Charlize Theron is raising "two beautiful proud black African girls".
The 43-year-old actress recently revealed seven-year-old Jackson – who was introduced to the world as a boy – identifies as female and while she’s keen for her and her younger daughter August, three, to "find themselves", she also wants to teach them aspects of her own South African heritage, without "pushing" it on them too much.
She told talk show host Graham Norton: "I have taught them a little Afrikaans, but it’s a language filled with very conflicted history.
"I am raising two beautiful proud black African girls and I want them to find themselves and not necessarily push my ancestry on them, but I have taught them two very sweet Afrikaans songs about politeness."
The 43-year-old actress – who adopted both her kids as a lone parent – recently admitted she thought Jackson was a boy until the age of three and she’s determined to do what she can to "protect" both her kids.
She said: "Yes, I thought she was a boy, too. Until she looked at me when she was three years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!’ So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive.
"They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide.
"My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be. And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that."
And the ‘Tully’ star "blames" her own mother, Gerda Maritz, for not knowing "any better".
She added: "You can blame my mom for the fact I don’t know any better! You know, I grew up in a country where people lived with half-truths and lies and whispers and nobody said anything outright, and I was raised very specifically not to be like that. I was taught by my mom that you have to speak up; you have to be able to know that, when this life is over, you’ll have lived the truth you’re comfortable with, and that nothing negative can come from that."
Charlize’s full interview airs on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ on BBC One, on Friday (26.04.19) night.
Charlize Theron’s ‘proud and beautiful’ daughters
