10 Celebrity dads share their best parenting advice
BY READERS DIGEST
1st Jan 2015 Life
Nothing proves that really celebrities are just like us more than watching them learn to parent in the public eye. These 10 famous dads share their best advice for other fathers.
1. Always be available
Michael J Fox with his wife and children at Disneyland. Image via Huffington Post
"If you say ‘give me five minutes, give me ten minutes,’...when you get there, the shine will have worn off whatever it is [the kids] wanted to share with you.
I’ve never gotten up to see something one of my kids wanted to show me and not been rewarded."
- Michael J Fox
2. Accept your exhaustion
With two of his three sons. Image via Shutterstock/REX
"You're tired? Have a baby, then come back and tell me how tired tired is. There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line, civilising these raw things."
- Gary Oldman
3. Show some tough love every now and then
Robert Downey Jr with his youngest son Exton. Image via Vanity Fair
“Sometimes you really have to be drop-kicked out of the nest. There are some parents who have done it right and told their kid, ‘we have this dough, but none of it is for you. You have to get your own.’”
- Robert Downey Jr
4. Don't miss a thing
Bruce Willis with his mother and his daughters at the ceremony that placed his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
“Stay home for the first year, don’t go anywhere, just be there. Play with that baby every day.”
- Bruce Willis
5. Pay attention
Ewan McGregor with his eldest daughter
"I realise it can be boring to play with young children—to tell a story over and over again let’s say—but the secret is being there. If you’ve made a decision to play with your children, then play with them. Don’t be looking through papers on your desk or sneaking off to the computer. Turn off your BlackBerry. Lose yourself in their world. Even if you do it for a short time, it will mean a lot to you and them."
- Ewan McGregor
6. Let them be themselves
Tom Cruise with daughter Suri. Image via Celebrity Baby Scoop
“I believe that she [daughter Suri Cruise] should wear whatever she wants to wear. She dresses herself. I want to encourage her creativity and her own self-expression. I think that’s important for the child’s own identity.”
- Tom Cruise
7. Combine love with order
Obama with his family during the Presidential election victory speech
“You give them unconditional love, and then you give them some structure and some rules, and they usually turn out really, really well.”
- Barack Obama
8. Prepare to put yourself second
Tom Hardy and son Louis. Image via Pinterest
"I wouldn't say it saved my life, but it definitely changed my life. That was when the penny dropped that there was no longer very much time for me to think about myself anymore—about what I might like to do or who I want to be—because there is somebody now on the planet who really needs me to get my act together and focus on something that is more important than me."
- Tom Hardy
9. Don't rush to see them grow up
Hugh Jackman and his family at Disneyland. Image via Q Political
"I believe in letting kids be kids for as long as possible. I do constantly talk to them about giving everything their best and doing the thing you love, because I have managed to find my way into a job that doesn’t feel like a job, and if my kids can be lucky enough to do that, then that is the goal, I think. That is the Holy Grail. I want them to just follow their passions and then work hard at it. Because even the thing you love is going to be a pain at some point."
- Hugh Jackman
10. Always choose practicality over style
Usher and his sons. Image via Eur Web
“Don’t wear white.”
-Usher
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Feature image via ABC
