'You need to make less pasta and more rice'

The joys and challenges of feeding children in a mixed race family. Words by Ishita DasGupta. Illustration by Tomekah George.

Until my daughter was able to speak, I was often mistaken for a childminder or nanny. On one occasion at our local park, a woman went as far as pressing a business card into my hand – mentioning competitive rates, impressed with my attitude and care. In that moment, like a neap tide exposing the rusted hull of a long-sunk wreck, issues about culture and identity that I thought I’d resolved resurfaced. Parenthood, it would seem, has a habit of doing this sort of thing.

My household is mixed-race: me, Indian/British Indian; my husband, white British, as the tick boxes for ethnicity data dictate. Our daughter, I’m often told, has my face, but her hair is closer in colour to her father’s, her eyes hazel, her skin the peachy pink tones of a rambling rose rather than the sandalwood and red earth of mine. While I knew her journey with identity and belonging would be different, what I hadn’t accounted for was how easily part of her heritage might be disregarded.