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. Do you feel like you are appreciated
Speaker 1: as a father? That was a very difficult time for
Speaker 1: our family. Divorce was the ultimate failure for me. I
Speaker 1: did not have a good time. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: walk this one off. You're really a great father, so
Speaker 1: you may learn how to act. Did you cut your hair?
Speaker 1: How do you do it? Beautiful makeup? Oh? Man? Happy? Yes?
Speaker 1: What time? Did your phone say? He's a minute late, Alice,
Speaker 1: So I'll put it in my pocket. In there, Mike check.
Speaker 1: Can you hear me? Why you got your clipboard? Yeah?
Speaker 1: How about that. This will be the last time I'll
Speaker 1: be here, but to's sitting in front of you with
Speaker 1: a clipboard. I'm trying to give you room for your
Speaker 1: damn clipboard. You look very handsome. I thank you. You
Speaker 1: look quite delectable yourself. Yeah, I like this color in you.
Speaker 1: The first guest on the Red Couch. The Red Couch.
Speaker 1: Let me just say this, thank you for coming and
Speaker 1: talking about fatherhood. I haven't been a child that didn't
Speaker 1: grow up with a father. I understood and felt the
Speaker 1: absence of not having a father, But I've learned a
Speaker 1: lot about fatherhood through you watching you father. When do
Speaker 1: you think your fatherhood instincts? From the time I was
Speaker 1: six years old, I wanted to be a father. I
Speaker 1: loved how my family was, but there were massive, critical
Speaker 1: deficiencies in my father's parenting that I wanted to correct.
Speaker 1: By the time I was ten years old, I remember
Speaker 1: looking at my father thinking I could do it better
Speaker 1: than him, And what made you think you could do
Speaker 1: it better? My father had a little bit of a temper,
Speaker 1: and I was a gentle kid, Like I was not
Speaker 1: a kid that you had to slap or front your beat. So,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up in a household where physical aggression
Speaker 1: was approved of. That really chafed my hide, That hurt
Speaker 1: my spirit. What would you say was your father's superpower
Speaker 1: as a dad? He had a couple of things that
Speaker 1: were like spectacular. The strongest thing is he was a teacher.
Speaker 1: Every single moment was a teaching moment. He believed that
Speaker 1: school wasn't the only place you got in education, and
Speaker 1: school was actually in his way, and his thing was,
Speaker 1: you can't father from a distance. He wanted his kids
Speaker 1: beside him while he was doing the thing that he
Speaker 1: was best in the world at, so he could be
Speaker 1: seen in his best light and he could teach from
Speaker 1: moment to moment. Got it Before Daddio passed, you did
Speaker 1: some interviews with him and a film crew over a
Speaker 1: few months before he died, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen I'll probably have it. I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 1: you will get me back for the time I was
Speaker 1: playing for the I used to buy used ice machines,
Speaker 1: fix them up like new, and manufacture ice. I got
Speaker 1: a refrigerated truck, and along the way, I actually bought
Speaker 1: a building. It was really in serious disrepair. At one point,
Speaker 1: the whole roof cave den and was just laying in
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor. It looked like a bomb
Speaker 1: had actually hit it. The kids were up around fifteen
Speaker 1: and thirteen, and I said, you know, we had to
Speaker 1: rebuild this place. And the kids thought, there's no way
Speaker 1: that we're going to get this done. And I said, yes,
Speaker 1: if we just lay one perfect brick at a time,
Speaker 1: we'll have a good foundation and it'll last and we
Speaker 1: started working on that thing in the spring, and it
Speaker 1: was Christmas Eve, and of course we were and out
Speaker 1: of money. It started to snow and we're just cutting
Speaker 1: little pieces of wood just to try to get the
Speaker 1: roof closed up. And we got that last board on
Speaker 1: the roof and the kids were so happy, and I said, see,
Speaker 1: we can accomplish anything we worked hard enough to accomplish
Speaker 1: if we just put our mind to it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's probably one of the best lessons that I've
Speaker 1: ever taught. And it's true. If you build a good,
Speaker 1: solid foundation, then it's going to be long lasting and
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a much better building. And the building
Speaker 1: is you huh yeah, wow, you got me dank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that wall man. Of the lessons that he taught, I
Speaker 1: think that one's the one that I come back to
Speaker 1: most in my life. The whole wall was down and
Speaker 1: he said, y'all gonna rebuild it. It was impossible, it
Speaker 1: was utterly impossible, and he was overseeing. He specifically didn't
Speaker 1: want to touch one brick because he knew when we
Speaker 1: got to the end of it, he needed it to
Speaker 1: be our wall. And you saw how emotional it was
Speaker 1: with him. That's how he wanted to teach. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it, and he specifically wanted you
Speaker 1: to be at work on things that served the family.
