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On Saturday, March 16, Dwyane Wade hosted a fashion show called “A Night on the Runwade” in Miami, which was also a fundraiser benefiting the Wade Family Foundation and the Overtown Youth Center. Some of Wade’s fellow Miami Heat teammates showed their support, and of course, wife Gabrielle Union was by his side.
One of the models who turned heads on the runway included Wade’s 11-year-old son, Zion. The child strutted his stuff, even twirling at one point as Union screamed in excitement. Wade would later have a proud papa moment, sharing the clip of Zion’s walk in his InstaStories with the caption, “Killing sh-t.”
https://twitter.com/thecrewsdad/status/1108148708871467008
Unfortunately, as you can see from the comment above, people decided to be negative and went as far as to criticize the 37-year-old for encouraging his son. When one man in particular shared the video on Twitter and said, “Fathers please don’t allow your children to bend and conform to societal pressures,” which is another one of those “gay agenda” comments, people were quick to tell him, and those who agreed with him, that they were barking up the wrong tree:
For his part, Wade, who raises three sons (including son Xavier from another relationship), daughter Kaavia, and is helping to rear his nephew, knows what he’s doing. He has said that he nurtures each of his children differently. “You can’t raise all your kids the same way,” he told USA Today in 2017. “They’re different.”
And not only that, but Wade literally wrote the book on parenting (2012’s A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball). Also, his foundation actually works, by providing resources, to combat statistics that show a majority of Black children are being raised in single-parent homes led by women. So overall, his priority is not on making sure the boys he’s raising are the embodiment of what folks claim masculinity to be, but rather, that he’s a constant presence for them so they can grow to be happy, healthy, good men. This is something he told ABC News in 2011 should be the focus of all dads.
“We as men have to get back on the line and raise our families to make sure that this country will continue to strive by raising great kids,” he said.
With that being said, tend to your own chillrens, fellas.
Check out the many responses of people who were not with the sh-ts when it came to guys trying to criticize Wade for the way he’s parenting Zion by hitting the flip:
