Kit Harington’s Most Honest Quotes About Parenting, Raising His Son With Rose Leslie: We’re a ‘Unit’

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Kit Harington's Most Honest Quotes About Parenting, Raising His Son With Rose Leslie: We're a 'Unit'

From Westeros to the nursery! After Kit Harington and Rose Leslie met on the set of Game of Thrones, they sparked a real-life love story before eventually welcoming their first child.

“They have had a baby boy and are very, very happy,” a rep for Harington told Us Weekly in a February 2021 statement, nearly one year after the Scottish actress debuted her baby bump during a photo shoot for the U.K.’s Make Magazine.

While the Game of Thrones alums — who wed in June 2018 — have been relatively tight-lipped about their son, Harington already loves being a father.

“Everyone goes, ‘Look, it’s big, what you’re about to go through is big.’” the Modern Love alum told Access Hollywood in August 2021. “You have no way of knowing that until it happens. Then, what surprises you is you go, ‘Oh, this goes on forever.’ Like, you don’t get a break from it.”

He added at the time: “Every day, I wake up and I look after this little human and now we’re part of a unit together. I think the thing that surprises me most about fatherhood is you are now a unit, the three of you, and that’s a whole new dynamic you need to find. I pretty much find everyday as he grows and changes, how does that change you? It’s a beautiful thing, it really is.”

In addition to doting over their baby boy, Harington has remained equally in awe of his wife as she has embraced motherhood.

“Rose is the one who he seems to respect and love,” the Eternals actor gushed during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in August 2021. “Like, she’s his safe place and I just seem to be sheer entertainment. And not even very good entertainment, just entertainment!”

The Downton Abbey alum, for her part, has been equally candid about watching her husband navigating first-time parenthood.

“There were many satisfying moments,” Leslie told Harper’s Bazaar U.K. in April 2022 of watching Harington care for their son while she was on the set of HBO’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. “We had an understanding that when our son cried in the middle of the night, it was on Kit to go and look after him, as I would have to wake up early to work. It was kind of glorious.”

Scroll below for more of Harington’s sweetest quotes about fatherhood:

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March 2023

Harington opened up about how he worries for his children's future as he and Leslie await the arrival of baby No. 2. "It's a regular conversation that my wife and I have about our son, and she's pregnant at the moment, so, for our children's future, I look at it in some ways of, like, our parents' generation were oblivious. We're becoming very aware," he told Entertainment Tonight when asked how he thinks about climate change as a parent. "And it would be our duty — and my children's duty — to deal with it. It'll be the great challenge of their generation, but it doesn't stop at being the challenge of ours as well. We're going to have a lot to answer to for our kids." 

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February 2023

“[My son is] really good, but he’s about to get the shock of his life, which is that he’s about to get a brother or sister,” Harington said during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, confirming Leslie is pregnant with their second child. “I’m terrified, like, you know with the first baby, you’re walking on clouds and dancing through fields of daisies for nine months? Well, the man is, anyway. This time, you go, the reality check comes much shorter. You get practical real quick [because you will have] two of them.”

He continued: “I’m not sure he has conceptually understood it just yet. We’re trying to get him ready for it, like, we point to Rose’s tummy and say, ‘Mummy’s baby, Mummy’s baby.’ And he points at his tummy and goes, ‘My baby.’ Well, you’ll know soon enough.”

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February 2023

The Game of Thrones alum got candid about his son’s potty training journey during a January 2023 appearance on The View.

“He just turned two. I think he’s smart. He can count to, like, 20. Which is more than me,” Harington quipped of his little one’s intelligence. “He’s doing really well. We’re going through potty training at the moment. It’s the weirdest thing. You find yourself celebrating the strangest things.”

While the talk show hosts assured him that the toddler would eventually “use the toilet,” the England native informed them that his child's current bathroom of choice is his “walk-in wardrobe.”

“You find yourself at a different level of insanity when you he walks into your walk-in wardrobe, takes a dump on the floor and you go, ‘Well done!’” he said, laughing.

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September 2022

“[Dads] are now becoming more involved in child raising, and as a modern father, there is a real feeling of being a bystander at times,” Harington told Entertainment Weekly at the Toronto International Film Festival about why he was keen to play a new dad in Baby Ruby. “You are not actively involved in the process of growing the child, and there can be a real feeling of not knowing what is going on, what emotions are happening, what the mother or your partner is going through.”

He added: “I knew I was going to care for the baby I had, but I don't know whether it was instant love. It was a stranger that had been planted into my house, now I had to look after the stranger, and the stranger was keeping me up all night. It takes time to grow love, to get to know someone.”

Harington and Leslie’s son was 19 months at the time of the interview and had begun “tottering around just naming things” around the house. “It's the most astonishing thing, it really is,” the actor gushed.

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August 2021

The Brimstone actor told Access Hollywood that becoming a family “unit” after his son’s birth was the most surprising aspect of parenthood. “It’s a beautiful thing,” he added.

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August 2021

“Anyone who's a parent will know, you get so much advice leading up to it," Harington quipped during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "And it's all useless. It's all useless. It's stuff like, 'It's gonna be great, you're gonna love it, what a wonderful thing.’ No one tells you that essentially, at first anyway, what it is is you get a new roommate just dumped into your life who you've not interviewed [or] knows any of your house rules.” 

Harington has since come around to fatherhood, telling host Jimmy Fallon that he loves seeing his little one wake up with a giant smile on his face.

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August 2021

“It has definitely softened a part of me," Harington told Entertainment Tonight of becoming a parent. “It has also taught me to look outwards a bit. I think all actors have a tendency of being egocentric and being self-obsessed, because our art and work is a projection and part of ourselves. Having a kid changes that somewhat. At the end of the day, you are like, 'I have this child to get back to.’"

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August 2021

“I think we’re all thanking our lucky stars for that one. I met my wife, my child is a direct result of Game of Thrones,” the England native said of his appreciation for the HBO series during an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show. “I still have very, very good friends from that show. It did nothing but wonders for me.”

Harington further added that welcoming his son in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic had a special meaning. He explained, “I had a quite profound and amazing experience during this last year and a half. And yeah, of course, it was anxiety-inducing and strange and odd and I didn’t see my friends and family, but on the whole, my friends and family are all healthy, I’m now a father. On the whole, I had a very lucky experience over the past year and a half. I know others who haven’t.”

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August 2021

“It’s full-on, I mean they tell you, but they don’t tell you,” the Gunpowder star joked to Extra about becoming a father before sharing some of his son’s milestones. “Mercifully, he’s a good sleeper. We’re every happy, we’re very in love and it’s all gravy as they say in the U.K.”