Photo Credit: Variety
As gay pride month continues, Miami Heat player Dwyane Wade discussed his decision to take his 11 year old son Zion to gay pride in Miami. He said “I don’t really talk about it much because it’s Zion’s story to tell,” Wade said to Variety during an interview at Cannes Lions, the annual advertising conference in the South of France. “I think as a family, we should support each other. That’s our job. And my job as a father is to facilitate their lives and to support them and be behind them in whatever they want to do.”
When asked if he had words for parents on supporting their children during Pride month, he said “I’m asked a question about my kids a lot from a sports perspective,” Wade said. “I think people expect you to parent each kids the same. They are all different, and I have to get to know them and where they are. I have to say to most parents, get to know your kids. Don’t put your wants and needs on them.”
The news seemed to reverberate around the world after he made the Instagram post taking his son and siblings captioned with, “We support each other wide Pride!” He did say however that he was quite shocked at a lot of the negative reactions he received saying, “This is my job as a father,” Wade said. “I’m very uneasy about accolades that come from supporting my kids or the negativity that comes from it. I’m doing what every parent has to do. Once you bring kids into this world, you become unselfish. It’s my job to be their role model, to be their voice in my kids’ lives, to let them know you can conquer the world. So, go and be your amazing self and we’re going to sit back and just love you.”
The interview took place Cannes Lions and he was there to discuss his recent advertising campaign with Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser. Surely when he arrived he had to have known what he did with his son was going to come up and it’s also a bit interesting to us that he wasn’t expecting the backlash that he did. To be fair, as a gay person myself, I was originally on the side that what he did was inappropriate and that is only because of some of what occurs at gay pride events, including parades, which tend to be a bit over-sexualized. At the end of the day, that’s his child. It isn’t as though he took him to see porn. Part of the problem with social media is being able to see and project on other people, especially as it pertains to parenting. For those who would choose to not take their child to such an event, we would only hope they don’t give their child too much hell about being gay because nearly every person who has ever came out to their parents described it as a less than polite conversation. So some form of support would be helpful, even if you’re hoping it’s something they grow out of which I can assure you, likely isn’t the case.
