Fresh Prince of Bel Air Mom and College Parent Gives Her College Parenting Tips

Daphne Reid TV College Mom Tips for Life
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By: Reyna Gobel MBA, MJ

Daphne Maxwell Reid is one of the ultimate 90s TV moms who is married to one of the ultimate 90s TV dads. She was the mom in the later years of the original Fresh Prince of Bel Air while her husband is Tim Reid was the dad from Sister Sister, Both had college kids in their TV families and in their real life. Now, they are grandparents offering wisdom to both college students and college parents.

Minimize Your Home Being a Storage Facility for Your Kids.

Daphne and Tim told their kids to take everything with them when they went off to college. It was one of the things they did that signified this was a time to prioritize their own lives. They bought a house in Virginia with farm land and a little pond. Three years in, their business managers told them somebody had to work to afford the farm. So they both went back to acting on series. That’s when the Fresh Prince of Bel Air happened.

Have a Support System, Real and Televised

Tim and Daphne were aware their TV families were role models for Black families raising their kids from teenagers to college. In the 90s, they were still able to consult culturally to make sure the TV family mimicked how they would handle their own kids in real life. For instance, when the writers consulted with the actors on a script where Ashley talked back to her father, the actors had the scene cut out because it wouldn’t happen in their households. Tim would get letters from a young woman who was adopted. She would watch the show for fatherly advice because she didn’t have a father of her own. Everything he told the twins, she took as advice for her, too.

Become a Parent to Adults

Your job of raising a child is over. You should trust that you’ve given your adult children a “baseline for common sense and rules and regulations for their lives.” Allow them to be independent, so you can be, too. Let them know they can have a soft landing when they make mistakes and bounce back from them.

Treat Grandkids as Independent Beings, Too.

Tim’s grand daughter is going to Virginia Commonwealth University, near where they live. She’ll come by and she’ll cook with Daphne and get tips for starting her adult life. Some of the recipes come from her new cookbook Grace Soul & Mother Whit. The cookbook is Daphne’s latest project and designed to help young people starting out learn how to set up their kitchen and cook a few easy, soulful recipes.

Being a parent to grown children is as much about developing your next stage of life as it is for them to develop theirs. And sometimes, the learning can be shared with others along the way. Like with Daphne’s cookbook. 🙂