Gigi Hadid Opens Up About Raising Baby Khai to Embrace Her Ethnicity
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Supermodel-turned-super mom Gigi Hadid got candid about raising Baby Khai in a new interview with i-D. Gigi opened up about her pregnancy journey while working fashion week and what it's like parenting with her partner, Zayn Malik. During the interview, Gigi was asked how she approaches parenthood while raising a mixed child, and she reflected on her own sense of identity growing up. As a Palestinian-American, the 26-year-old model said that she feels like she's swaying between the cultures that make up her multiethnic heritage.
"[Zayn and I] think about it and talk about it a lot as partners and it’s something that’s really important to us, but it’s also something that we first experienced ourselves,” Hadid told i-D. “We are that first generation of those mixed races, and then that comes with that first generational experience of being like, ‘Oh damn, I’m the bridge!’ 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."
She also opened up about how she's made to feel that she's "too white" to stand up for part of her Arab heritage. "You go through life trying to figure out where you fit in racially. Is what I am, or what I have, enough to do what I feel is right?" she said. "But then, also, is that taking advantage of the privilege of having the whiteness within me, right? Am I allowed to speak for this side of me, or is that speaking on something that I don’t experience enough to know?"
When it comes to Khai, Gigi said that she feels her daughter will be proud of her heritage and that she intends for conversations about Khai's ethnicity to come organically.
"I think that Khai will grow up feeling out the way that she can or wants to be a bridge for her different ethnicities," Gigi said. "I think that it will be nice to be able to have those conversations, and see where she comes from [with] it, 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?"
Gigi and Zayn introduced the world to Baby Khai in September 2020. Since then, there have been a ton of adorable memories made in matching outfits. In a March interview on iHeartRadio's Valentine in the Morning, Zayn talked about what it's like parenting with Gigi.
"Honestly, it's amazing. A lot of people that I was speaking to obviously before she was born and stuff were like, you know, it's a big adjustment and it's going to be a massive change and stuff, but honestly, she's an amazing baby. It's been really easy for me and Gig to kind of just ease into it," the One Direction alum said.
"I'm watching kids shows with her on TV and on Netflix, learning nursery rhymes, rolling around with her and just singing to her," Zayn said. "It's a really different pace of life, but it's been really easy to adjust and that's the most surprising."
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