In a recent podcast conversation, Khloé Kardashian opened up about raising her three-year-old daughter and how she plans on educating her about race relations in America.
While speaking to model Leomie Anderson on her Role Model podcast, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star reflected on raising her Black daughter, True Thompson, as someone who hasn’t grown up subjected to the same violence and oppression people of color have. “I will be always learning and trying to do the best I can do as being her mum,” Kardashian shared, “but I’m obviously not a woman of color.”
Acknowledging her privilege and how different her life is in comparison to most people, Kardashian said she wants to make sure True, who she shares with NBA player Tristan Thompson, is able to see and experience different ways of life. “I don’t want her living in a bubble. Because we do have this very privileged life, I want her to know all types of life, all types of living and be very aware of that,” Kardashian said, crediting her late father Robert Kardashian with similarly always exposing her and her siblings the realities of life.
When it comes to the topic of race, Kardashian says the only option is speaking openly and honestly to True about the realities of the world we live in. “I know some people get uncomfortable with talking to their kids about race,” she said, “or they think, ‘Oh we live in a bubble. We never have to address that my child is Black.’ I mean, of course you do! You’re only setting them up I think for failure if you don’t talk about race and probably the things that they’re going to endure once they’re in, quote, the ‘real world.'”
To not expose your children to the realities of race would be a disservice, Kardashian says. “Even if you do live in a bubble, whoever you are, I think that can be really jarring then when your kids are set free, then they’re going to be so either devastated, hurt, traumatized, confused, overwhelmed,” she explained. “I think it’s our duty as parents to really expose them while they have the safety and security of their parents to, I think, communicate that with them and still guide them and help them instead of just like letting them out into the free world and now they’re like, Wait, this isn’t what—I didn’t hear about this, I had no idea this was what real life was.”
“The beauty of having some of my sisters in the same situation is we get to have those conversations probably together,” Kardashian continued. “Of course we don’t want to overexpose our children or tell them things too young,” she noted, “and I don’t know when that time is, but I think I’ll learn it when I’m in it.”
