Gabrielle Union and her husband Dwyane Wade are rewriting the manual when it comes to raising well-rounded children who are authentic to themselves. They were inspired to write a children’s book, Shady Baby, sharing some of the tidbits gleaned from raising their 2-year-old, Kaavia James — their youngest child who the couple welcomed via surrogate in 2018. “People see themselves in Kaav,” Wade, 39, told PEOPLE of the book, on stands May 18. “Some days you don’t feel like doing your hair. And some days you want to give people shade.”
Kaavia is famous for giving her parents’ different looks depending on her moods. Union, 48, told PEOPLE, “shade is her superpower because when Kaavia gives you a look, it’s either you’re not respecting her boundaries or something is happening that she doesn’t like. The main takeaway is that she’s free to be this amazing, dynamic, shady at times, loving at times Black little girl when the world has not been so kind to Black girls and women.”
Union and Wade champion their children to be their authentic selves. “My focus when it comes to any of my kids is to let them know who they are so that when other people’s opinions about them are formed, it’s not hitting them,” Wade continued. “If we allow our kids to be their true selves, we don’t have to worry about them conforming with anything or anyone. Why wouldn’t we push our kids to be their authentic selves?” This is the sort of transparency that Union wished she had growing up. “”I was raised to assimilate,” she recalls. “I was raised to conform. But we are raising our kids to know they are worthy because they exist. We don’t want them to ever shape shift for anyone else’s approval or acceptance. We want them to be free to be who they are.”
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