Will

Smith believes that it is important for parents and children to spend a lot of time together and that children learn best at their parents’ side. His experiences as both a child and a father, however, teach him that parents can hurt their children as well as help them. His memoir therefore takes a nuanced approach to this theme, exploring the good and bad outcomes of parental involvement. Still, whatever drawbacks there may be, Smith concludes that a close relationship between parents and children is a net positive.

Smith’s father, Daddio, embodies both the positives and the negatives of parental involvement. Will considers Daddio to be a great man, but he also recognizes his significant and dangerous weaknesses. Smith learns the importance of hard work by spending time at his father’s side while he works. When his father tasks Will and his brother with building the brick wall in his father’s business, he learns to focus on executing each step of a task well to avoid becoming overwhelmed by huge goals. Smith carries these lessons into his music and acting careers, drawing on what he learned from Daddio to become the biggest movie star in the world. Yet Daddio’s behavior teaches Smith negative lessons, too. His father physically abuses his mother, and Smith comes to believe himself to be a coward because he is not able to protect her as a child. His father’s outbursts and his mother’s emotional dissociation from the beatings also teach Will to distrust and reject emotions, a habit that harms his relationships later in his life. Thus, his parents’ involvement in his life is crucial to shaping who he becomes, both for better and for worse. 

Smith models his own parenting on his parents’ example. Because Smith benefitted so greatly from working by his father’s side, he wants his children to be with him as he works, too. This causes conflict with his ex-wife, Sheree, when she refuses to allow Trey to travel to his movie sets with him. She wants him to have a more traditional upbringing. When he agrees to raise Trey the way Sheree wants to, he goes months at a time without seeing his son. He makes this compromise to keep peace in his family so that Trey is not caught in the middle of a custody battle, but it creates a rift between the father and son that confirms for Smith the importance of being as involved as possible in his children’s lives.

Smith has more leeway with his two children with Jada. Based on his childhood and Trey’s, he believes that the best way he can parent them is by being involved in their professional lives and having them involved in his. Over time, he realizes that there are strengths and drawbacks to this method. When Willow wants to stop performing, he pressures her to complete her commitment, and she shaves her head in protest. This shows him that Willow wants him to be her father, not her business manager. He is more successful with Jaden’s film career. While they film a movie together, Smith supports Jaden as he fights to be taken seriously and have his acting choices honored. Smith takes pride in this because he protected his son in a way that his son appreciated. It is at this moment that his goal of being an involved parent and parenting through daily life is most realized. 

Like his own parents, Smith has the best of intentions with his children, and he seeks to take the best of his childhood to make his children’s childhoods strong. This is not always successful, but because of his willingness to listen to his children and do what is best for them, he learns from his mistakes and his parents’ mistakes and becomes a better father. He learns to be present not only physically but also emotionally and to support his children in the ways that they most need. Will demonstrates that it is important for parents to be involved in their children’s day-to-day lives while being sensitive to their children’s unique feelings.