Louis Theroux says parenthood is harder than making his documentaries.
The 48-year-old father-of-three – who tied the knot with Nancy Strang in 2012 – has admitted that he finds being a dad stressful and sees making his TV shows as a break from the hard work at home.
He told The Sun: "There’s probably a handful of people who don’t struggle at all.
"But for the majority, it’s painful and difficult at best. At worst, it’s life-changing, difficult and traumatic.
"Neither my wife or myself needed psychiatric help but you become aware the normal experience of new parenthood is massively stressful.
"I’d run out of the house to work feeling like I’d escaped a burning building. Or go off to America for ten days or two weeks and think, ‘Wow — this is like a holiday’.
"After our second son was born, I was in Philadelphia doing a story on high crime areas and I remember thinking, ‘This is so much more relaxing! You get to sleep eight hours a night’.
"It wasn’t like I couldn’t wait to see the back of my family — it’s just that you get a break."
Louis’ latest documentary, ‘Mothers On The Edge’, about women who suffer psychosis after giving birth, airs on BBC2 at 9pm on Sunday (06.05.19).
Speaking about the project, he told Digital Spy: "I’ve got three kids with my wife, and I’m sort of aware of this weird doubling that takes place when you have children, especially when they’re very young, and how you feel under pressure, and you feel there’s a pressure to be the perfect parents, and to be enjoying every moment of it.
"And actually, a lot of it is to do with sleep deprivation and despair and not knowing what you’re doing, and it not being quite the Hallmark moment that it’s supposed to be.
"I thought, ‘This is that, taken to an extreme.’ And it feels, to me, to be a very important and relatable subject. And my hope was that the programme would sort of straddle the ups and the downs, the light and the shade… that it would reflect my own experience of being a new parent.
"And maybe, by opening more about how difficult it can often be, it can make those who are struggling feel less lonely."
Louis Theroux: Parenthood is harder than making documentaries
