Gabrielle Union & Dwyane Wade are trying to be the best parents they can be. Here’s how.

In an interview with Parents magazine for their back-to-school issue, actor Gabrielle Union and NBA legend Dwyane Wade opened up about raising their two daughters and how they try to set an example for their children.

Their youngest daughter, Kaavia James, is starting pre-K this year, while Zaya, who is transgender, is now a high school junior.

Related:

Trans style icon Zaya Wade owns the runway in Paris Fashion Week debut

And her famous parents could not be prouder.

The biggest lesson they hope to teach Kaavia is compassion – especially for herself. They want their daughters to feel empowered.

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“So often, we’re drilled to be compassionate to everybody else, but we leave ourselves out of that compassion umbrella and let ourselves get drenched and drowned in self-loathing and self-judgment. And when you breed compassion in your home, [kids] can’t help but live it and expect it,” Union told the magazine.

“This is my first time raising a little girl from this age as Zaya came to us older,” Wade agreed. “I don’t know what Kaav’s going to choose for herself. But if she does choose a man, I want her to look at that man she chooses and say you have to measure up to my daddy. So, the bar will be set high.”

“When I was going through my custody battle, I had to take a lot of courses and do therapy with my kids. Along the way, I learned the power of empowering your children. Zaya has been living with us since she was three, and my daughter can walk down a runway in Paris for the first time with all the confidence in the world because we’ve been cheering for her since then. Even now, I’ll lay across her bed and listen to her talk about the community she’s part of for two to three hours.”

Wade and Union recently announced they were moving from Florida to California after Republican politicians, led by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, waged war on transgender people – particularly trans kids. Giving Zaya a safe environment where she could flourish was mandatory for them as parents.

“There are a lot of reasons we decided California was best for our family and finding a community for Zaya was a big part of that,” Wade said. “We felt that California was a place that would allow her to blossom and grow. She’s going to be a junior in high school now and she’s been able to be accepted and become her here.”

Union added, “When you have the kind of rhetoric that is being espoused in Florida and adopted into law, that’s not an option if my child isn’t safe there. We have family and friends who don’t have the privilege of moving. So we are going to be fighting till we are out of breath to protect all kids who are oppressed. That is our responsibility as people with large platforms and as people who folks trust, and they trust us because we say the hard thing.”

Zaya came out as a girl in 2019 when she asked her parents to call her by her new name.

Wade told Ellen DeGeneres in 2020: “Our then-12-year-old came home and said, ‘Hey, so I want to talk to you guys. You know, I think going forward, I’m ready to live my truth and I want to be a referred to as she and her, and I would love for you guys to call me Zaya.”

Last year, Wade filed court papers last year to legally and officially change her name.