Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. Can you do me a favor and
Speaker 1: see what the status of the children are? Oh, the
Speaker 1: kids are running behind schedule? So jen, um, how would
Speaker 1: you like to handle that? Welcome to the Smith. How
Speaker 1: late are they gonna be? Okay, Willow just texted me, well,
Speaker 1: you know they're working. Well, that's a good thing. Her
Speaker 1: and Jaden. The Jaden starts tour tomorrow. All right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about parentsing, the joys of parenthood and
Speaker 1: pitfalls of parenting. Okay, so Willow, dam Um, what's happened?
Speaker 1: What's happening? Look at there's gold chains I got yesterday.
Speaker 1: Where give that problem? Being careful for people thinking you've
Speaker 1: got real crap? One? Jaden's my baby boy, my firstborn.
Speaker 1: What's He's one of the most loving, gentle creatures that
Speaker 1: I know. I just want to say thank you for
Speaker 1: being the best mom in the world. Jaden is a musician,
Speaker 1: an actor, and an entrepreneur. He has a clothing line.
Speaker 1: We kind of believe that you need to be able
Speaker 1: to show your individuality with your clothing and how you
Speaker 1: feel about life. His own record label and a sustainably
Speaker 1: sourced spring water company because he cares about making the
Speaker 1: world a better place. I'm a proud mama when it
Speaker 1: comes to Jaden and Willow of their successes and their compassion.
Speaker 1: Willow and Jaden are extremely talented and extremely opinionated. They
Speaker 1: are unique individuals, to say the least, but they get
Speaker 1: that honestly because they come from two unique parents. My
Speaker 1: kids grew up much differently than Well and I did,
Speaker 1: and I'm so curious to hear their thoughts on our parents.
Speaker 1: All Right, you guys were at the Red Table again. Jade,
Speaker 1: and thank you for being here. You're a special guest today.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to have some male energy in here. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be here just and from Japan. We're so
Speaker 1: glad that you're here. Yeah, I just want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the difference between how your mom
Speaker 1: raised you and how I raised your mom. We didn't
Speaker 1: give kids a whole lot of choice. Am I writing that?
Speaker 1: You're very writing? You know, I felt like you guys
Speaker 1: had too much say over your own lives, you know,
Speaker 1: And if I told you something because I said so,
Speaker 1: I know you are why game because I said so.
Speaker 1: But and your mom and dad had to really kind
Speaker 1: of break me out of that because she treated you
Speaker 1: like adults. And I just felt like, he's eight, He's
Speaker 1: gonna tell me what time he's going to bed. Ye.
Speaker 1: It was their idea of parenting was so different from
Speaker 1: what I was used to. I was like, these people
Speaker 1: was crazy. So I remember hearing you in the world
Speaker 1: game in the world, well, I remember always being like,
Speaker 1: once a game becomes just gonna be a different story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, once a game becomes I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to be like But I think having both worlds was good.
Speaker 1: It was great because it was old school and super
Speaker 1: new school. It worked. We laughed so so good. But
Speaker 1: they got that therapy fun exactly. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make decisions for you. I want to prepare you as
Speaker 1: quick as possible and start to give you as much
Speaker 1: power over your life as quickly as I can. I
Speaker 1: think too, that I have a sense of ownership over
Speaker 1: your mom that she doesn't have over you. She belonged
Speaker 1: to me. They know what but I feel like, you
Speaker 1: know that that's not a lot of mothers that because
Speaker 1: of their that anxiety of no, you're my baby, I
Speaker 1: know what's best. You're going to make the wrong decisions
Speaker 1: because you're immature. You're a child that feeling just like
Speaker 1: encompasses their child, and then their child just becomes not
Speaker 1: able to make their own decisions, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You know what I realized the other day, I had
Speaker 1: a huge epiphany about being a parent to you guys.
