Broadcaster Tim's joy MY SECRET US FAMILY

The journalist shares how waiting 30 years to find his birth parents has enriched his own brood's life

- Fleur Guthrie

With cheeky one-liners always on the tip of his tongue and a penchant for bow ties, former TV broadcaster Tim Wilson was known to many as “the quirky one” while reporting on Seven Sharp and as the first US correspondent for TVNZ.

But the 59-year-old originally got into print journalism — and is probably one of the few journalists who’s been published in both the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly and the New York Times. Each are disciplines, he’ll tell you.

At 35, Tim sold everything he owned to move to New York to pursue international journalism, never expecting to return transformed by Catholicism.

These days, he’s the executive director of Auckland-based think tank the Maxim Institute (maxim.org.nz), and still provides commentary on Newstalk ZB and RNZ.

Parenting has also been a revelation for Tim, who is a doting dad to four young sons — Roman, 10, Felix, nine, Wilfred, six, and Otto, two — with his musician wife Rachel, 39.

The best-selling author talks to the Weekly about fatherhood, faith and why finding love in his late forties was less challenging than enduring Donald Trump’s handshakes.

Is there something from your childhood you've intentionally tried to replicate with your sons?