Ice Cube makes sure his parenting isn't always a "dictatorship".
The rapper and actor has five children, the eldest of which is 25-year-old O'Shea Jackson Jr., and has managed to strike harmony with his family and career. He's a very present dad, ensuring his offspring are brought up as best as they can be by himself and their mother, Kimberly Woodruff.
"I'm firm but fair," Ice explained to Total Film magazine. "I respect my kids and I think a lot of people need to take that approach. It's not a dictatorship at all times. You've got to realise your kids are their own individual human beings. Just because they're little, it don't (sic) mean they don't have the same feelings as adults do.
"A wise person told me: be good to your kids because you're going to be old one day and you'll want them to be good to you. So keep that in mind."
Luckily for Ice Cube, the upbringing of his kids is a stark difference from his, which involved peer pressure to join various gangs and being surrounded by violence. The 46-year-old has addressed various problems he's faced through his film work, such as Boyz n the Hood and latest release, Barbershop: The Next Cut - the third instalment in the Barbershop franchise.
"Any time you can do a movie and try to teach somebody the right path or way to go... You might not even get to the generation that's doing all the violence, but you might get to the younger generation," he explained. "You might have the nine, 10-year-old kid and decide they don't want to be like that. So whenever you can get an 'in' and it's not preachy or there to tell a story but it is a part of a story, you owe it to the youth to get it in there."
Ice Cube says music saved him from getting caught up in bad behaviour as a youngster, and he eventually joined group N.W.A alongside the likes of Dr. Dre and Eazy-E.
