For five seasons, Steve Schirripa played a wiseguy on the HBO drama “The Sopranos,” but his full-time role these days is playing dad to his two daughters.
His parenting rules, such as “the first rule is I make the rules,” and “‘Because I said so’ are the four greatest words ever put together,” fall within what he describes as “big daddy’s rules,” the subject of his book “Big Daddy’s Rules: Raising Daughters is Tougher Than I Look,” which he promoted Thursday at Bryant Library.
“I wrote ‘Big Daddy’s Rules’ as a love letter to my daughters,” said Schirripa, 55. “I yell and scream a lot, but I wanted to show how I really felt about them.”
The book, which was released last month, outlines Schirripa’s old-school parenting philosophy, borne by the wrath of the wooden spoon his mother chased him around their Brooklyn apartment with, both by his own experiences raising his daughters Bria and Ciara as well as interviews he conducted and his own observations of fatherhood in popular culture.
“You see dads on TV and in movies and he’s a bumbling idiot,” Schirripa said. “He wears black socks, he wears sandals, he can’t do anything right. His wife does everything for him. You’re a dad, get your hands dirty. Get involved with your kids. Know where they’re going, know what they’re doing. I ask a million questions every time. I drive them absolutely crazy and I’m okay with that.”
Schirripa recently finished work on the ABC Family melodrama “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” whose series finale aired June 3, in which he played the father of a sometimes reckless teenage boy, a character he described as “the most patient man I’ve ever thought about in my life.”
“The son got a girl pregnant, the son got drunk in a bar and fell down, the son burned the school down,”Schirripa said. “The son did all these things, and Leo, the guy that I played, was the most patient and understanding man ever. I am nothing like that. That was acting, believe me.”
As his daughters have gotten older, Schirripa said the challenges in raising them evolve from chastising them for being nasty and talking back into protecting them from the risks involved with relationships and partying.
“You get tougher because more things come at you,” Schirripa said. “They’re constantly taking shots at you, they’re constantly pushing. As they get older, it gets more challenging, but if you start when they’re 14, you’re dead. So if they’re seven and eight, you’d better start right now and install what you feel is the right way. You can’t let them run wild and then one day it stops.”
Though Schirripa said he thinks boys would be easier to raise than girls, his parenting style would not have changed if he was raising a pair of Steve Jr.’s.
“I think girls are much smarter and they’re cunning and conniving and they manipulate you and bat their eyelashes, but with a boy, you give him a ball and two Legos and he’s fascinated,” Schirripa said. “I have friends that treat it different, where they’re a little more liberal and the boys can stay out later and the boys can bring girls over, not a chance. I would not allow that. Not for me.”
From 2000-2007, Schirripa played Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri on “The Sopranos,” brother-in-law to one of television’s most iconic fathers, Tony Soprano. The time he spent around “Sopranos” creator David Chase and co-star James Gandolfini, who played Tony, gave Schirripa the opportunity to psychoanalyze the character who spent much of the series being psychoanalyzed himself.
“I think [Tony] was a good dad but not necessarily a good man,” Schirripa said. “He loved his kids, but had a hard way of showing it. He takes his daughter to visit college and he’s killing people. He cheated on his wife and the kids knew it. It was very contradictory.”
Schirripa did not allow his daughters to watch “The Sopranos” while it was on the air because they were too young at the time, he said, adding that he is relieved they have not expressed an interest in watching it now that they’re older.
“One of my daughters saw a clip of me getting shot on TV, and she saw it and cried,” Schirripa said. “And I mean really cried.”
Some of the research Schirripa compiled for “Big Daddy’s Rules,” he said, came directly from the experiences of some of the kids his daughters grew up with an the parents who raised them.
“Some of my daughters’ friends, the kids yell at their mom and curse at their mom, one of the kids smacked their mother,” Schirripa said. “I would never in a million years allow my daughter to get out of line like that or be that disrespectful, not just to me but to anybody. And they haven’t been.”
Schirripa said he and his wife Laura instilled their beliefs in their daughters at a young age, teaching them to be respectful to all people, especially toward mom and dad.
“The one thing I tell my kids, and I tell them all the time, is I’m your father, I’m not your friend,” Schirripa said. “But I’m the best friend you’re ever going to have because no one’s going to care about you the way I care about you.”
Though big daddy can be strict at times, Schirripa said he has been known to “give in” and is never at peace unless he’s with his family.
“I don’t like all kids, but I like my kids,” Schirripa said. “They’re funny, they’re respectful, they’re great kids. They’re not perfect, but neither am I. I don’t care if they’re the best athlete, I don’t care if they’re the smartest kid in school. I just want them to be good people and be safe. I honestly think if they’re good people and they’re respectful, it’s all going to work out.”