Speaker 1: How did that influence you as a man. The big
Speaker 1: thing is I lost my fear of things that are impossible.
Speaker 1: And that's for damn sure sure. It's like, how did
Speaker 1: that transfer to your fathering of trade Jaden and Willow.
Speaker 1: The major part was in not beating on them for school, right.
Speaker 1: I learned that everywhere at school that anything you do,
Speaker 1: you have to do it well. Getting good grades isn't
Speaker 1: above cleaning the kitchen, and you have to discipline your
Speaker 1: mind and excel whatever you do, and all of the
Speaker 1: lessons that you need to teach are everywhere. That was
Speaker 1: the big one. And the idea of having to contribute.
Speaker 1: You have tough to contribute. Getting things for yourself is cool,
Speaker 1: but it will never make you as happy and as
Speaker 1: confident as when you build a wall for your family
Speaker 1: to eat. That's important because our family has been under
Speaker 1: the public microscope for a long time. I think people
Speaker 1: didn't understand why we both valued that idea that the
Speaker 1: kids going to work. People thought we were forcing our
Speaker 1: kids to and then It was part of education of
Speaker 1: life for them in so many ways. Absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: for Daddy O, he was an old school, hard military minded,
Speaker 1: get it done, get it done any means necessary. There
Speaker 1: was no quit in them. Yeah. And he was a
Speaker 1: firm disciplinarian. He was in the Air Force, so he
Speaker 1: demanded order. The combination of order and teaching made him
Speaker 1: a very powerful role model and a psychological force. What
Speaker 1: he wanted to do is discipline natural reactions into your
Speaker 1: mind so when it got hot, you didn't have to
Speaker 1: think it's military. It's military. One time he sent me
Speaker 1: to the story to get some cigarettes for him. When
Speaker 1: we were growing up, you could go get your friends.
Speaker 1: You can't stare through that no more. I went up
Speaker 1: to the corner Mr Bryant, and Mr Bryant said, my
Speaker 1: father he smoked terraton hundreds and they didn't have them.
Speaker 1: And Mr Brant said, you know, tell your father, I'll
Speaker 1: hold the carton for them. They come in tomorrow. Oh cool.
Speaker 1: They didn't have them. So I started walking home and
Speaker 1: my friends were playing, so I just got distracted and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the image. And I turned and I
Speaker 1: see my father with no shirt on, walking up the
Speaker 1: middle of the street and I was like right, and
Speaker 1: I was like Mr Bryant said, they didn't have them
Speaker 1: in there. He'll hold the carton for you. And he said,
Speaker 1: when I send you to do something, there's two possibilities.
Speaker 1: One you complete the mission or two your dad. And
Speaker 1: I was like shoot. He said, when you don't come home,
Speaker 1: I need to know to grab my gun and come shooting.
Speaker 1: Because there was nothing that would keep you from finishing
Speaker 1: the mission. You are very disciplined man today, would you
Speaker 1: say that that was an imperative part of your what
Speaker 1: I now consider man training. It's like everything in his
Speaker 1: life was man training. He didn't separate anything. Eating dinner
Speaker 1: is the same as war. I know that you were
Speaker 1: able to really value your father's imperfections once he had
Speaker 1: passed on. Well, there's such beautiful qualities that he instilled.
