Dad’s the word!

Once upon a time in the millennial age, there was a man who was in no rush to tie the knot. At a stage in his bachelor life, he felt a deep urge to experience the joy of parenthood. But society dictated that wedlock precede fatherhood. Daring to go against the tide, he went ahead and adopted a child, for he knew he could be more than a father to the child — he was going to be the mother as well. The child grew up in a family that knew no pigeonholing, but only understood giving love. And this shattered conventions, marked a slow shift in the dynamics of parenting, and redefined gender roles for future generations.

In the recent past, with quite a few single Indian men, including some eminent personalities, embracing parenthood through adoptions and other means, unperturbed by societal norms that look for a marriage license, India could now be witnessing a metamorphosis in the way our future generations are brought up — not necessarily born out of matrimony, which has been the praxis over years. With big names in India’s male bachelor world like Karan Johar and Tusshar Kapoor becoming parents in the past few months, the taboos surrounding single parenting has come under much-needed spotlight.

Playing both dad and mom

For actor, producer and doting parent Tusshar Kapoor, it was a very instinctual decision to become a father. “I wanted to have a child and I happened to be single and that made me a single father. That’s all the thought there was,” Tusshar tells us. In earlier interviews too, the actor who had his son Laksshya through IVF and surrogacy, admitted that although he believes in marriage, he doesn’t think it is a ‘big deal’ — “If it is in my destiny, I will get married, but I wanted to be a father first.”

Filmmaker Karan Johar’s twin children Yash and Roohi were born through surrogacy recently

Through the conversations that the celebs have got snowballing around single parenting, one of the key points is how one can transcend the typical gender roles. Filmmaker Karan Johar’s announcement of the birth of his twin children Yash and Roohi through surrogacy drives home this point. The 45-year-old had told the media, “I would be the mother of my children. I will be both mother and father. I will be more of a mother than father.”

Amending the rules

While the turning point for single parenting was female contemporaries like Sushmita Sen tearing down societal barriers by adopting children as a single woman, 29-year-old Pune-based techie Aditya Tiwari’s story brings to the fore some stark realities about a single man wanting to become a parent. According to the Adoption Regulations, 2017, by the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), a statutory body of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, while a single female can adopt a child of any gender, a single male is not eligible to adopt a girl child.

Aditya Tiwari

In 2016, Aditya became nothing short of a celebrity for being the youngest single parent to adopt a child in our country, but the road he had to walk was ‘hell-like’ he says. When he visited an orphanage around three years ago to celebrate his father’s birthday, who he met there not only transformed his life, but also led to a change in Indian laws. As Aditya was introduced to the kids at the orphanage, he met a child, Binney, who had Down Syndrome and he learnt that nobody was willing to adopt him. It didn’t take Aditya long to decide that he wanted to be there for Binney.

“I immediately told them, ‘I will adopt the child. I will take care of him’, and when it came to the procedures, I was told that I can’t adopt him as I was under-age. I was 26 when I first met Binney. Then started the maddening fight to bring him home — I wrote to the President, the Prime Minister, Union ministers, the National Commission for Women — countless number of letters and emails asking for permission to adopt. After months of struggle, the adoption laws were amended, making it possible for single men of age 25 to adopt too. That was when I could bring Binney home. He is now called Avnish and is the happiest child he could have ever been,” Aditya recollects.

Marriage a choice, not necessity

Aditya finds it unfortunate that in this day and age “our country still believes that a child has to enter a family only after marriage and only a mother has to take care of it”. He says he can never forget the number of questions he was subjected to on why he is adopting as a single man, why he isn’t married before adopting and so on. “My parents have been the greatest support system I could count on during the whole process. When we brought Binney home, we understood that due to Down Syndrome he could barely sit down properly or stand on his feet. Within six months of being at home, with all the love he got, we could see his abilities improving quickly. He was soon running all around the house and we are also going to have him admitted in a normal school,” Aditya shares. When he got married few months ago, Aditya says he never expected his partner to take care of Avnish. “I only wanted her to accept us. I will always remain Binney’s mum as well as dad,” says Aditya, who is now a motivational speaker.

