This has been a year of big changes for Anderson Cooper. The 53-year-old CNN host opens up in a new profile for WSJ Magazine about welcoming his son, Wyatt, earlier this year amid a global pandemic. 

“It’s changed everything. I’ve often in my life felt like I was waiting for my actual life to begin — it’s obviously ridiculous because I’m 53 years old — but… I’ve been very focused on getting to some place, getting a story,” he tells the magazine. “Because I’m focused on him, it gives an order to everything.”

Baby Wyatt, who is now almost four months old and sleeping through the night, has also changed Cooper’s daily routine. 

“I used to be a late riser because I work nights. But since I had a son, I pretty much wake up at seven,” he says. “I don’t use an alarm anymore because I guess I’m just naturally getting up. My whole motivation in the morning is to be there when my son wakes up because it is the greatest moment of my day.”

And though Cooper welcomed his little boy in New York City — at one point the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic — in April, he didn’t and still doesn’t intend to leave the city. 

“I really wanted to stay in New York. I grew up here, I’ve been to a lot of places where societies have [been] disintegrated and torn apart and I’m a big believer in staying put and not getting out,” he says. “It’s interesting how the city is reforming itself in ways, with more people biking, the sidewalk cafes being able to open up. I’m hopeful about the city. I have no doubt it’s going to survive in an interesting form going forward.”