Will Smith made an appearance on his wife’s show the ‘Red Table Talk’ for Father’s day special. Will and Jada discuss about parenthood and about raising their children.
In the trailer we could see Will and Jada have vulnerable conversations and they get emotional. They reflect on their experience about raising children. They talk about their life and the failures that came with it.
Will admits that his divorce with his first wife was his “ultimate failure”. But he claims it made him better as a father and changed his approach.
“Do you feel like you are appreciated as a father?” Jada asks in the clip, forcing Will to reflect.
Will breaks down as he says he will have to walk this one off.
The trailer also revealed of showing the Smith family’s never before seen videos and images from back when the children were little toddlers.
Jada recently revealed that quarantining with husband, Will makes her think she did not know him at all. This time is helping their relationship evolve.
Will and Jada have made a plan to face the difficulties in their relationship. They have taken a step back and looked at the challenges they face.
Will says that ever since he saw his father’s approach towards his children, he wanted to be a father too.
“From the time I was six years old, I wanted to be a father,” Smith reminisces. “I loved how my family was, but there were massive critical deficiencies in my father’s parenting that I wanted to correct. By the time I was ten years old, I remember looking at my father thinking I could do it better than him.”
Will Smith’s father, Daddio Smith was strict and used military precision. He also physically abused Will’s mother. But he understands his father’s strict approach to imbibe discipline on his children and made him the father that he is today.
“I lost my fear of things that are impossible,” he says.
Smith had his first child with ex-wife, Sheree Fletcher, when he was 24.
Will says he felt the real weight of parenthood when he brought his son, Trey Smith, home for the first time. He remembers the time his cried and thought to himself that he cannot do this.
“I brought him home, and I remember we put him in the bassinet, and Sheree went to sleep and it was like stark terror,” he adds while holding back emotion. “I just cried so hard, like ‘I can’t do it. Like I’m not the guy.’ I just knew I didn’t know nothing. It’s like in that moment, [I felt] how much better than me my father was.”
Will says that he experienced hurt in his adult life but none of that compared to when he had to separate from Trey’s mother.
Fortunately Will could establish a relationship with his son, Trey. But he always regrets missing out on the first two years of his son’s life.
Will explains how in the black community, assault is the most common approach a father takes on. That affects the dynamic of fatherhood.
“I think there are a couple of cultural roadblocks to fathering. In the Black community, specifically, fathering has been somewhat assaulted and there have been historical and systemic hurdles to African-American fatherhood and attempts to dismantle it systemically.” Smith acknowledges, “It’s a touchy area to talk about and I’m not relinquishing the responsibility…If you have kids, take care of your kids…Now with that said, there’s a necessity that mothers make room for fathers.”
