In this first-person account facilitated by Avantika Krishna and narrated to The Better India, Meghna Kulkarni, a teacher with two decades of experience, reflects on raising her queer, neurodivergent children, the fears she had to unlearn, and how she and her spouse Prasanna found their way to acceptance as rainbow parents. 

When I held my newborns for the first time, I felt the joy that parents often describe as unlike any other. My first child is Shreesh. My second is Rit. At the time, I understood one child as my daughter and the other as my son. 

Today, I understand my children differently. The love remains exactly the same. What has changed is my understanding of who they are and what it means to truly accept them.

The lessons that came before parenting

Looking back, I realise that the signs were always there, long before I became a parent. The universe seemed to be preparing me in ways I understood only much later. I grew up helping care for my younger brother, Vaibhav, who is 12 years younger than me.

Later, I became closely involved in the upbringing of my distant cousin Devdutt, who has Down syndrome. Those experiences made me more attentive to difference and individuality.

Before I became a parent, I became a teacher. Teaching taught me that every child arrives in the world as a complete individual, and not as a project to be moulded. My children came later, but that lesson stayed with me.

When Shreesh and Rit were growing up, my spouse Prasanna and I tried to raise them as independent individuals. We did not always get it right, but we tried to listen to who they were rather than who we expected them to become.

The two children were very different from each other. Shreesh was an overachiever, intellectually curious and deeply focused, but often struggled with emotional expression. Rit was sensitive, expressive, creative, and always asking questions about the world around him.

Both experienced what it meant to feel different. Rit faced bullying and othering during school. Both children were navigating the world as neurodivergent young people long before any of us fully understood that reality.

At the........

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