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"Parents Just Don't Understand"
Single by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
from the album He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper
Released	1988
Genre	Hip-Hop/Rap

"Parents Just Don't Understand" is a song on the album "Parents Just Don't Understand" sung by rap duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince.

The song starts out with Will Smith (The Fresh Prince) telling how parents don't understand how kids make mistakes. Later in the song Smith notes how his mother won't buy him the stylish clothes he wants, resulting in ridicule at school. Later, Smith tells us that his parents went on a mini vacation, and while gone he takes the new Porsche for a spin, and picks up a girl. As the song goes on Smith tells us that he gets pulled over for speeding. That's when Smith admits he doesn't have a license, and he discovers the girl is a 12-year-old runaway. His parents come back and he gets grounded. After that he says the song most repeated line, "So to all you kids across the land, take it from me, parents just don't understand".

• The song makes references to Adidas, Porsche, and McDonald's.
• A remake of the song was sung by Lil' Romeo and Nick Cannon, which it appears in the Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius soundtrack. Will Smith and Jeff Townes are credited to the contribution to the song, due to the similarity of lyrics, just the remake was cleaner, and some fans thought was not as good as the original
• The song won the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance, the first of two ever awarded in that category.
• The song was referenced in the show The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. In the pilot where Will dresses for dinner in his "homeboy" stle look, the main instrumental of the song plays. Also in the episode "Not With My Pig, You Don't",in which Philip Banks (James Avery) says to Will "You don't get it Will, sometimes parents just don't understand." It was also referenced earlier in the series in the "Mistaken Identity" when Uncle Phil says to Will "You're only seventeen, you don't have a rep yet." This line is almost a carbon copy of a lyric in verse one. Finally, it was referenced in the episode "Will Gets Committed" during the flashback where everyone is younger. As the young "Uncle Phil" starts reprimanding the young "Will", the young "Will" says "Parents just don't understand."