Speaker 1: That or a big part of what made me me.
Speaker 1: And as the end to every yang, I watched him
Speaker 1: beat up my mother out, so the biggest emotional scar
Speaker 1: that I have in this lifetime he delivered that. Also,
Speaker 1: he showed me a lot of things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, but he also showed me the things I
Speaker 1: would absolutely positively never do. To my children. He was
Speaker 1: so smart. Yeah, and then when he would get angry,
Speaker 1: he would turn into the dumbest person I've ever met.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I couldn't understand it, but all of
Speaker 1: his wisdom disappeared as he got older. He had cancer,
Speaker 1: among amongst other things. He smoked from the time he
Speaker 1: was eleven years old, and he drank from the time
Speaker 1: he was twelve, every day every day. As he got
Speaker 1: feeble and frail, I could just see the little boy
Speaker 1: in there. Ye. Will married Shari's Zampino after meeting on
Speaker 1: the set of the hit sitcom A Different World. Later
Speaker 1: that year, they welcomed a beautiful baby boy, Willard the Third,
Speaker 1: and decided to call him Tray. I'm teaching my son
Speaker 1: how to be being around rosy, happy birdie Tray. But
Speaker 1: not long after Trade's second birthday, they divorced. So Will
Speaker 1: Smith becomes a father at it's so gay. What was
Speaker 1: that like, Trey being your firstborn, firstborn? Yeah, bringing him
Speaker 1: home from the hospital, I think that was my first
Speaker 1: moment of the real weight of parenting. And I brought
Speaker 1: him home and I remember we put him in the
Speaker 1: basster net and Sari went to sleep, and it was
Speaker 1: like start terror. And it was like I'm totally responsible
Speaker 1: for this life. And I just couldn't stop going and checking.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no everything, I gotta make sure
Speaker 1: he's breathing and all of that, you know, all that
Speaker 1: new parenting stuff. But I just cried so hard, like
Speaker 1: it makes me teary right now. It's like from what
Speaker 1: was the I can't do it? Yeah, like I'm not
Speaker 1: the guy. I'm not the guy, you know. And it
Speaker 1: was like, oh man, um, I just knew I didn't
Speaker 1: know nothing. Oh man, because I need to get myself together. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to walk this one off. Hold on,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. Um. It's like in that O man,
Speaker 1: it was like how much better than me my father was. Wow.
Speaker 1: It was like it's on me now, I need a
Speaker 1: tissuee oh did you see that's perfect? See. I thought
Speaker 1: the red couch wouldn't get me like this. The red
Speaker 1: table always get you like this. But the red couch
Speaker 1: was safe. But like my parents was in Philly, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was on their way and I'm in here
Speaker 1: with my baby. Yeah, And it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: my father did this, my father did that. When I'm
Speaker 1: a parent, Yeah, and then I'm like, and I'm shaking
Speaker 1: him to make sure you're breathing. It hit me how
Speaker 1: fragile parenting is. Yes, And just in that moment, I
Speaker 1: could see all of the spectacular lessons what my father
Speaker 1: had instilled in me. And I was like, there's no way, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not that good. Wow, But you know my mind works.
Speaker 1: You know my mind works. I got a good, nice
Speaker 1: sleep game on game on right, right, which was part
Speaker 1: of what your father. Instead, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: one interesting concept that you've brought up quite a bit
Speaker 1: in regards to trade and divorce, and the idea being
Speaker 1: that just because a man might not be the best husband,
Speaker 1: he's not a good father. With Shari and with Trade,
Speaker 1: that was a really facal time. I love you. Divorce
Speaker 1: was the worst thing that like in my adult life.
