{"id":21040,"date":"2021-04-28T21:05:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T21:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&#038;p=21040"},"modified":"2021-04-29T16:08:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T16:08:39","slug":"gabrielle-union-dwyane-wade-shady-baby","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/gabrielle-union-dwyane-wade-shady-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabrielle Union And Dwyane Wade On Raising Free Black Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_21041\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21041\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignfull -width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignfull-width size-large wp-image-21041\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/04\/gabrielle-union-dwyane-wade.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"Gabrielle Union and Dwyane WadeGabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21041\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade Photo: Johnny Nunez\/Getty Images for Stance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/coming-to-america-sequel-amazon-prime\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gabrielle Union<\/a> and her husband Dwyane Wade\u00a0are rewriting the manual when it comes to raising well-rounded children who are authentic to themselves. They were inspired to write<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> a children&#8217;s book, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Shady-Baby-Gabrielle-Union\/dp\/0063054035?ots=1&amp;tag=people0d0-20&amp;linkCode=w50\" target=\"_blank\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shady Baby<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, sharing some of the tidbits gleaned from raising their 2-year-old, Kaavia James \u2014 their youngest child who the couple welcomed via surrogate in 2018. &#8220;People see themselves in Kaav,&#8221; Wade, 39, <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/parents\/gabrielle-union-dwyane-wade-raising-authentic-kids-new-book-people-cover-exclusive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told <\/a><\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">PEOPLE<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of the book, on stands May 18. &#8220;Some days you don&#8217;t feel like doing your hair. And some days you want to give people shade.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CONzIJNp6IT\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"13\" style=\" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);\">\n<div style=\"padding:16px;\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CONzIJNp6IT\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" style=\" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/p>\n<div style=\" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; 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font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;\"> View this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 12.5% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;\">\n<div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 8px;\">\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: auto;\">\n<div style=\" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CONzIJNp6IT\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" style=\" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\">A post shared by Gabrielle Union-Wade (@gabunion)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kaavia is famous for giving her parents\u2019 different looks depending on her moods. Union, 48, <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/parents\/gabrielle-union-dwyane-wade-raising-authentic-kids-new-book-people-cover-exclusive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told <\/a><\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">PEOPLE<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, &#8220;shade is her superpower because when Kaavia gives you a look, it&#8217;s either you&#8217;re not respecting her boundaries or something is happening that she doesn&#8217;t like. The main takeaway is that she&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Union and Wade champion their children to be their authentic selves. \u201cMy focus when it comes to any of my kids is to let them know who they are so that when other people\u2019s opinions about them are formed, it\u2019s not hitting them,\u201d Wade continued. \u201cIf we allow our kids to be their true selves, we don&#8217;t have to worry about them conforming with anything or anyone. Why wouldn&#8217;t we push our kids to be their authentic selves?\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the sort of transparency that Union wished she had growing up. \u201c&#8221;I was raised to assimilate,&#8221; she recalls. &#8220;I was raised to conform. But we are raising our kids to know they are worthy because they exist. We don&#8217;t want them to ever shape shift for anyone else&#8217;s approval or acceptance. We want them to be free to be who they are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We love to see it! <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26633,"featured_media":21041,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[23,38,16],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v18.5 (Yoast SEO v20.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gabrielle Union And Dwayne Wade On Raising Free Black Kids<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"They were inspired to write a children&#039;s book, Shady Baby, sharing some of the tidbits gleaned from raising their 2-year-old Kaavia James \u2014 their youngest child who the couple welcomed via surrogate in 2018.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/gabrielle-union-dwyane-wade-shady-baby\/\" \/>\n<meta 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