As the world celebrates men across the globe in honour of fatherhood and paternal bonds, six famous fathers share words of encouragement to those just starting out as well as those having a hard time understanding the role of a male parent, according to Toofab.

1. John Legend – Prioritise your partner’s care as well.

After John Legend became a dad to his daughter Luna and son Miles, he learned a thing or two about life with a newborn. For John, he wants other parents to know the importance of not just taking care of the baby, but your partner as well.

“As a husband, I feel like one, it’s very difficult right after delivery for a woman. A lot of women deal with postpartum depression. There’s a lot going on with your body and your hormones. As a husband, we’ve got to be reliable. We’ve got to be a rock. We’ve got to be there for our wives. We’ve got to be as present and available as possible to help with whatever needs to be done,” John told E! News.

2. David Beckham – Lead by example

“We have always led by example, in terms of the way we treat our children, with the way we look after our children, the way we love our children…But we are very strict parents. We want to bring them up as closely as possible to how we were brought, because you have to give them manners, you have to give them boundaries and our children definitely have that,” the father of four told the Telegraph.

3. Idris Elba – Communication, self confidence and belief

“My daughter and I speak about having the confidence to believe in your own journey and not to follow others. We speak about that a lot — confidence and belief, and not following anyone else’s shine, but rather following your own shine…It’s really important to have that self-belief and that self-heartbeat,” Idris told Essence.

4. Dwayne Johnson – Take advantage of every moment with their children while they’re young.

“Tired as all hell, but thought ehh there’s gonna come a time, years from now when jumping in my arms is the last thing she wants to do and ain’t gonna be cool anymore — so I’ll always take these moments while I can,” the father of three wrote on Instagram.

5. Ryan Reynolds – Help your wife with the dirty work

“Just do the dirty work, man. You gotta do the diapers. You gotta do the middle of the night thing…A human being will exit your wife, so she’s done enough. Just change the diapers and do all that stuff,” Ryan said on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”

6. Will Smith – Gift of freedom

“What I do with my children, that I feel that the greatest gift that I can give my children is the freedom to be who they are. Jada and I are very serious about finding what they are, and encouraging them to be what they are because you can never be happy being what you’re not. I feel like a lot of times, when I was growing up, I would see parents force a child to be what you want them to be. As a parent, if it’s an oak tree, I want it to grow as an oak tree. I’m not going to try to force it to be an apple tree,” Will told BET.