My four-year-old daughter Zara has inherited her Indian father’s brown skin. When we are out, my fair shade and her tan is a conundrum to be deciphered by well-meaning people. ‘I love her colour,’ strangers will say, ‘where does she get that gorgeous tan from?’ When my mother-in-law drops my daughter off at kinder, kids yell out ‘Zara’s other mum is here!’ because of their uncanny resemblance.    

From the very beginning, the world has told my daughter and I that we are shades apart. “Sometimes my skin is brown and sometimes it’s like yours, Mumma,” Zara said when she was three. ‘Yes,’ I said, following her cues. ‘It’s darker in the sun. Lighter in the shade.’ She nodded and ran off, her interest dissipating like dust. But the conversation tumbled in my mind, an avalanche of doubt and fear. Did I say the right thing? What if I confused her? Did I mislead her by not drawing attention to the differences in our shades? Self-doubt crawled along my spine and I searched for articles by other fair skinned mothers raising children of colour, sought the wisdom of picture books on diversity that Zara used as skateboards to slide across our tiles. 

After some deliberation I realised that by likening her skin colour to mine, my daughter, who inherited my spirit and signature frown, was searching for pieces of herself in me. Just like I had done in those emotionally turbulent and vulnerable months after a complicated labour.

While I was nursing my physical wounds with ice packs and cabbage leaves, the creeping anxiety triggered by fatigue, blood loss and anaemia ballooned inside me. I searched for threads of connection to tether me to my baby and found them in words. Lullabies and affirmations calmed my palpitating heart enough to breathe in the scent of Zara’s oily hair. To let her in.

To my surprise, the songs and endearments that poured out of me were in Turkish, the language of my cultural heritage. And in those words, breathed the strength and resilience of generations of Turkish women who held me to their breast. Soon, songs turned to sentences, and as Zara grew, so did her collection of Turkish words, a tough feat in a predominantly English-speaking household. I soon realised my need to teach Zara Turkish was driven by the child me who first understood the world in Turkish. The teen me who was serenaded by Turkish music and wooed by the romance and melodrama of Turkish serials. When Zara speaks to me in snippets of Turkish, ‘Anne, gel,’ (mum, come) ‘evet’ (yes), ‘Hayir, istemiyorum’ (no I don’t want it) or we share a song together, she is speaking to my past and part of her history. 

There are many studies that suggest that children who are bilingual may develop a stronger sense of self-worth, identity and belonging. Zara’s identity and connection to heritage is being shaped by two languages. The tales of her paternal grandfather’s travels, his rise above poverty and hardships, her understanding of bayram (Turkish equivalent of Eid) and cultural celebrations are strung together with English and Turkish words. As American poet Sabine Ulibarrí once said “The language, the Word, carries within it the history, the culture, the traditions, the very life of a people, the flesh.”  

It is language and word choice that gives us connection with our children, it is stories that weave our past, present and futures together. My daughter is a fusion of languages that will help shape an identity that she will ultimately define for herself. And while one part of her genetics lives on her face, the other lives on her tongue.