Speaker 1: Divorce was the ultimate failure for me. I've been hurt
Speaker 1: a lot in my adult life, but I don't think
Speaker 1: anything touches the failure of getting divorced from my two
Speaker 1: year old son's mother. Yeah. Um, Shari and I ran
Speaker 1: into that. You know, if a man is not a
Speaker 1: great husband, then he loses his parental rights. And I'm
Speaker 1: a way better father than I am a husband. In
Speaker 1: that process, you start fighting for your rights and the
Speaker 1: kid is in the middle. Shari and I had that
Speaker 1: for a couple of years, and I called daddy O.
Speaker 1: And because of my experience of seeing Daddy O punch
Speaker 1: my mother, I knew that my kids would never see
Speaker 1: me do anything violent towards their mothers. But in the
Speaker 1: first couple of years of trades life, because Sheari and
Speaker 1: I were divorced, I think my desire to never have
Speaker 1: my son see me in that way made me more
Speaker 1: absent as a father. He wanted to create distance and
Speaker 1: you want to We're not gonna be cursing, We're not
Speaker 1: gonna be We're not gonna be fighting and are called
Speaker 1: daddy O and DADDYO told me you'll never win if
Speaker 1: you fight a kid's mother. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do? She don't get to just do that.
Speaker 1: He was like, surrender, m He said, when he's thirteen,
Speaker 1: he's going to come look for you, right, And then
Speaker 1: I just kind of backed up a little bit and
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, if if Trey wants to
Speaker 1: come over, he can come over, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to force you two do anything especially if your mother
Speaker 1: wants something different. And that was a really difficult time.
Speaker 1: And then, just like Daddio said, as soon as trade
Speaker 1: was ready, was ready, he came looking for his father,
Speaker 1: my literal father and best friend, doing big things. Father
Speaker 1: and best father and best friend. We had our core.
Speaker 1: A lot of parents don't get to hear that. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Thank you. So one of the things with
Speaker 1: you and I that worked well is you didn't demand
Speaker 1: that I do it the way you want to do it,
Speaker 1: and I didn't demand that you do it the way
Speaker 1: I wanted you to do it. Now, sometimes we had
Speaker 1: to just leave, you know. But Sharie and I really
Speaker 1: struggled with each other, needing the other person to do
Speaker 1: it their way. She needed me to father the way
Speaker 1: she wanted tray father. And I'm not that guy. I'm
Speaker 1: not the parent teacher meeting drawing baseballs with the kids.
Speaker 1: And I beat myself up for that for a while,
Speaker 1: wanting to be that dad. I am the we're gonna
Speaker 1: build something together for work dad, like your father was
Speaker 1: like my father was to me. Right, I'm always looking
Speaker 1: for things that we both enjoy doing. When did you
Speaker 1: come upon that discovery? I think Trays Football solidified it
Speaker 1: for me, young Smith. We were shooting Karate Kid in
Speaker 1: Beijing and it was during Trays football season, so it
Speaker 1: was you know, that was a very every difficult time
Speaker 1: for our family, and Jaden and I commuted from Beijing
Speaker 1: every single Friday. We would fly and land Friday afternoon
Speaker 1: in l A go to trades football game. We would
Speaker 1: stay home for Saturday, and then fly back and be
Speaker 1: at work on Monday morning in Beijing. I remember, for
Speaker 1: ten weeks, I would say, that's the high point of
Speaker 1: my parenting. There's very few things in my life I
Speaker 1: enjoyed as much as watching that by played football, and
Speaker 1: he loved you watch and he loved me watching him
Speaker 1: do it. He could feel my authentic joy to be there,
Speaker 1: not because I'm his father and I have to write.
Speaker 1: Going from the Karate Kid and flying home every weekend
Speaker 1: to watch Trey play, I was like, I'm fathering the
Speaker 1: hell out these kids the Karate Kid experienced. I look
Speaker 1: back today because I used to be very angry about
Speaker 1: that experience. You didn't have a good time. I did
Speaker 1: not have a good time. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I recognize out of that now when I look at
Speaker 1: Jaden's work ethic and I look at I call it
Speaker 1: his sage like drive. He knows how to hunt, okay,
Speaker 1: and that's because of you. And I do believe that
Speaker 1: Karate Kid and his experience there was very pivotal in
Speaker 1: regards to the young man that he is today and
Speaker 1: how he knows how to build things and how he
Speaker 1: knows how to get it done. He knows how to suffer.
