By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Nationwide Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
For hundreds of years, there’s been a false assumption that Black fathers are absent, apathetic, and uninvolved of their kids’s lives. And, that stereotype of the absent Black dad stays fairly ubiquitous in widespread tradition. However in recent times, research have confirmed that the stereotype is nothing greater than a fantasy.
That legend is additional vaporized within the new kids’s e-book, “I Love My Daddy,” by Maryland social employee and navy veteran Juanita Banks Whittington.
The 27-page e-book, full with fascinating illustrations by Ananta Mohanta, celebrates what Whittington calls “the distinctive and particular bond between a father and his little woman.” It follows a father and his child woman, who play collectively in parks, and the doting dad reads bedtime tales every night time to his beloved daughter.
For Whittington, the e-book opens her dwelling to readers.
It reveals the camaraderie between her and her husband, Ian, and his routine of doting on their daughter, Zuri.
“My husband reads to my daughter each night time,” Whittington instructed the Nationwide Newspaper Publishers’ Affiliation’s program “Let It Be Recognized.”
She mentioned her husband helped encourage her to jot down a kids’s e-book in regards to the relationship between a Black father and his baby.
“He saved telling me he wasn’t seeing Black fathers in kids’s books,” Whittington mentioned. “There was all the time the grandmother and baby, or the mom and the kid.
“So, I went to family and friends members, and so they mentioned they preferred the concept, and I went ahead and located an illustrator that I preferred.”
She famous that it was a should that the illustrator might relate. “And he was the whole lot I used to be searching for, particularly in [portraying] all of the issues that go on in my family,” Whittington mentioned.
A navy veteran and social employee, Whittington is the founding father of Nehi Cares, a consulting and wellness enterprise that focuses on the significance of variety, fairness, and inclusion and helps people perceive the foundations of wellness by practising wholesome habits every day to achieve higher bodily, social, emotional, and psychological well being outcomes.
Whittington holds a bachelor’s diploma in enterprise administration from the College of Baltimore and a grasp’s in social work from the College of Maryland, Baltimore.
Her buddies and family members mentioned Whittington has all the time displayed a ardour for serving to, which comes throughout in “I Love My Daddy.”
“I needed to be sure that I did [the book] proper,” Whittington defined. “I needed to be sure that it was one thing that different households might relate to. So many individuals have mentioned they needed to jot down a kids’s e-book after seeing and speaking with me, so I needed to painting one thing constructive.”
She continued, “Many occasions, in our neighborhood, there’s this negativity about Black fathers, so I needed to be sure that, no matter their race, folks might decide this e-book up and say, ‘It’s superior. I might relate to this, and I need this for my baby.’”
“I Love My Daddy” retails on Amazon.com for $14.99. Click on right here for extra info and to buy the e-book.