Speaker 1: There is an aspect of your life that is completely
Speaker 1: range and unknown to me, and that is growing up
Speaker 1: in this with parents that have the amount of privilege,
Speaker 1: the amount of access. What was it like, you know,
Speaker 1: being raised in this very unconventional lifestyle. You're not a
Speaker 1: normal human if if you can't go out into the
Speaker 1: world and see there's some things that you absolutely just
Speaker 1: have to experience for yourself totally. And it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how things always work. I was getting nervous
Speaker 1: at the end of dinner because it's like, how do
Speaker 1: you have dinner with a group of people? Because when
Speaker 1: I have dinner with my dad, he orders everything on
Speaker 1: the menu and you pay for everything that he leaves,
Speaker 1: So it's like, is that how we do it? Everybody
Speaker 1: expects me to do that. You know, if I go
Speaker 1: to dinner with Mommy, it's like, Okay, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: order everything on the menu, but she's gonna pay for
Speaker 1: everything for all of her friends, including us. So it's like,
Speaker 1: what do I do when it's just me and my
Speaker 1: homies and we're just chilling for dinner. Do I wait
Speaker 1: to see what someone else does? Do I ask for
Speaker 1: the check and then just not do anything? Do I
Speaker 1: just pay for everything? And people expect that for me.
Speaker 1: I literally hate Disneyland because I had one terrible experience
Speaker 1: and everyone expected me to pay for them. And they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's go to Disneyland. And I was like, yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1: And I was super young. It was the older girls
Speaker 1: and I was like yeah, and they were all like
Speaker 1: behind my back, like oh, she's gonna pay for everything,
Speaker 1: and I you know what I'm saying, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, Like like I honestly wasn't thinking that way.
Speaker 1: So when we got there, it was like, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want a funnel cake and this and that. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go on Space Mountain and you got your cash
Speaker 1: and I'm like, uh yeah, obviously, and they're like, oh
Speaker 1: great and put it down, and I'm just like, I
Speaker 1: didn't understand. I didn't think it was going to be
Speaker 1: like this. It was painful, yeah, but we have to
Speaker 1: go out into the real world to really experience that.
Speaker 1: And you're like, okay, so now I'm a target and
Speaker 1: that's really hard too. You have to be aware of
Speaker 1: that as well, you know. And then it's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: And this is why my parents have been protecting me
Speaker 1: from That's why I can't go and do this or
Speaker 1: that's why I never was allowed to do this when
Speaker 1: I was young. One thing that I've learned, though, is
Speaker 1: that every child needs something different. At fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: Jaden and I remember this day specifically. It was probably
Speaker 1: one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life. You
Speaker 1: got to a point where you told me straight up.
Speaker 1: You were like, mom, I have to leave here to
Speaker 1: live my life. And I remember thinking to myself, as
Speaker 1: devastated as I was, I was like, he's right. The
Speaker 1: time is now, he's fifteen. It's time for him to
Speaker 1: leave the house. And I would have never agreed with that.
Speaker 1: I knew. I told Will when Jaden was smaller. I said,
Speaker 1: would be lucky to keep him in the house till
Speaker 1: he's sixteen, because he was so mature, he was making films.
Speaker 1: He really he could really manage his own life, his
Speaker 1: own life, like being in this lifestyle, in this world
Speaker 1: is a bubble, and he wanted out. And I understood
Speaker 1: that because I didn't have the bubble, and I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew what having my freedom outside of the bubble,
Speaker 1: what I gained from that. And I knew that the
Speaker 1: sooner I let him go, the faster he was going
Speaker 1: to come back. And it just makes you appreciate, you know,
Speaker 1: being at home, being with your parents, spending quality of
Speaker 1: time with family. You get out into the world and
Speaker 1: then you kind of just kind of understand things. That's true.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure people understand our background. My
Speaker 1: father was physician, he was an antithesiologist, and my mother
Speaker 1: was a social worker, and we were very They were
Speaker 1: to quintess sent a black middle class you know, gave
Speaker 1: me had me at your age number one, I was
Speaker 1: really young and clueless. Let's just be clear on that.
Speaker 1: I was eighteen years old and I was still prepared
Speaker 1: for the responsibilities of parenting and not only was I young,
Speaker 1: but I became addicted to drugs, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was a functioning attict, but I was an attic just
Speaker 1: the same. So you know, I was consumed with working
Speaker 1: to support you, but also to support I have it,
Speaker 1: which is why I had so much freedom. You and
Speaker 1: Daddy never told really what type of world you guys
Speaker 1: came from. Yeah, we just thought that you guys just
Speaker 1: brought it up out of the ground, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But I'm now outside of the bubble. I
Speaker 1: go out and I meet random person on the street
Speaker 1: telling me, yeah, man, I worked with your dad back
Speaker 1: in these days, telling me about my family. I never
Speaker 1: knew in my life. I mean, it's really yeah, I
Speaker 1: have all the time, but you definitely here, but they
Speaker 1: didn't hear it from us. Yeah. I had to hustle.
