“The hunter-gatherers had it right. The kids have to go to work with you,” says Will Smith, who has been on-screen with his three children: Trey, 15 (from his first marriage), Jaden, 9, and Willow, 7 (with wife Jada Pinkett Smith, 36).

Will Smith always wants his brood with him

“The bottom line is the amount of time you spend with your child. Whatever situation you’re in, it doesn’t matter. You have to be there,” says Will, 39, who wouldn’t mind if his kids followed in his footsteps. “If they wanted to be subatomic physicists, I couldn’t be of any assistance,” he says. “But they want to do the thing that is in my greatest sphere of knowledge. So it’s perfect.” “He was stealing way too many of my scenes,” says Will of Jaden’s performance in The Pursuit of Happyness. “Our perspective on parenting is that they are their own people, and they are going to have to make decisions for their own lives,” Will says of his kids.

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