'No good boy would want to marry me': Sushmita Sen revisits trying legal battle to adopt daughter Renee as a single mom
Sushmita Sen's legal journey to be a single mother to her daughters Renee and Alisha, was heavily supplemented by her father Shubeer Sen's unwavering support
Sushmita Sen set a precedent back in 2000, when she managed to adopt her first daughter Renee. The Juvenile Justice Acts and adoption regulations via CARA never forbade single women from legally adopting children, but the hurdles seems insurmountable, especially when seen in context of societal bias.
During a chat with Dr. Sheen Gurrib for her YouTube channel, the former Miss Universe said, "When I legally became an adult at 21, I knew this is what I want to do. So from 21 to 24...then the legal battle started. Once the legal battle started, at least, I had my daughter under foster care with me. But you are living with that constant trauma of what if the family court does not pass this in my favour, they will take the child back and now this child has started calling (me) Ma. I had a plan. I told my dad at the hearing that just keep the car running, you will take her and you will run away. My father says 'Now we are really pushing it. We are not going to do any of that.' But I was like they can't take my baby away from me."
And her father incidentally, had a huge role to enabling the case being passed in her favour. She reflected, “I'm so proud of my father. I have my children because of him in a country that requires either a father or a father figure to adopt a baby. He was told by the court that he has to show financial intent to support my kid and that he had to sign off half of his assets but my father told the court, 'I am not a very rich man, so if you take half of that, it will be nothing. I have come to sign unconditionally everything I own in her name.' ”
To give you an idea of the societal bias she and her family had to weather, she revealed, "The judge also warned my father that no good family boy would want to marry me, but he told him that I have not raised her just to be someone's wife. Then they granted it and that was the turning point."
Sushmita fully acknowledged that her father's unwavering support is what finally flipped the script in court, allowing her to adopt daughter Renee, as a single 24-year-old mother back in 2000. Adopting second daughter Alisah Sen then, in 2010, was an absolute "cakewalk" in her own words.
"I was meant to be a mother", declared Sushmita in the interview, and her and the family's commitment to the journey more than corroborates her claim.
