Jodie Turner-Smith Shares How Raising a Biracial Daughter Challenges Her (Exclusive)
etonline.comJodie Turner-Smith is grateful for all the lessons she's learning in motherhood — even the unexpected ones.In a recently published interview with , the star opened up about how her daughter with husband Joshua Jackson, Janie, helped her contend with the colorism she faces as a dark-skinned Black woman.
Reflecting on her childhood, the actress shared how isolating it felt to never see «anybody who looks like [me] held up as beautiful.
That definitely affected my psyche. Anyone who has known me throughout my life would say, 'Oh, Jodie has very high self-esteem.' But it affected me, I just faked it till I made it.»«It wasn't until adulthood that I began to come into myself.
For a long time, people would even say to me, „You're so pretty… for a dark-skinned girl,'“ she added. Those experiences rippled into adulthood and came into focus when she and Joshua discussed having children. „It's interesting because I had a lot of resistance to becoming a mother and, throughout my life, I always said if I were to have children, I wanted to have Black, Black babies so that I could affirm them as children with the love that I felt I needed to have been affirmed with by the outside world,“ Jodie told the outlet.»Then I fell in love with my husband and we talked about having kids.
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