A deep, nurturing bond

There was a similar media blitzkrieg when renowned ballroom dancer and Bollywood choreographer Sandip Soparrkar adopted his son Arjun over a decade ago, making him India’s first single adoptive parent. “I wanted to adopt right when I was a teenager and my parents were very supportive. My adoption sparked off many debates, there were people asking me why I opted for adoption even before I got married, jurisdiction had issues, the risk was everywhere but I just wanted to have a child. It’s strange that in India, laws even now make it hard for a man to adopt which is not the case for women,” says Sandip.

Sandip Soparrkar

Over the years, relatives and neighbours who had questioned his decision to adopt, gradually understood his need to nurture and lauded the loving father he turned out to be. “I wanted to be an active part of Arjun’s everyday life — from his school schedules to home work — I make sure I spend time with him every day. I believe that especially in the initial years, adoptive parents must spend more time with the child as that’s what brings them closer,” says Sandip, adding, “If you ask me about our bond, I wouldn’t say it’s special or different. It’s just as  any other bond between a father and son must be. We love spending time with each other, travelling and solving puzzles.”

Attitudinal change

Actor and director Revathi, a single parent who welcomed her child Mahee into the world through IVF four years ago, concurs that it is harder for single men to become parents, and points to the way our society brings up men. “Boys are brought up differently in our society, where they are always taken care of. There is a great need for attitudinal change in that aspect. Even though there is a reason that nature has created a man and a woman, if we equip ourselves individually to put in an effort, just a man or a woman can raise a child perfectly without the other. If one can bring in both the masculine and feminine aspects within them, one can certainly create a wholesome bringing up of the child,” the 50-year-old opines.

Actor and director Revathi is a single parent who welcomed her child Mahee into the world through IVF four years ago

“It was around a decade ago that I wanted to adopt and was also a part of the Adoptive Parents Association in Chennai. But it was a little tough to adopt as a celebrity because you don’t want people to constantly point their fingers at the child right from a young age, especially in a conservative society,” Revathi explains, adding that the stringent laws that exist for adoption for men and women are necessary as there are those who find loopholes and tend to misuse them. She says, “I feel this step that the younger generation is taking in wanting to become parents, even if they do not want marriage, is a way to make lives more meaningful. When we bring a child into our lives, it gives life a purpose and makes it beautiful.”

Strong fight, long wait

Sam Paul, actor, entrepreneur and advocate at Madras High Court, and a single parent to his twin boys Noah and Isaiah who were born last year through surrogacy, says single men in the country have been putting up a strong fight over the past few years for their rights to raise children. “With the recently introduced ban on commercial surrogacy, and adoptions requiring long waitlists, single fatherhood remains at a complex situation. But there have been many men wanting to become fathers and aren’t afraid to fight for their rights.”

Sam Paul, actor, entrepreneur and advocate at Madras High Court, is a single parent to his twin boys who were born last year through surrogacy

Dr Vinita Bhargava, professor of human development and childhood studies at Lady Irwin College and author of Adoption in India: Policies and Experiences, believes that the complex situation of enabling single fatherhood has to do with the country’s mental outlook. “We still look at parenting as a task of the woman, due to our patriarchal setup. The belief continues to exist that one needs to have an intact family in order to have a kid be a part of it. While for celebrities and politically connected families, the process could be fast-forwarded, for a common man to adopt, it involves a long wait-list.”

But the tides of change have been dawning upon the society slowly but certainly, says Dr Manju Mehta, a Delhi-based clinical psychologist and a former member of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA). “During the last five years that I was a part of CARA, I noticed the trend of single men coming forward in growing numbers to adopt children. We are looking at rising acceptance for single parenting with passing years,” she says. From braving the laws to bringing our world to rethink and redefine gender roles, young Indians are pushing hard at changing society’s clichéd concepts, and heralding a world without hackneyed definitions.