Speaker 1: That's what my life was about because there was a
Speaker 1: certain kind of lifestyle and way I wanted to live,
Speaker 1: and she needed a mother to provide security. I couldn't
Speaker 1: afford it. I never wanted to depend on a man
Speaker 1: to take care of me. So I was in the
Speaker 1: streets selling drugs, doing all kinds of stuff. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even imagine that. Then in my own neighborhood, we were
Speaker 1: in the midst of a lot of violence that was
Speaker 1: just the norm. The fact that I had to live
Speaker 1: and die by my own hands prepared me to be
Speaker 1: out here in l A at eighteen by myself and
Speaker 1: it be nothing. I was like these jokers out here
Speaker 1: that they think of really doing something, to really running
Speaker 1: game on somebody. You ain't running game on nobody. Okay,
Speaker 1: I dealt with killers, homie, You produce what that's cool?
Speaker 1: You asking me to do what. We had a very
Speaker 1: different lifestyle than you guys, And even your father grew
Speaker 1: up in a household that was a lot of abuse.
Speaker 1: Your father worked in the ice house. He was building
Speaker 1: cement walls and helping to restore refrigerators and cooling systems.
Speaker 1: And you guys grew up thinking about survival. You can
Speaker 1: only think about food and water and shelter and safety,
Speaker 1: and like that's the only thing that you were thinking about.
Speaker 1: You guys grew up as soldiers that met out of
Speaker 1: the battle that has decided to go and attack together
Speaker 1: and to conquer. Yes, we did. Will and I were
Speaker 1: in constant conflict over Jaden. Where do you think you've
Speaker 1: got your confidence from because I'm somebody that even to
Speaker 1: this day, like I'm surprised that I'm even sitting here.
Speaker 1: My self esteem and my self confidence is pretty low.
Speaker 1: I can say it's pretty low. I think you've come along.
Speaker 1: I have. I have come a long way. I have
Speaker 1: you put up on the ground and pop on the
Speaker 1: ground are the thing that I appreciate so much about you. Guys.
Speaker 1: The level of self confidence that you have to be
Speaker 1: comfortable in your own skin is amazing to me, and
Speaker 1: for me, that's the best gift that your mom and
Speaker 1: dad gave you. Right for me to think that I
Speaker 1: could ever go into the world and tell anybody else
Speaker 1: how they should raise their children, I've learned that's an
Speaker 1: absolute no no. But I feel like people should have
Speaker 1: the freedom to look at their kids and decide for
Speaker 1: themselves what their children need versus what the school system
Speaker 1: might tell you. To go by your own instinct, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily have to look like what anybody else
Speaker 1: is doing. Exactly the short amount of time that I
Speaker 1: went to preschool, I felt like, if I imagine that,
Speaker 1: I feel like it was like three years. Please cool,
Speaker 1: one day a week. He might have got to I
Speaker 1: think he made maybe two weeks. I felt like three years,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. And I had to sit in
Speaker 1: the parking lot every day. My fould not leave and
Speaker 1: he would look at me with his little backpack and
Speaker 1: people don't give me. Why would you leave me with
Speaker 1: people who don't love me? And so then I said,
Speaker 1: jaden't how about this. You're not being left here with
Speaker 1: people who don't love you, because Mommy is going to
Speaker 1: be sitting in the parking lot. So that was the
Speaker 1: agreement that mommy sat in the parking lot. But then
Speaker 1: sometimes she would like sneak away and get things and
Speaker 1: come back and I'd be like, you didn't have this,
Speaker 1: or you have a different car now. I came back
Speaker 1: home from school, I was always in a terrible mood.
Speaker 1: My whole days were just filled with insecurity and fear
Speaker 1: and and bad PB and j's. But you know, I
Speaker 1: started homeschooling you guys too, because I wanted you to
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to be with your dad and to
Speaker 1: be with me when I was working. There was no
Speaker 1: way I was leaving you home. You know. Ever, you
Speaker 1: always had to be with me. It was great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really a very interesting time for me as
Speaker 1: a parent because I don't always know exactly what to
Speaker 1: say all the time, because what motivates you and what's
Speaker 1: important is completely different than what was in my engine.
