Dwayne Wade on the Unconditional Love He Shares with Daughter Zaya and His Parents - PEOPLE

Dwyane Wade is opening up about what “unconditional love” means to him. 

While speaking to PEOPLE, the basketball legend, 41, noted how making sure his daughter Zaya Wade feels “safe” in confiding to him is key, especially given how “most people are more open with their best friends — people you choose than what you’ve been given.” 

“I don’t want to just be one of those people who’s just been given to Zaya and she doesn’t feel open and confident in me,” he says of his now 16-year-old daughter, who came out as transgender in 2020. “I want to show her what unconditional love looks like so she can use me as this sounding board through life.” 

Dwyane Wade.

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“I feel like it’s shown in Zaya,” he adds of his unconditional love. “It’s shown in Zaya through the world because of her being a part of the trans community.” 

Being a “great advisor” also extends to his other four children as well, including a daughter he shares with his wife, actress Gabrielle Union. When speaking to his children, the former Miami Heat guard makes sure to create spaces “where you feel that it’s no judgment.” It’s a habit he hopes to pass on thanks to his own parents, whom he has been able to freely confide in and vice versa. 

“We have no judgment with each other and we’ve been through a lot of things that a lot of people on the outside would deem as something that we don’t look at it as that way,” Wade says of his parents. “And so that’s how I treat my kids.” 

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This mindset has stuck despite the perspectives he initially had before becoming a dad. As he spoke to PEOPLE about what it was like to executive produce the new Netflix documentary short, The Dads, Wade got candid about challenging his “whole different mentality of how the world looked” when Zaya shared her new identity.

Amidst the fear of the unknown, he says he leaned on his “village” while educating himself and reexamining how he shows up as a father.

“It was one of them things when a kid found out there’s no Santa Claus,” he says of his initial shock. “You’re like, ‘Wait, what do you mean? I’ve been told this for so long.’” 

“But also my job is also to move things forward. And if that means you're taking criticism or getting death threats or whatever it is that you get when you go against the status quo, that's a part of the journey.” 

Part of moving forward also meant re-evaluating the relationships he has with people outside of his immediate family. In the event that any of his “friends” distance themselves, Wade says he doesn’t view that as a loss, but rather, as a “blessing.” 

“True friends, true family, true people love you and they love you no matter who you show up as and what you are,” he explains. “When we're saying ‘I love you,’ we use it so loosely and when things happen in life, it shows us who's real and who isn't. And so you don't lose friends, you actually get rid of some baggage when they fade away and the real shows up.” 

Thanks to his work on The Dads, which focuses on six dads of LGBTQ children during a weekend fishing trip, Wade says he could empathize with a similar group about their shared love, hopes and fears. 

That’s because the basketball Hall of Famer says he also knew what it was like to deal with shifting expectations after initially wanting Zaya to become a basketball player like him. Since then, he says he’s learned how to “adjust” while staying future-focused. 

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“Parents are not going to stop having dreams about a mini version of themselves. This is not going anywhere,” Wade says. “But in the midst of that, I think what I’ve learned is that it’s great to have a plan, but you have to also be able to adjust that plan once you get to meet your child — it’s as simple as that.” 

“Some of them may be just like you, some of them may be totally the opposite,” he adds. “What I’ve understood is I have no ownership of my kids. I don’t own them. I’m a vessel that was used to bring them into this world, and I have a responsibility, but that doesn’t mean ownership.”

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https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiX2h0dHBzOi8vcGVvcGxlLmNvbS9kd2F5bmUtd2FkZS1vbi11bmNvbmRpdGlvbmFsLWxvdmUtc2hhcmVzLXRyYW5zLWRhdWdodGVyLXpheWEtcGFyZW50cy04NDA3MTIw0gEA?oc=5

2023-11-27 23:49:38Z

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