Jay-Z faces quite the dilemma as a celebrity father who grew up in an environment different from that of his own childhood.
“You have to educate your children on the world as it exists today and how it got to that space, but my child doesn’t need the same tools that I needed growing up,” he explains in a recent sit-down interview with the New York Times. “I needed certain tools to survive my area that my child doesn’t need,” Jay-Z adds. “They’re growing up in a different environment. But also they have to know their history. Have a sense of what it took to get to this place. And have compassion for others.”
Finding the balance in parenting is absolutely essential for the Hip-Hop mogul. “The most important thing I think out of all this is to teach compassion and to identify with everyone’s struggle and to know these people made these sacrifices for us to be where we are and to push that forward — for us,” he shares. “I believe that’s the most important thing to show them because they don’t have to know things that I knew growing up. Like being tough.”
Jay-Z’s upbringing was anything but rosy. The rapper became acquainted with the real world rather quickly while growing up in New York. Jay learned the importance of working hard as well the vitality of unity. Now, the celebrity father can pass on such lessons to his son, Sir, and daughters, Blue and Rumi.
“Fairness and compassion and empathy and a loving heart,” Jay-z says, “those are the main base things that you want — well, for me, I would want my child to have.” He further explains, “I can’t buy you love, I can’t show it to you. I can show you affection and I can, you know, I can express love, but I can’t put it in your hand. I can’t put compassion in your hand. I can’t show you that. So the most beautiful things are things that are invisible. That’s where the important things lie.”
Jay-Z and his wife, Beyonce, welcomed their twins earlier this year. Rumi and Sir joined big sister Blue Ivy Carter at home.
Photo: Getty Images