Speaker 1: For you, it's like everything's good to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: and then if it's not, I still don't understand the
Speaker 1: part that's not good the world though, Like that's where
Speaker 1: we're at. It's like this is good, but everything else
Speaker 1: is in three point four million people dying from not
Speaker 1: having enough water every year and llion tons of plastic
Speaker 1: on the right. That's where we do relate in regards
Speaker 1: to we want to help me the world better place.
Speaker 1: But I'm talking about as far as your personal motivation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so it's completely different for us because we
Speaker 1: already know that based off of what was on the
Speaker 1: past generation with you, with Daddy, it's like you guys
Speaker 1: paved the way for generations to come. So it's like,
Speaker 1: thank you. What is the part that you think Daddy
Speaker 1: and I have a difficult time connecting to you with
Speaker 1: I mean, I only have one like really terrible experience,
Speaker 1: which is which is with my hair. You're feeling about
Speaker 1: that was that you felt like you were put in
Speaker 1: the game too soon, just that the values of the
Speaker 1: people around me should have been the opposite you and
Speaker 1: daddy should have been Okay, we value her musical growth
Speaker 1: and knowledge more than her popularity. Not so much about
Speaker 1: just a hit record. Yeah, exactly, not understand that. And
Speaker 1: I think all that came with it and that was
Speaker 1: too much. Let me tell you something. When we heard it,
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this? It was Jay jay
Speaker 1: Z was like, this is a hit record. He looked
Speaker 1: at Jay it was like, really he was right, It
Speaker 1: was right. But also for us that survival mentality, for
Speaker 1: your dad and I, we were like, oh man, she'll
Speaker 1: be set up for life and this is her start
Speaker 1: with having that mind state of survival. And then you
Speaker 1: have a child. Well, now with somebody else's survival. What
Speaker 1: happens if we lose everything because it happens to blow
Speaker 1: all of our money, what happens to our child? Make
Speaker 1: them a freaking workaholic? Soldiers always always survived. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you a question, the upset that came with that.
Speaker 1: Did you shaving your head have anything to do? What
Speaker 1: had everything to do with it? So for me, there's
Speaker 1: a Nirvana lyric that says, I shaved my head and
Speaker 1: then I'm not sad. And all this time I thought
Speaker 1: you wanted to shave your head because my hair was short, Like, so,
Speaker 1: what was the reason it? Did you think it was
Speaker 1: gonna make you happy? Did you think it was a
Speaker 1: symbol of freedom? Wasn't rebellion? It was honestly all of that.
Speaker 1: You had a hit single out and you were like,
Speaker 1: this sucks. I don't like this lifestyle. And guess what,
Speaker 1: to put a big middle finger up to everybody, including
Speaker 1: my parents, I'm freaking shaving my head because Kurt Cobain
Speaker 1: said so, just because I'm done. It's not what I want.
Speaker 1: When I realized, even as a parent, and this goes
Speaker 1: back to you, mom, this goes back to you. Okay
Speaker 1: mm hmm. I hate when I get no because you
Speaker 1: know what, I think parents have to give themselves much
Speaker 1: more forgiveness. When you become a parent, you have these
Speaker 1: huge ideals, even for yourself, because we all are coming
Speaker 1: into parenting with our own childhood traumas and you're hoping
Speaker 1: that you can fix all that through your own rearing
Speaker 1: of your children, and you can't. Your kids are gonna
Speaker 1: have their burdens. And even though I see how it
Speaker 1: might have hurt you. It's what I knew. I remember
Speaker 1: Will called me and he was like, have you talked
Speaker 1: about this with Jaden and him wearing a skirt, And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, you had your moment of rebellion.
Speaker 1: I went to the same thing that Willow went through
Speaker 1: with with with my hair, with Karate Killers happening at
Speaker 1: the same time. I remember being on set with Will
Speaker 1: and it was such a struggle between he and I
Speaker 1: in regards to Jaden, and I understand why men take
Speaker 1: their sons away for like whatever kind of warrior training,
Speaker 1: because it is completely utterly unfair and unnatural for a
Speaker 1: woman to have to sit and watch anything like that
Speaker 1: for her son. And Will and I were in constant
Speaker 1: remember conflict. I mean to the point that we were
Speaker 1: worrying over Jaden. Your work ethic was off the chain.
