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This Red Table Talk series sounds like it’s going to be quite entertaining. We’ve already reported the news of Jada Pinkett Smith and Gabrielle Union squashing a beef we didn’t even know they had. There are clips of Jada and Will’s first wife Sheree Zampino discussing the ways in which their relationship has evolved.

And now, there’s even a little tidbit from the third generation. In one clip from the upcoming series, the three generations of women, Adrienne Banefield-Jones, Jada’s mother, Pinkett Smith, and Willow Smith sit down to talk about sex.

During the episode, Jada asked her daughter what was her introduction to sex. And her answer surprised the actress.

Essentially, Willow said walking in on you and Daddy.

And Jada was shook.

“How did that happen?! I was like, ‘Lord have mercy, what did you see? Thank God I have some therapy fund put aside for you.’ It wasn’t funny in the moment.”

Thankfully, Willow didn’t see anything explicit.

“I had never heard that, and she said that what she got from that was that she walked into a private space. She was like, ‘That’s private time.’ She said she didn’t really see anything. But she knew she had just walked in on a very private moment.”

Jada said she had yet to tell Will anything about Willow’s revelation and she’s waiting for him to watch the series with the rest of us.

“I haven’t told him yet! That’s what’s funny. ‘cause I want Will to see this! He’s gonna be like, ‘What?!’ He’s gonna call me and be like, ‘What the hell is going on over there?!’ I didn’t tell him on purpose because I think it’ll be so funny. He does that to me all the time. I’ll sip my little tea and (watch).”

I think being exposed to your parents’ sex lives is quite common if you live in the same house with them for eighteen years and your parents are still regularly having sex.

Quite a few of my maternal aunts and uncles, remember walking in on my grandparents, my cousins have told stories of walking in on or hearing their my aunts and uncles. And I remember the horror I felt hearing my parents have sex when I was in middle school.

Perhaps, I’ve told this story here before. But I was in sixth grade, when I woke up in the middle of the night to hear some “strange sounds” coming from my parents’ room.

I was so troubled by them that I wrote my mom a note, a couple of days later, asking that they cease and desist all sexual activity. See, I had enough knowledge to know what sex sounded like, but not enough to realize that asking my parents to stop was not an option…like at all.

And after laughing at me, my mother told me as much. To this day, my father has never mentioned the incident, though my mother told me she showed him the note.

What I learned from that situation is that sexuality wasn’t limited to the young. I know when I was 11-12, considering sexuality, imagining myself having it one day, my curiosities around the subject, it never occurred to me that my parents would also be interested in sex. It thought it was something for the young folk. I assumed that once you had children, all of that came to an end.

So what I learned from that was sex is for anyone who is willing and able. And as much as I was grossed out by them, there was a part of me that took my parents still having sex as a bit of security. Their relationship was still solid. And if their relationship was solid, our family unit could continue on as I’d known it.

I wouldn’t suggest those means to anyone else but I think those are good things for a child to know.

Have you ever walked in on or heard your parents having sex? What lessons did you learn from it?

Red Table Talk premieres on Facebook Watch today at 12pm EST and 9am PST. 

Veronica Wells is the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. She is also the author of “Bettah Days” and the creator of the website NoSugarNoCreamMag. You can follow her on Facebook and on Instagram and Twitter @VDubShrug.
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