Speaker 1: If there is a central lesson that came from daddy, oh,
Speaker 1: that was you can't build anything if you're not willing
Speaker 1: and even sometimes seeking suffering. And I think that is
Speaker 1: one of the differences between, Yes, a mother wants to
Speaker 1: protect your absolutely okay, and a father teaching you how
Speaker 1: to find your strength, your strength in suffering through applied suffering. Baby.
Speaker 1: People used to say to us all the time, Oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, how do you feel about putting your kids
Speaker 1: in Hollywood? Liked I grew up in Philly and she
Speaker 1: grew up in Baltimore. If these kids can't take Hollywood,
Speaker 1: Hollywood a couple of people writing some bad stuff and
Speaker 1: saying some crap about them, Yeah, we got some issues. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Part of my parenting belief system is I want them
Speaker 1: at the edge of the maxim him amount of suffering
Speaker 1: that they can manage. That's where the lessons are. That's
Speaker 1: where you find your strength, That's where you learn things
Speaker 1: about yourself. Do you remember the moment with Jaden with
Speaker 1: the splits, right? That moment was when I knew that
Speaker 1: the bulk of my father ring was done. Jaden was
Speaker 1: doing splits and Jackie Chan is hardcourt and the master
Speaker 1: who the master. So Jaden was trying to learn how
Speaker 1: to do the splits for for karate kid, and so
Speaker 1: he's in the splits and he can't quite get down
Speaker 1: into the splits, so he's trying to get it. He's
Speaker 1: trying to get it, and tears are in his eyes,
Speaker 1: and Master Wu walks up behind him and steps on
Speaker 1: his back and pushes him down into the splits and
Speaker 1: he's holding them and Jaden is crying. He's crying, he's crying,
Speaker 1: and he gets up out. He lets him up out
Speaker 1: of the splits and he comes over and I said
Speaker 1: to him, I said, I went over there. He was
Speaker 1: in tears, he was in tears, and he said, are
Speaker 1: you done? Are you done? Because we're going to stop
Speaker 1: stop right? He said no, And he's like no, Mommy,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing again. And he turned and looked at
Speaker 1: Master Will and he said one more time. Yep. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, one more time. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: that was a turning point. Daddio would have made me
Speaker 1: do it one more time, he decided. Jaden decided on
Speaker 1: his own with the option of not doing it again
Speaker 1: because I made it very clear. I made it very
Speaker 1: clear we're done. Yes. I was like, he has learned
Speaker 1: the lesson that I learned with the wall. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: whole experience was very pivotal for Jaden. So yeah, my
Speaker 1: superpower um as a father is teaching in the moment,
Speaker 1: in the moment, right, Yes, it's teaching. I would say,
Speaker 1: teaching and preaching. Eddie, what I'm going to tell your joke?
Speaker 1: Why didn't the Howard go to the movies because it
Speaker 1: was reading a baby? Say that's not funny, Jaden, I
Speaker 1: look a little disappointed. Okay, what did the cups say
Speaker 1: to the coffee, Oh, you're hot? Say that was worse
Speaker 1: than the first one. The first one. You don't give
Speaker 1: my comedy love. Don't put all that on it. She
Speaker 1: hurt your feelings a little bit. Will you tell a
Speaker 1: joke there? Why the party goes to movie. Because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a teacher, and I'm a preacher. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like on the job parenting Jaden and Willow. They were
Speaker 1: home school for a couple of different reasons. One of
Speaker 1: the critical ones is because I had learned from the
Speaker 1: situation with Trade you can't father from a distance. I
Speaker 1: felt my hands tied in parenting Trade for that, you know,
Speaker 1: the first eight or nine years of his life, and
Speaker 1: my kids being with me is of a higher value
Speaker 1: than sitting in a classroom, spending time with me on
Speaker 1: set or wherever I had to be. But I would
Speaker 1: be gone for four months at a time, and I
Speaker 1: just feel like, just for me, the nature of my
Speaker 1: job has me physically and mentally distracted. So I have
Speaker 1: to make up for that with presents. You have to
Speaker 1: be with me. We've talked a lot about the boys.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about Willow because believe,
Speaker 1: I really do believe that Willow she could just penetrate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she made you have to fall back on your militant.
Speaker 1: Trey kind of got the most old school daddy O
Speaker 1: version of me, and then Jaden. I got midway through
Speaker 1: that and I started to see that I was hurting him.
Speaker 1: He's not that dude. Trey actually gets riled up when
Speaker 1: you lean on him a little bit. And then I
Speaker 1: tried to put that same lean on Willow and she
Speaker 1: rejected it thoroughly, rejection, full rejection of the military mindset.
Speaker 1: I was raised military. I succeeded in the material world
Speaker 1: following these precepts, discipline, hard work, You write the plan
Speaker 1: and you die versus not sticking to the plan. It's
Speaker 1: really simple, yes, And it was the Willow with With
Speaker 1: My Hair, my new video with My Willow was just
Speaker 1: nine when she dropped her debut single, Whipped My Hair,
Speaker 1: which quickly went double platinum. She signed with Jay Z's
Speaker 1: record label and announced a multi city tour with Justin Bieber.
Speaker 1: But after a few shows, Willow had different plans whom
Speaker 1: she had committed to, these thirty days on With My Hair.
Speaker 1: We were in Dublin, Ireland, and she did her fourth
Speaker 1: or fifth show and came off stage and was like,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to go, daddy, And she was ready to
Speaker 1: go home, you know. I was like, well, no, you
Speaker 1: can't go home, baby. You committed to thirty days, you
Speaker 1: can't go home. She kept asking She was like, Daddy,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how I feel. And I was like, yes, baby,
Speaker 1: it does matter how you feel, but you have to
Speaker 1: finish what you started. And she was like, but I'm
Speaker 1: I'm finished. It was so devastating to me when she
Speaker 1: shaved her head ball really well, because her record is
Speaker 1: Whipped my Hair. I'm like, that's a protest against me.
Speaker 1: Whether or not it was, it was a brilliant thing
Speaker 1: to do to come off of Whip my Hair being
Speaker 1: because it was like a top ten record, Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: had done it younger than her and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: all of that kind of stuff. And then she just
Speaker 1: shaved her head ball right. So I took that as
Speaker 1: a sign from the gods. I was like, this little
Speaker 1: girl is rejecting what I'm trying to do for her.
Speaker 1: She doesn't want it right. It's hard. She told me.
Speaker 1: She a whole bunch of big dogs. Jay z No,
Speaker 1: She's like it was. It was like she had made music,
Speaker 1: she she did it, she had enjoyed it, and she
Speaker 1: was finished. She retired. She retired, and nobody was going
Speaker 1: to change it. Was going to change that, and she
Speaker 1: wasn't hard with it. She was crying. She was scared,
Speaker 1: but what she wasn't going to do was do something
Speaker 1: she didn't want to do. Yeah, it was pretty gangster.
Speaker 1: It was really gangster. Yea. She was like, I'm done
Speaker 1: and then rebuilt her career the way she wanted that process. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that was like wow, Yeah, I saw how much I
Speaker 1: was making and forcing and pushing the things that I wanted,
Speaker 1: and in that moment, I just saw it was starting
Speaker 1: to hurt her. My desire for her was overriding her
Speaker 1: desire for her. Yeah, And I had a real epiphany
Speaker 1: on that and how bad a person will hate you
Speaker 1: if you keep forcing your wishes onto their life. And
Speaker 1: I like stopped in the middle of it before I broke,
Speaker 1: before I broke her, and I was like, baby, I
Speaker 1: think I understand. I got it. You know, she introduced me.
Speaker 1: It feels so weird. What I say is she introduced
Speaker 1: me to feelings because I don't care how I feel.
Speaker 1: So if I don't care how I feel, I'm damn sure.
Speaker 1: I don't care how you feel. We got to achieve
Speaker 1: the mission. We need a number one record. And I
Speaker 1: would say that with my hair thing put a pause
Speaker 1: button on my overt parenting I stopped and I just
Speaker 1: started watching my kids. And with Willow I started to
Speaker 1: see there was a higher value in talking to her
Speaker 1: about how she feels about the situation versus how to
Speaker 1: fix the situation. And it became the new thought process
Speaker 1: for me. It's like, oh my God, Like Daddy, don't
Speaker 1: never cared how I felt. It was about how I felt.
Speaker 1: We gotta win, right. I remember it happened with Willow.
Speaker 1: Then it happened with Trade. Got all all these colleges
Speaker 1: wanted Trade to come play football, and he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it, and we were like right, but they
Speaker 1: could cut you. I made that sound a dog makes
Speaker 1: when you step on his foot. Right, you had to
Speaker 1: just go, hey, this is this is what he wants.
Speaker 1: So when do you think it happened for Jaden? When
Speaker 1: you really had to let go With Jaden, it was
Speaker 1: after Earth. That was a big one. After Earth was
Speaker 1: so painful because After Earth was my first test run
Speaker 1: of caring about how the kids were feeling from moment
Speaker 1: to moment versus accomplishing. And you know how I make movies,
Speaker 1: and it's twenty four hours a day, seven days a
Speaker 1: week until it's finished. Ye, And what I did sighted
Speaker 1: on after Earth was I'm not going to have a
Speaker 1: single moment where I push him or pound on him.
Speaker 1: I was going to be a loving father. And then
Speaker 1: the movie didn't work, and I was like, that's what
Speaker 1: happens when you give a damn how people feel. You
Speaker 1: can't win. It's like you can't. You either you either
Speaker 1: have a beautiful, loving relationship or you succeed in the world.
Speaker 1: How old was Jaden? Then? Was he? Or so? It
Speaker 1: was like the first test run of paying attention to
Speaker 1: people's feelings ended up in a movie that didn't work
Speaker 1: at the box office. I was furious, because I know
Speaker 1: how to win. If everybody just do what I say,
Speaker 1: we're gonna win. Right. Worried about your feelings, but you know,
Speaker 1: I knew, I knew to to back up. The kids
Speaker 1: aren't ours, They're not ours, they are their own people.
Speaker 1: And I just completely let go of my needs and
Speaker 1: my desires for their lives, and I started shifting into
Speaker 1: what I called the gardener flower concept of fathering the
Speaker 1: seed already is what God designed it to be. The
Speaker 1: gardener is not trying to make the seed become what
Speaker 1: the gardener wants. The gardener wants to create an environment
Speaker 1: where the seed can become what it wants to be.
Speaker 1: Where I'm going to provide nourishment and I'm going to
Speaker 1: provide support, but I am not going to preconceive what
Speaker 1: you need to be. There is a real arrogance in
Speaker 1: that talk, and it's like letting go of my picture
Speaker 1: of what I wanted them to be and allowing them
Speaker 1: to lead for me. That's really all you can do
Speaker 1: for your kids. Absolutely, that's all you can do. They're
Speaker 1: gonna have to figure it out for themselves, but they're yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and just to have something that they can
Speaker 1: come back to where they know it's not impossible. When
Speaker 1: I think about your father's fathering of you and then
Speaker 1: this journey of your fathering, how you are breaking your
Speaker 1: familial cycle and allowing it to evolve absolutely true your parenting.
Speaker 1: Ably do you see that? Absolutely? You know. It's like
Speaker 1: I love doing a lot of things. I love being
Speaker 1: an there, I love putting stuff out in the world.