Speaker 1: All happened in this room. Yeah, yeah, I did. The
Speaker 1: poster was shot in this room. Show it was in
Speaker 1: this spot, right, and that's weird. And I remember I
Speaker 1: remember the moment because I asked you you went down
Speaker 1: into that full split and he was in tears, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm done, and he looked at me.
Speaker 1: He's like, mom, I'm good. Damn. He got up and
Speaker 1: he said, let's do it again. Even in those battles
Speaker 1: that we've had over what's too much, what's too little,
Speaker 1: trying to find the balance in regards to parenting. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you one thing about the two of y'all. Y'all
Speaker 1: know how to work. Y'all work hard, and y'all do
Speaker 1: it well, and I'm proud of that. I give Jaden props.
Speaker 1: Jaden the Louis Vuitton ad mean, you decided to wear
Speaker 1: a skirt. I got an offer to be signed to
Speaker 1: Louis Women's. Yeah, but Jaden, it's because you were wearing skirts,
Speaker 1: because they even you got the idea to sign you
Speaker 1: to Louis Vaton women. Do you understand like being a
Speaker 1: black young man and the sun of like an uber
Speaker 1: masculine killing aliens as hipop star, you know what I mean? Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: his feelings on that for sure. I remember Will called
Speaker 1: me and he was like, have you talked about this
Speaker 1: with with with with Jaden with whip whip and and
Speaker 1: and him wearing a skirt. I was like, you have, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's pretty happy about it. Simple, don't even say
Speaker 1: anything else. Yeah, you talked about wanting to wear skirts
Speaker 1: to give kids the freedom to give other people to
Speaker 1: freedom to think out of the box for themselves and
Speaker 1: not to feel like in doing that that they would
Speaker 1: be bullied or be attacked in some that comes along
Speaker 1: with it. Got it. But it's like I wore the
Speaker 1: skirt so I could look fly. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Let's that's why I wore the skirt so that everybody
Speaker 1: would say she's an innovator. It's an innovator. His heads
Speaker 1: in a different place. So here we have some questions
Speaker 1: from our Facebook watch guys, you got questions from my face?
Speaker 1: Why choose? Go ahead? Take take one? Take one? Right?
Speaker 1: Take one? Well, I have an easy one, so you
Speaker 1: guys keep picking. And this one says, how do you
Speaker 1: feel about Will's Instagram? I'm not putting you in my Instagram?
Speaker 1: This is just mine. It's like if you don't want
Speaker 1: to be oh my, I mean, I'm just saying I
Speaker 1: wouldn't like put you put you in it and didn't
Speaker 1: use you on my Instagram. That's the cheap awesome. He's
Speaker 1: having a blast doing it, and I'm having a blast
Speaker 1: is watching it. It's hilarious. What's one rule you're proud
Speaker 1: of breaking every damn rule there is. Yeah. Is it
Speaker 1: okay for parents to track their kids remotely? Yes? Actually
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this for safety reasons. All
Speaker 1: of the cars, including mine, need to have trackers in them. Done. Yeah, God,
Speaker 1: they actually asked for it. Is punishment a necessary part
Speaker 1: of parenting? Okay? For me, disappointment is punishment. Mmm. I
Speaker 1: respect my parents so much that disappointment is like a
Speaker 1: knife in my heart. I want to be a person
Speaker 1: that my parents want to look at, that my parents
Speaker 1: are proud of. That's it. Who family friends, gratitude, gratitude,
Speaker 1: Thank you for being our our guests. Yes, Jaden, him
Speaker 1: and Jaded guys. Yes, so are we supposed that when
Speaker 1: you're doing that? Are you talking to the Facebook family?
Speaker 1: Are you? That's just another camera. My first sexual experience
Speaker 1: was amazing. I wouldn't say amazing like on our next
Speaker 1: Red Tabletop we were talking about sex. Oh, I knew
Speaker 1: the night Jaden lost his virginity, did you now? My
Speaker 1: introduction to sex was obviously walking in on you and
Speaker 1: Daddy m that's until the next show. Need to do
Speaker 1: a selfie like all you guys just oh wait, you
Speaker 1: to join the Red Table Talk family. And become a
Speaker 1: part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode
Speaker 1: of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch, Westbrook Audio,
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio.