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Gigi Hadid reveals she wants to have open conversations with her daughter Khai, about what it feels to grow up as a mixed-race child.
The 26-year-old supermodel is opening up about her parenting approach with boyfriend Zayn Malik, as she wants to make sure Khai doesn‘t feel confused by her own heritage.
Gigi is the daughter of Mohamed Hadid, who is of Palestinian origin, and Dutch-American mother Yolanda van den Herik. While Zayn’s father is Pakistani and his mom is half-Irish.
She also confessed that she doesn’t want her daughter to have the same conflicts as she had growing up, because in certain situations Gigi says she has been “made to feel that I’m too white to stand up for part of my Arab heritage,” adding that she was constantly trying to figure out where she belonged racially.
However she would constantly ask herself, “Am I allowed to speak for this side of me, or is that speaking on something that I don’t experience enough to know?”
“I think that it will be nice to be able to have those conversations, and see where she comes from, without us putting that onto her. What comes from her is what I’m most excited about, and being able to add to that or answer her questions, you know?“ she shared.
Gigi also went on to explain that they are “that first generation of those mixed races,” in reference to her experience and Zayn’s. “That’s not something that my parents experienced or that they can really help me through. It‘s something I’ve always thought about my whole life.”