What Tan France Watches (and Listens to) With His Kids

Tan France loves a good googly eye, and so do his kids. 

“Every birthday,” he says, “the boys ask, ‘Can we get googly eyes?’ They’re obsessed.” 

So obsessed, in fact, that France uses the little wobblers to manipulate his kids come meal time. “When my son is being a pain in the butt and won’t eat,” France says, “I’ll put googly eyes on his plate and it’ll turn the whole thing into a game, like he’ll think he’s eating some other character’s dinner. It’s a godsend.” 

Both of France’s sons seem to appreciate imaginative play over messing around with action figures, something that makes perfect sense given France’s own love for the arts. After rising to prominence as the fashion expert on Netflix’s hit Queer Eye reboot, France has branched out into all things creative, launching a home-furniture collection with Castlery, hosting multiple web series, and acting in the latest season of Deli Boys. It’s a lot, especially considering France is also in the process of moving his family from Utah to New York, but somehow, he’s making it all work.

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Yoto Player

My 5-year-old son is 100 percent better at technology than I am. I don’t even do well with the remote of my TV. We don’t really let them use much tech, but he got something called a Yoto and he could work it right away, even though it’s one of the more advanced, newer ones. I’m sure it’s so simple, but I just watch him using it and think, Gosh, he’s a genius. Like, kids can watch someone do something once and then they’ll know how to do it. It blows my mind.

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Truck Tunes and “Toxic Las Vegas”

All we listen to all day, every day, is Truck Tunes. Well, except for this song called “Toxic Las Vegas,” which is a hybrid of a Britney Spears song and an Elvis Presley song that was in the Elvis movie. My eldest is obsessed with it and does a very funny dance to it. Other than that, though, it’s Truck Tunes.

“Ice Cream Truck” is such a bop. The funny thing is that I used to love Truck Tunes so much, like it was the only kids’ music that my husband and I could tolerate, but after listening to it every day for five years, it’s gotten really frustrating. Those first few weeks or months, though, gosh. It’s some of the best kids’ music around in my opinion. The production value is so impressive.

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The Magic Faraway Tree

I’ve started to try to get them to listen to books when we’re in the car. Do you know Enid Blyton? She’s very British, and she does this classic book series called The Magic Faraway Tree, which is absolutely beautiful. I’ve been playing that in the car and it’s English people reading it, which they find hilarious. Like, they think the accent is ludicrous even though it’s also mine.

In England, The Magic Faraway Tree is one of those books that is kind of mandatory at school. I don’t know what the American version is, but we have classic books like that that you’re expected to read toward the end of primary school or early in middle school.

There’s also a book we’ll do called Peter Rabbit that was mandatory reading when I was a kid. Having my kids read books that are so not American helps me feel like they’re somewhat connected to my roots.

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Ms. Rachel and Handyman Hal

There are a lot of TV shows for kids that, oh my god, I find insufferable. It’s always an adult who’s behaving like a child. I just think that’s not necessary. You can just do what they did back in the day and be an adult who’s teaching kids. So kids’ programming is very difficult for me. 

But we love Ms. Rachel, who I think does a wonderful job. There’s something called Handyman Hal that we like, too. He’s the most tolerable version of “adults talking to kids,” like he’ll talk about construction projects and truck stuff.

That’s the main two things we’ll let them watch. They really want to watch kids playing with toys or adults playing with toys, but we have a hard and fast rule now where we say “Absolutely not,” because we did that for like a week or so and my son then just wanted everything he’d seen. It just encouraged this desire for toys, and we’re really particular about how much we’ll get when it comes to toys. We’d rather they be creative. 

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Building toys

The toys that my sons do have are things they have to put together, like it’s almost build your own adventure. So it’s train tracks, it’s car tracks, it’s towers. That’s what we’re doing with them almost every day. It’s building, building, building. 

We used to do Magna-Tiles, but my youngest is extremely aggressive. He loves to throw them at his brother, and it was causing issues. We had to stop, especially because they’re heavier than most of the other building toys, but my eldest loved them before my youngest came along. 

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Magical potions and wizards

We’ll do stuff out in the garden, too, where they’ll pick flowers to create a potion. They’ll decide what that potion is going to do and what magic it will create. 

Being an entertainer, I think, has really helped me as a parent, because my husband doesn’t get as involved in some play. I don’t think he has the confidence, which I’ve always said, “Who cares if it’s embarrassing? I’m not gonna judge you for how you play a witch or whatever.” 

So I will just lean in. I know that anyone else watching would think, Tan’s insane, because I will play that role as if I’m on a set and I’m trying to get an award for that performance, but my kids absolutely love it. They love that I will be the witch. They love that I will be the wizard. They love that I will play the dog and I will fully embrace that character.

And so when we’re playing outside or even indoors, my son will say, “Okay, now can you be this?” and it’s just like, “Sure, let’s draw a mask on this paper, however you think it should go. I’ll put an elastic band behind it and attach that to my face, and I will play the part of whatever you think that thing should be.” So that’s most of our play: just me and him performing together.