Learning From Your Children

Jim Belushi, 43, never expected the impact his sixteen-year-old son Robert has on him. When Belushi is asked about his role models, he speaks of three people—Arnold Schwarzenegger; his legendary brother, John; and Robert.

Schwarzenegger, his costar in two movies, taught Belushi confidence. “When I’m feeling down or nervous, I think of Arnold: how he walks into a room with his shoulders up, his head high, his chest out.”

John, the comic who died in 1982, taught him showmanship. (Jim’s Blues Brothers act, the half-time entertainment at the ’97 Super Bowl, was a tribute to John.) And Robert? “He has taught me compassion. He’s polite, funny, charming, an excellent student, a gentleman.

I’m learning about myself in relation to him.” Belushi was a wild teen, well-known to the police in his hometown of Wheaton, Illinois. So his first impulse was to rein Robert in, to be suspicious of him. But he’s learned it’s not fair to look at your children and see yourself: “Just because you weren’t trustworthy at sixteen, don’t assume you can’t trust your sixteen-year-old.

Your kids carry your spirit, but they’re not you.”