The rainbow family about:reader?url=https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-pag...

thehindu.com

Lakshmi Iyer July 26, 2020 00:02 IST Updated: July 25,
2020 18:36 IST
5-6 minutes

Whether biological or adopted, children

in a family should receive a never-
ending well of love, compassion and
empathy and a safe space

“I want to colour my hair blue too!”

My youngest, all of six years, holds my hand and
swings as she walks. One of her older sisters
walks a little ahead of us. We are on our daily
evening stroll around our development. The sun
has not yet set, bathing us all in a golden glow. My
older child Mira’s hair glints in the sun as she toys
with a lock of hair and sniffs it.

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Mira* has been begging me to let her colour her

hair. She sees me painstakingly apply henna and
indigo every few weeks. She hates the smell but is
curious enough to linger, to watch the effort that
goes into maintaining facades. I humour her this
one time saying the next time I colour my hair, I
could apply indigo to her hair and it would probably
turn blue for a few weeks until it washes out.
Sara* wants blue hair too. Except she has jet black
hair unlike her sister who sports blonde hair. Mira
and I laugh, and quickly school our faces into a
semblance of seriousness when we realise Sara
really means it. It takes us two rounds around the
grassy oval before she understands that genetics
has endowed her with black hair, while her sisters
get their blonde hair from their birth mother. It also
dawns on her fairly quickly that she is likely to get
grey hair just like me. She finds the news
heartening.
“At least I can colour my hair then,” she says
forgiving me the way only a six-year-old can.
“I’ll wait for my actual sister,” Mira says

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emphasising the actual in her sentence.

I pause for a moment, not quite sure if I should
take her to task for differentiating between her birth
sister and her sister by adoption.
“Why did you say ‘actual’? Sara is just as much
your sister as Anya* is,” I say. I keep my voice
neutral, my tone curious. I am trying to understand
where that feeling comes from.
“Oh! Anya and I were born to Mommy B. Sara was
born to you. Anya is my actual sister, Sara is my
adopted sister,” Mira explains to me as she would
to a small child. There is no malice in her words. It
just is, this complex relationship between three
siblings who look different and have different
personalities.
“You used to butt amma’s bladder when you were
in her tummy, causing her to go pee all the time,”
Mira and Anya are regaling Sara with stories about
the time before she was born. Sara is curious. She
is also proud to hear these stories from her sisters.
“Where were you when I was in amma’s tummy?”

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“Did you butt Mommy B’s bladder when you were

in her tummy?”

The only normal

I see my children talk about birth, about adoption,

about looking different casually. They take it in
stride. This is the only normal they know.
I share these conversations with friends and family.
Almost always, they feel pity for me, for my
children. They feel like these are burdens little
children should not bear. They also feel insecure
on my behalf.
“I could never take it easily like you do,” one of
them says. I nod. Perhaps, they may be able to,
perhaps, they may not.
“You never know what you are capable of unless
you walk in anyone’s particular shoes,” is my
canned answer.
Insecurity comes with the territory when you decide
to parent another family’s child. The relationship
begins in loss. A family loses a child. A child loses

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its family, its birth history and severed from all that
it knows. As an adoptive parent, I gain a family. I
gain a child. I finally am a mother.
This is a strange relationship. One artificially
constructed, one that takes a whole lot of effort and
intention to supplant what was originally intended.
Insecurity has no place in this equation. Instead,
what is required is a great deal of empathy. As a
parent, it is imperative for me to treat any
statement from my child with curiosity, with an
intent to understand where those feelings are
coming from.
In a relationship like the one my children and I
share where my children not only lost their birth
family but also their birth culture and are
surrounded by people who do not look like them,
these questions are not only natural but expected.
All I have to offer from my end is a never-ending
well of love, compassion and empathy and a
willingness go to any lengths to make sure our
home is a safe space for my children. It is my duty
to make sure our home is where they can safely

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fall apart so we are there to hold them and heal

them.
lakshmi.iy3r@gmail.com

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