Yahoo Finance Thomas Rhett Is Absolutely Sure He and Lauren Akins Will Adopt Again: '100% on Our Brains'
As Thomas Rhett and Lauren Akins get used to being a family of six, country music's favorite couple find themselves looking back on the days when it was just the two of them.
Well, sort of.
"Lauren was with me on the tour bus with nine other dudes," laughs Thomas Rhett, 31, during a recent interview that touched on the early days of a blockbuster career that now includes No. 1 hits such as "Die a Happy Man," "Country Again" and "Remember You Young." "It felt like we were never going to get out of that, you know? I wake up now and we have four children and so much has changed."
Indeed, the Grammy Awards nominee and his wife are now parents to four adorable daughters: Willa Gray, 6, Ada James, 4, Lennon Love, 22 months, and their newest arrival, baby girl Lillie Carolina.
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Yet, during a Zoom interview promoting the upcoming release of his sixth studio album Where We Started, the dad of four admits that it just might be time to slow things down a bit in the baby-making department.
Lauren Akins/Instagram
"We're definitely going to take a small break from trying to have babies right now," admits Thomas Rhett, whose new album has him collaborating with everyone from Katy Perry to Russell Dickerson to Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard. "I think right now, with four under 6, I think Lauren and I were really honest with each other, and we were just like, 'Let's take a pause for four or five years and kind of get the hang of what this is going to look like.' "
And what life looks like at the moment in the bustling Akins household just might not be as crazy as one might think.
"When Lillie was born, I think minus the lack of sleep, not a whole lot changed."
"Two to three was definitely harder than three to four," Thomas Rhett laughs of the transition that comes when one adds another human to the household. "I don't really know how that math adds up, but it's the truth. Walker Hayes told me one time that anything after four is just … more kids. And I said, there's no way that that's possible, but I'm starting to understand that that's true."
Luckily, the older kids in the household have been a big help to their sleep-deprived parents.
"I could literally put Lillie in Willa Gray's arms and be like, 'Are you good for five minutes?' " explains the singer, adding that Ada James is also a big help around the house. "And she'd be like, 'Yeah, I'm good.' She'll feed her a bottle."
The only one of the Akins children having a bit of trouble with all this change is Lennon Love.
"Lennon is still a bit jealous," the artist admits. "I would say that is the hardest part, that she's not the baby anymore."
Nevertheless, Thomas Rhett wouldn't want life to look any other way.
"I was thinking about that the other day," he says. "Like literally, what if my life had gone in a different direction and I'd never met [Lauren] or never married her or had these babies."
Life sure wouldn't be as much fun, that's for sure.
"It is amazing getting to live in a house with so many children," he laughs. "You know, they say stuff that's just hilarious or they do things to melt your heart. Our older kids are in such a rhythm with school and how life works here at the house. And they all help out and they beg to hold Lillie every day."
It may come as no surprise, then, that the couple is seriously considering adopting another child somewhere down the line.
"Adoption is a hundred percent on our brains," says Thomas Rhett, who adopted Willa Gray from Uganda in 2017. "In the next four to five years, we would love to do that. And Willa Gray talks about it all the time. It's been put on our hearts very heavily to do that again. We just don't really know when."
The singer lets out a laugh.
"After having four, I'm like, well, 'How bad could it be with six?' " says Thomas Rhett. "We'll see what happens in the next five or six years."
No matter what the future holds, the country artist says the most important thing for him is to be the best husband and father he can be.
"I want to make sure that as my kids get older, that they know they were always chosen first, over career and whatever," he says. "That's just the kind of dad that I want to be."
