Beyoncé offers up her best advice on parenting during global unrest and a pandemic

For Beyoncé, 2020 has not been a year to lay low, live in sweatpants, and practice defensive sleeping. Instead, the superstar kept busy, using her platform to move the conversation about Black Live Matter forward and figuring out how to finish production on a visual album that hit a small roadblock thanks to a worldwide pandemic. Throughout that, she remained focused on how what was happening in the world was affecting her eight-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, and three-year-old twins, Sir and Rumi. In a new cover story interview for British Vogue, Beyoncé revealed how she explained 2020 to her kids — and how they’re coping with current events.“My best advice is to love them harder than ever,” she told Vogue, “I let my children know that they are never too young to contribute to changing the world. I never underestimate their thoughts and feelings, and I check in with them to understand how this is affecting them.”

 

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British Vogue December 2020

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What’s changed in the last year, said Beyoncé, is that she’s become a better listener. “Blue is very smart, and she is aware that there is a shift, but it is my job as a parent to do my best to keep her world as positive and safe as can be for an eight-year-old.”But the global cultural shift has given the mother of three a new opportunity as well: to set an example of how the work you do can impact the lives of others. “Blue saw some of the reactions to the ‘Brown Skin Girl’ video,” she explained, “as well as some of the videos from the philanthropic work I’ve done this year. When I tell her I’m proud of her, she tells me that she’s proud of me and that I’m doing a good job... She melts my heart. I believe the best way to teach them is to be the example.”To that end, Beyoncé has used both her starpower and social media platform to advocate for justice for Breonna Taylor, to demand an end to violence in Nigeria, and to show up for 2020 grads denied the ceremony and celebration they worked so hard for. On her down days, she hangs with her bees. “I have around 80,000 bees and we make hundreds of jars of honey a year,” she told Vogue. “I started the beehives because my daughters, Blue and Rumi, both have terrible allergies, and honey has countless healing properties.”Insert brutally obvious ‘Queen Bey’ joke here.[video_embed id='2066518']RELATED: Chloe x Halle star in Beyoncé's Ivy Park campaign[/video_embed]