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Phaedra Parks is officially back for The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 17, and it’s causing her to flash back to one of her more iconic RHOA moments. It all goes down in the above first look at The Real Housewives of Atlanta Season 17, Episode 2 (airing Sunday, April 12 at 8/7c).
In the clip, Phaedra takes a drive with her 15-year-old son, Ayden Nida, as he learns to drive. In a confessional following the scene, the mom of two tells producers, “Time really flies. Just the other day, I didn’t even know when I was due. Now I have a whole teenager that’s actually driving me around town.”
Of course, Phaedra was referencing her iconic confusion over her due date during her pregnancy with Ayden, which went down in RHOA Season 3, Episode 5. Producers then flashed back to the fan-favorite scene.
“Phaedra, when’s your due date?” Shereé Whitfield asked her at the time, during a meal with Nene Leakes, Cynthia Bailey, and Kandi Burruss.
Phaedra responded, “It was July, but…” before trailing off.
“I thought you were five months pregnant?” Shereé asked.
To everyone’s bewilderment, Phaedra answered, “I don’t even know what I am.”
Phaedra Parks opens up about her son Ayden Nida’s life today
Back in the preview for Season 17, Episode 2, Phaedra climbs into the passenger seat with Ayden behind the wheel. “Two hands, please—lord,” she tells her son.
“You gotta calm down. I got this,” Ayden responds.
As she scolds him for driving “so fast” around a curve, he continues, “You don’t have to tell me what I’m doing. I already know what I’m doing.”
Moments later, Phaedra asks him, “How’s school?” She follows up by reminding him, “High school’s very different from kindergarten, so I need you to really be focused.”
In a confessional, Phaedra shares, “Ayden has been driving since he was 12 years old,” before joking, “He’s actually his dad’s designated driver,” of her ex-husband, Apollo Nida.
When a producer asks, “And now yours?” Phaedra answers, “I don’t do all that now. I’m a Christian lady.” She later adds, “But I don’t like to drive, so I am excited that he will be able to drive me.”
“My son [Ayden] was my biggest supporter every time he came to #LA,” she wrote in an April 2 Instagram post, along with pictures of her and Ayden at the competition. “He left random sticky notes everywhere, reminding me to keep dancing! Finding those notes made me miss him and his brother even more.”
She’s previously shared that raising Ayden and her younger son, Dylan, “hasn’t always been easy.”
“Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook, but [God] has ALWAYS seen me through,” she captioned an April 2025 Instagram post showing Ayden attending his first Sadie Hawkins dance at school.
RELATED: Phaedra Parks Shares a Look at Her Hong Kong Vacation with Both of Her Sons: “Raising Royalty”
Phaedra Parks opens up about co-parenting with her ex-husband, Apollo Nida
At times, Phaedra has had a rocky relationship with her ex-husband, Apollo, after the couple first divorced in 2017. These days, however, their co-parenting relationship is in a much better place, as she shared during a stop by Bravo HQ in the spring of 2025.
“I’m obviously the custodial parent and the children are with me 95 percent of the time, but he does pick them up from camp sometimes, and they spend time with him when he wants to spend time with them, and I’m so very open to whatever he wants to do,” Phaedra said.
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She admitted she’s trying to get along with Apollo for the sake of their sons. “My son called me last night. He’s like, ‘Mom, I just want you and my dad to try to become friends again,’” Phaedra added, revealing she told her son, “‘It’s a process. It’s a journey because crazy things happen…It makes it difficult sometimes.'”
ICYMI, Phaedra opened up on her decade-long friendship with The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Melissa Gorga.
