Jaden Smith is not afraid to wear clothing typically associated with women — having famously posed wearing a skirt in a Vogue Korea photo shoot earlier this year. His famous father Will Smith told BET in a new interview that he is totally supportive of his son’s clothing choices, and Will Smith thinks all parents should be supportive of who their children want to be as well.

Will Smith said that even though he doesn’t give parenting advice “per se,” he feels that he has succeeded as a dad by allowing his kids to be their true selves.

“What I do with my children, that I feel that the greatest gift that I can give my children is the freedom to be who they are,” Will Smith said. “[My wife] and I are very serious about finding what they are, and encouraging them to be what they are because you can never be happy being what you’re not.”

Will Smith also noted that there is “no point” trying to make a child fit into an identity that doesn’t fit with the way they see themselves:

“I feel like a lot of times, when I was growing up, I would see parents force a child to be what you want them to be. As a parent, if it’s an oak tree, I want it to grow as an oak tree. I’m not going to try to force it to be an apple tree.”

BET – BET.COM

Will Smith has previously shown appreciation for his son’s choices.

In a February interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra, Will Smith said his son possesses a “powerful internal quality” to be able to express himself without fear of judgment from others:

“Jaden is 100 percent fearless, he will do anything. As a parent, it’s scary, it’s really terrifying, but he is completely willing to live and die by his open artistic decisions and doesn’t concern himself with what people think.”

In August 2015, Jaden and his sister Willow criticized gender norms in an interview with GulfNews TV.

“Nobody ever thinks, ‘Yo who made all these rules [about gender norms]?'” Jaden said. “Who was here and who made all these rules? Because I’m equally as smart as them, and I don’t necessarily agree with all the rules that they established before I came into the picture. It’s just like, we think these rules are just like done deal things that are just set in stone, but it’s like, you decide your own path, you decide your own rules.”

[“source-ndtv”]