Lance Bass 'So Glad' He Had Kids 'Later in Life': 'I Was Way Less Scared'

Lance Bass is deep in dad mode — and couldn't be happier, as he's convinced waiting to have kids was one of the smartest choices he ever made.

The former *NSYNC star, 46, opens up about raising his and husband Michael Turchin's 4-year-old twins, daughter Violet and son Alexander, during an exclusive chat with OK! while discussing all things fatherhood, marriage and his partnership with Hay Day.

"I think everything's about balance, you know, it's the yin and yang. I've always lived by that," Bass shares. "When you become parents, sometimes you just kind of let everything disappear, and you just focus on just raising your kids. And I'm so glad we started a little later in life to have kids."

Looking back at friends who became parents in their early 20s, Bass doesn’t sugarcoat how intimidating that always seemed.

“If I had kids like my friends from high school, you know, 22 years old, having their first kids, it was scary as h---,” he admits. “You didn’t know what was happening. Now that I've seen a lot of my friends go through it, I was way less scared of having kids and I think I was prepared way more to give a more balanced life.”

That sense of balance shapes the way he parents today — and how much he savors this particular season of their childhood.

Now that his twins are 4, Bass says the anxious “keep them alive” newborn stage has given way to something much more fun — even if it’s exhausting in a different way.

“Newborns are completely different from, like, these little teenagers that we have now,” he jokes. “Before you're just constantly watching them to make sure that they're alive, right? It's like, how do I keep you alive, little nugget?”

These days, it’s all about big personalities and endless conversations.

“Now that they have personalities, and you have these conversations… it's amazing how quickly they just learn everything,” he says. “Everything you say now they hear and you're like, okay, you can't hide anything anymore around them. They're going to pick up everything that's happening.”

Even bedtime turns into story hour.

“I can't wait for them to get home from school,” the former boy band member shares. “When you get that hug, when you get to snuggle on the couch at night before you go to bed… I'm laying down with them and they're just telling me about their day and just talk, talk, talk. And you're just wanting them to go to sleep… but you cherish all those moments, because you don't have many more years like that.”

“I just cherish every single second I have with them, especially our nighttime, just because that's when they really come to life,” he adds.

Bass and Turchin also get a kick out of how different their twins already are.

“It is funny because, you know, a boy and a girl… it really is different. I mean, everyone tried to warn us,” Bass laughs. “My girl, we call her Bossy Betty. Oh, so bossy. And, you know, just so much smarter. I mean, sorry, girls are just way smarter than boys.”

Violet may run the show, but Alexander brings pure comedic chaos.

“He's just your typical boy, just so, you know, trying to destroy everything,” the dad-of-two says with a smile. “He just makes me laugh so much. Like, he'll try to get in trouble, but it's hard to get in trouble because I just get amused.”

Their son has also developed a surprisingly intense passion for movies and music.

“My son… wants to be a director now,” Bass reveals. “He loves John Williams, that's his favorite artist, which is the most random thing ever. But he loves Jaws, he loves Jurassic Park, he loves Home Alone, all these movies that John Williams scored.”

The obsession has taken over his bedroom.

“He has 70 pictures of Jaws all over his wall. He draws them every day, and he's just obsessed,” Bass notes. “He's already written Jaws 10. He's gonna direct it. And it's Jaws 10 at Christmas time, but it’s also Kevin McCallister setting booby traps for Jaws.”

With two energetic kids, a long-term marriage and busy careers, Bass says the secret to keeping things steady is being deliberate about balance.

“We made sure that once a week we see our friends and we go out and make sure we get time for ourselves,” he explains. “We make sure that we go and, you know, get a massage every once in a while, to make sure that we take care of ourselves. It really is all about just balancing your life to make sure that not one part of your life drives you crazy.”

That same mindset extends to the kind of childhood he wants for his twins. A Mississippi native, Bass has always dreamed of raising his family around animals and nature.

“It's my dream. It's always been my dream of living on a ranch or having my own farm,” he says. “I'm from the South, so I grew up around that and lived in the country… I was always [wanting] to have animals around, especially when I had kids.”

Now, he and Turchin are turning that dream into reality.

“I'm actually calling you from my new house somewhere in the backyard right now, and we're literally in the spot where we're gonna put [the] chicken coop,” he details. “We have a huge koi pond, so we get to feed the fish. We're going to be able to take care of our chickens and have fresh eggs every day… Eventually… I want to live on that ranch where I have some horses, some goats, like, really a legit ranch to run.”

For Bass, it’s about giving his kids something deeper than just a cute backdrop.

“I think it's so important to give your kids some kind of, like, responsibility like that,” he mentions. “I would love to wake up in the morning, let them help me with the animals before they go off to school. I just think that really… helps them in life.”

Between school runs, backyard plans and big dreams, Lance still makes room for a small nightly ritual to unwind: playing the mobile game Hay Day, one of the world’s most popular farming games, which he’s loved for years and recently partnered with.

Bass — whose farm is impressively at level 157 — says the farming game mirrors the calm, grounding life he’s trying to build offline.

“Every night before I go to bed, I spend 30 minutes to an hour just kind of fixing up my farm, doing all my little missions,” he reveals. “I get to zone out and just kind of hyper-fixate on something… it just, I feel like that's kind of like my meditation.”

Whether he’s planning real chicken coops or feeding digital animals on his phone, one thing is clear: Lance Bass might have waited longer than some to start a family, but he’s all in now — and no longer scared at all.