recipes a shot.
photos credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images, Getty and via Instagram
I came away really liking him after this interview. He seems like both a good person and an intentional parent. And I love that he has good things to say about his wife.
Do we know why he gave an interview? They are very private so it doesn’t seem like he would chat unless he had something to promote.
I believe he is in the upcoming I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot. It comes out next Friday.
He is!! When I saw him and then Jennifer Love Hewitt in the trailer before Jurassic World I gasped! My kids had no idea what was going on.
Sarah Michelle and Freddie are the Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon for the Xennials and I will stand by this statement.
My husband and I are chauffeurs every summer, for about 13 years now. My husband lost his patience with our daughter the other day, because she wouldn’t leave the community pool on time. She wanted to stay with her friends, whom she has 6 more weeks to see every day at the camp there. He told her he wasn’t her chauffeur! I just laughed when he told me about it later, and said, you know the only thing we get done in the summer is drive kids around.
Buffy is a big re-watch show for me.
And in my 20s i LOVED their live action Scooby Doo – it is hysterical still.
And they do seem like decent people and good parents. And happy, and well matched.
I like the balance they strike with privacy for their kids and showing us/social media a little of their life.
I have not seen the first I know what you did last summer in years.
May have to dust that off and have a re-watch.
Though i admit when i see SMG in other roles (like Cici in Scream 2) i can’t help but be like: Come on Buffy, Kick Ghostface’s ass!!!
I checked his cookbook out of the library once and I liked it a lot.
It’s filled with recipes that seem pretty healthy and tasty.
What’s endearing about the book is how he scatters personal information in there about his life. You definitely feel like you get a real sense of him as a person. And it’s all linked as part of his cooking.
For example he talks about attending culinary school as a back up to acting because of his mom’s input. He talks about cooking for cast and crew on some of his movies and he works in some anecdotes. I love the parts where he talks about cooking with his kids and how working together makes it easier for them to talk about what’s going on in their lives.
It’s really a pretty charming book and he comes across as a very likeable guy.