What It Means to Raise Black and Asian Children

Our home is a celebration.

It is the joy of two histories, two cultures, two ways of understanding the world — all held together by an extraordinary amount of love.

Raising a Black and Asian family is a gift. But it is also a responsibility. A responsibility to make sure our children understand and take pride in every part of who they are — not just one side, not just the part that's easiest to explain to others, but all of it. The beautiful parts and the hard parts. The joy and the adversity. (More on that another time.)

There are moments when the world tries to put our children in a box. To ask them to choose. To flatten the fullness of their identity into something more convenient for everyone else. My husband and I have made a commitment — to each other, and to them — that they will never feel they have to do that.

Our children are not half of anything.

They are wholly themselves. Wholly Black. Wholly Asian. Wholly loved.

A Family Full of Love was written for them first. But it was also written for every child who has ever felt like their family was too complicated to explain, too unique to fit neatly into a category.

You are not too complicated.

You are beautifully, perfectly whole.