Parenting is something that I got early, because when you grow

When Rza declared: “Parenting is something that I got early, because when you grow up without a father being there, and you see a single mother struggle to feed the kids, you do not want to put your own blood through that,” he spoke from the crucible of hardship, a truth as old as humanity itself. His words carry the weight of experience: that absence and suffering can carve within the heart a vow — a vow to be different, to stand firm where others faltered, to give where one once lacked. For in his testimony lies the paradox of pain: that it can destroy, or it can forge greatness.

In the ancient days, many sons who lost their fathers learned their strength by watching the labor of their mothers. The single mother became both shield and sword, carrying burdens meant for two. Such struggles leave deep marks on the spirit of a child, but sometimes those marks become maps, guiding them to live another way. Rza’s insight shows this transformation: to witness hunger, instability, and longing, and to declare, “Not for my children. Not for my blood.” This is the fire of generational change, where the cycle of suffering is broken by the will of one who has endured.

History offers us many mirrors to this truth. Consider Alexander Hamilton, who grew up in poverty in the Caribbean, fatherless and with little support. Yet from that struggle, he learned resilience and discipline, rising to become a founding father of a nation. The absence of care in his youth drove him to create stability and vision in his adult life. So too with Rza — his own childhood lacking a father’s presence became the fertile ground for his conviction to give his children what he was denied.

The meaning of Rza’s words is heroic: parenting is not always learned in peace or plenty. Sometimes it is learned in struggle, in hunger, in longing. To grow up watching a mother stretch every coin and still go without is to know the weight of responsibility before one’s time. Thus, when his own moment of fatherhood arrived, he was already prepared, already resolved. Pain became his teacher; hardship became his guide.

Yet his words are also deeply emotional. They carry not only determination, but sorrow — sorrow for what was lost in his own youth, sorrow for the mother who bore burdens alone, sorrow for the child within him who longed for a father’s steady hand. But sorrow need not be chains; it can be wings. By choosing to channel that sorrow into strength, he turned grief into love, absence into presence, struggle into victory.

The lesson for us, O listeners, is profound: the wounds of childhood can become the wisdom of adulthood, if one dares to transform them. Do not despise the struggles of your youth, for they may be the very tools that equip you to build a better future. If you lacked love, let it teach you to love more fiercely. If you lacked stability, let it move you to create stability for your children. As Rza’s words reveal, the greatest inheritance is not wealth, but the resolve to shield your blood from repeating the same pain.

Practical actions must follow: parents, remember that your choices ripple into the next generation. Children who grow in struggle watch closely, and they remember. Break the cycles where you can — with patience, with presence, with intentional love. And to those who still carry the ache of an absent parent, know that you can rewrite the story: your tomorrow need not repeat your yesterday.

So let Rza’s words be remembered as both lament and triumph. They teach us that parenting is not merely an art of the present, but an oath to the future, forged in the fires of the past. Carry this wisdom forward: that from absence can rise devotion, from struggle can rise strength, and from hardship can rise the unyielding vow — “My children shall not suffer what I once did.”