Duty calls! This Thanksgiving Day, Tom Brady was scheduled to call Thursday’s New York Giants vs Dallas Cowboys game, which marked his first time ever. Baffled, are you? So was Brady. “What!” Brady joked when American broadcaster Curt Menefee asked Brady to skip the turkey for FOX’s NFL Sunday Post-Game Show. While the former QB was aware he would have to work on the holiday, his colleague Michael Strahan had no idea when he started his broadcasting career in 2008.

“Same exact look I had [when I found out I had to work Thanksgiving], Tom,” Strahan jumped into the conversation. “Don’t feel bad about it. When we don’t show up on Thanksgiving, we’ll be having Thanksgiving together. Let these guys do their stuff.”

Jokes aside, Tom Brady has played four games on Thanksgiving in his NFL career and who can forget how he made his NFL debut on Thanksgiving Day in 2000? So his working on Thanksgiving Day as a broadcaster seems like an extension of his previous responsibilities. Regardless, while he was at work, his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen, and kids, Benjamin, 14, and daughter Vivian, 11, hit the road to spend time with Bündchen’s boyfriend Joaquim Valente. They will spend time in Costa Rica.

An insider told ‘Page Six’, “Gisele took the kids and headed to Costa Rica with Joaquim [Valente] to spend the holiday with each other… Tom is supportive and that’s the arrangement he and Gisele have agreed upon.” All fine and dandy, although it wasn’t more than a month ago that Page Six revealed that Brady was ‘stunned’ after news about Bundchen and Joaquim (Jiu-jitsu instructor) were pregnant for the first time came out.

But Brady couldn’t help but remember his kids on the holiday. He took to his Instagram story and shared an image of his three kids (Benjamin, Vivian, and Jack). He captioned it, “Thankful for this crew. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Brady and Bündchen divorced in 2022 and following their split, the model has been in a relationship with her jiu-jitsu instructor boyfriend. On October 28, she announced that she was expecting their first child together. ‘Page Six’ revealed that Brady was ‘stunned’ when he got to know about this. These were the exact words from the insider:

“Tom knew that things were serious between Gisele and Joaquim, but he never imagined they would be having a child together. It just wasn’t something that was on his radar. So when Gisele broke the news to him, he was stunned, to say the least,” the insider shared. Regardless, being a parent is tough and includes making difficult decisions sometimes. And this is something Tom Brady has acknowledged previously.

Tom Brady opens up on his hardest job beyond gridiron duties

Although Brady remains a superstar in the NFL for his Super Bowl-laden career, off the field, he has faced some tough challenges. While scoring TDs was never, something that worried Brady, he often struggled to navigate as a parent. Dropping a visit to the Fortune Global Forum in New York City earlier this month, Brady got candid, speaking about parenthood.

“Being a parent is probably the hardest job all of us have. And we screwed up a lot and I’ve screwed up a lot as a parent.”

He further stated that while there is no one who can teach you to be a parent, he swears by being “dependable and consistent” in his approach with his kids.

Well, Brady didn’t just express his shortcomings as a parent. He also went on to reveal how his own parents, Galynn and Thomas Brady, have shaped his parenting style. Recalling his days playing as a backup QB for Michigan, Brady expressed, “When I was that long shot as a kid who was a backup quarterback on a freshman team. They never said. Man, don’t do that. It’s gonna be too hard. Let’s do something different. They kinda said. You know what? Go for it. Whatever you wanna be, go for it.”

And look where Tom Brady is today. He ruled the NFL for more than two decades while earning the title ‘GOAT.’ So now, as a parent, Brady is doing the same with his son Jack, who dreams of becoming a basketball player.

Brady, as a dad, wants him to remain focused on his goal. He tells his son, “Dude, you’re gonna be a stud. Wait till you hit your growth spurt. You’re gonna be jumping higher. You’re gonna be dunkin’. And whether he does or not, who cares? But I want him to know that his dad’s got his back.”

As Tom Brady navigates the challenges of parenthood, he will surely get more chances to spend quality time with his kids. But for Thanksgiving Day, he might have to celebrate without them.