Jada Pinkett Smith Talks Teaching Willow About Date Rape
Jada Pinkett Smith, the 42-year-old actress who shares two famous children with her actor husband 45-year-old Will Smith, is revealing her unconventional way of teaching their daughter Willow,13, about date rape.
After the rape of a 16-year-old girl became the subject of a meme that went viral, Jada revealed her 20-year-old niece was recently given a date rape drug. While she thanked God that her niece was not harmed, the actress used the experience as a lesson for her own daughter.
She made sure that her niece sat down with Willow to detail the experience, and explained her reason for doing so.
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"I'm not a conventional parent, which I take a lot of pride in. The first thing I had my niece do was sit down with my daughter and a couple of her friends and tell her about that experience," Jada told Us Weekly recently. "I don't just sit with Willow and go, 'hey, this is what Mommy thinks.' Let me just bring in a little reality to validate what Mommy's been talking to you about."
Jada went on to further explain her style of parenting.
"What I do with Willow is I give her the opportunity to be empowered by having herself first. Because when you allow a person to be an individual and you allow a person to have power within and have confidence on who they are, you'll never have to look into the eyes of a man and question whether it's a yes or a no," the actress told Us Weekly. "And she's gonna be in a position to be able to determine how to protect herself. Know when you're in danger."
The actress went on to give an example of questions that her daughter will equip herself with to keep herself safe one day.
"Should you be a girl that goes into a room with four men drinking," she questioned to Us Weekly. "Even if you think you know them? Is this about wanting to be the cool girl or is this about wanting to set a standard for yourself?"
Will previously explained the Smiths style of parenting.
"We respect our children the way we would respect any other person. Things like cleaning up their room," Smith told Haute Living magazine last year. "You would never tell a full-grown adult to clean their room, so we don't tell our kids to clean their rooms."
