“My Parents Were Nowhere in Sight”: Dwyane Wade Opens Up About His Own Upbringing While Dishing Out Parenting Advice

Dwyane Wade takes his role as a father pretty seriously and tries his best to be as holistically involved in the upbringing of his children as possible. The 43-year-old superstar has four kids: six-year-old Kaavia, 11-year-old Xavier, Zaya (17), and his oldest, Zaire, who is 23. And he has always been vocal about matters around parenting.

The 13-time All-Star spoke about the amount of support parents should give to their child without infringing on the space to grow in a recent episode of The Why with Dwyane Wade podcast. Since parents also want those “being there” moments as much as the children, it is hard to draw that fine line at times.

Wade clarified his idea of lack of space by giving the example of an over-involved mom or dad tying their child’s shoes. “You should be tying your own shoes,” he stated, before narrating his days as a teen when he accomplished so much in the game. However, he was also a young man dealing with the absence of his parents.

“People come back to me about the different things I was doing in high school. When I was making my name… My parents were nowhere in sight. It was just me. I’m out here, I got to get it done,” said Wade, with emotions brimming in his voice.

Wade’s parents, Dwyane Wade Sr. and Jolinda, split up when he was just four months old. Jolinda battled a vicious substance abuse problem that often landed her in trouble with the law. It was tough for Wade growing up in the ‘not so friendly’ south side of Chicago.

To avoid temptations from drugs and gangs, Wade turned to sports with some guidance from his older sister Tragil. The rest is history.

As years passed, Wade ended up growing closer to his father. He even made him a center point of his Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 2023. The two embraced as Wade excitedly announced, “We in the Hall of Fame dawg.”

This is not the first time Wade has touched upon parenting. And his views have been based on sound logic, derived from his experience as a father.

Wade has never been afraid to share his parenting opinions

In 2012, Wade wrote a book titled, A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball. The memoir was about the responsibilities and life lessons he received from parenthood following his tough custody battle for Zaire and Zaya with his first wife, Siovaughn.

Once, on an episode of his House Rules podcast, Wade spoke about the specific challenges couples face while instilling discipline in their kids. Proper communication between partners is a key element in it, he stated. Wade also pointed out that it gets difficult when a parent’s own childhood experiences are vastly different from their partner’s.

“And it’s not like y’all don’t love each other, but y’all have grown up in different households, different states, different everything, and now you’re trying to raise a kid the same way. Not a thing. It doesn’t work,” he explained.

Wade believes that each day provides a new lesson on how to be a good parent. No one idea or one formula works.

Supporting the kids and allowing them to develop on their own are two aspects of parenting that should go hand-in-hand, believes the NBA superstar. And Wade seems to have been successful in striking that crucial balance as a dad.

About the author

Joseph Galizia

Joseph is a Las Vegas based actor and circus performer. For the last seven years he's had the pleasure of covering sports for multiple outlets, including the Lifestyles section of Sports Illustrated. In that time, he's conducted over 50 interviews with athletes, filmmakers, and company founders to further cement his footprint in the journalism world. He's excited to bring that skillset to the SportsRush, where he'll be covering the NBA news cycle.

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