Speaker 1: I love husband and wife relating, but parenting, there's something
Speaker 1: really rewarding and challenging about delivering human beings to the world,
Speaker 1: to the world. How do you think we can help
Speaker 1: fathers feel better about their fathering. I think they're a
Speaker 1: couple of cultural roadblocks to fathering. In the black community specifically,
Speaker 1: fathering has been somewhat assaulted, and there have been historical
Speaker 1: and systemic hurdles to African American fatherhood and attempts to
Speaker 1: dismantle it systemically. There's a touchy area to talk about,
Speaker 1: and I'm not relinquishing the responsibility. Let me say, first
Speaker 1: and foremost, if you have kids, take care of your kids.
Speaker 1: Do whatever you have to do as a man to
Speaker 1: father your children. Now, with that said, there's a necessity
Speaker 1: that mothers make room for fathers. Mothers have the kids,
Speaker 1: they're yours, They're yours. It's hard. I can't get them
Speaker 1: from you, you know, can Those are your kids that
Speaker 1: came from your body. They're yours. I can't father if
Speaker 1: you don't make room for me and you don't support me.
Speaker 1: That's true. And you have to make room for me
Speaker 1: in my imperfections. You can't say you're going to make
Speaker 1: room for me if I get perfect, because I'm not
Speaker 1: perfect and I'm not gonna get perfect. And I've had
Speaker 1: both situations, and you know, it feels very true for
Speaker 1: me that motherhood is the doorway to successful fatherhood. That's important.
Speaker 1: There has to be a partnership. The mother has to
Speaker 1: value fatherhood. So it is Father's Day and your kids
Speaker 1: have a few words for you, loving father, Happy Father's Day,
Speaker 1: my guy. I love you beyond life. I am truly
Speaker 1: thankful for our relationship the first time. Every step of
Speaker 1: the way, the journey has been magnificent. I wouldn't change anything.
Speaker 1: I was so thankful for you, for your teachings, for
Speaker 1: your wisdom, your heart. I'm truly truly appreciative of you,
Speaker 1: and that the Divine shows me to be your son.
Speaker 1: I love you, Honor you, big love to your father.
Speaker 1: That it's me, Jaden. This is me officially giving you
Speaker 1: the Best Dad of All Time award. I mean it,
Speaker 1: it's real. I might not have the award physically here
Speaker 1: with me, but that doesn't mean that it's not real.
Speaker 1: I love you. Happy Father's Day. You're the best dad
Speaker 1: of all time. Thank you for creating a world that
Speaker 1: we can flourish and love your son, Jaden, Rock and
Speaker 1: roll lives and rabels are real. Happy Father's Day, Daddy.
Speaker 1: I love you so much. Wow, beautiful makeup? How you
Speaker 1: doing being good? I'm crash, Daddy, I am infinitely grateful
Speaker 1: for all of the love, support in wisdom that you
Speaker 1: have given and continue to give to me throughout my life.
Speaker 1: You're amazing. We appreciate you, and I just want to
Speaker 1: say thank you for everything I do will but no
Speaker 1: really because you are you. You know, you're really a
Speaker 1: great father. M hmmm, Braby Okay, yeah, it's really you know,
Speaker 1: even as the kids are older, you know, and you've
Speaker 1: been such a great partner. I really appreciate the parenting partnership. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are. I think there's like there's no rules. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants rules. There isn't. It's more it's more art science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, I love what we're painting.
Speaker 1: Love what painting. It hasn't been easy, but it's definitely
Speaker 1: been worth it. It really has. So thank you happy Yeah.
Speaker 1: Game said it was great. Games always gonna say anything
Speaker 1: you do is amazing. She thought it was special though,
Speaker 1: Like that's gonna be like one of the best table talks.
Speaker 1: Was really impactful. See that's how Marvel and laws do.
Speaker 1: Especially that one yes to join the Red Table Talk
Speaker 1: family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us
Speaker 1: at Facebook dot com, slash red Table Talk. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced
Speaker 1: by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.