How a Mom Explains The Ugly Duckling to Her Kid in an Ugly Present
When parents abandon girls and kids with disabilities, how do I teach my child to look beyond the ‘imperfection’?
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(A mother is appalled by media reports of two little girls abandoned by their mother and abused by their drunkard of a father. The latter, incidentally, also threw their baby brother in a canal. This mother tries to make sense of where this inhumanity is coming from.)
Do you remember the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Ugly Duckling? Here is a short recap. Mother Duck gives birth, and one of her ducklings is different from the others – dark and unsightly. The unfortunate duckling is taunted and forced to leave home. He survives in the wild, forlorn and unloved.
Time passes. One day, the duckling sees a flock of swans flying over the lake. As he flies towards them, he is scared of rejection – until he looks down at his reflection in the water.
And lo and behold! The ugly duckling has turned into a beautiful swan. And he finds a family.
The Ugly Duckling Isn’t All That ‘Positive’
When my daughter was two years old, I remember reading The Ugly Duckling to her. My heart was torn asunder as I read out, page after page – “You are ugly, go away.” I thought to myself – what impact would this terrible tale have on my baby? When she is older, will she ask me why the Mother Duck rejected her baby? Will she ask me if it was because the child was dark and ugly? Will she wonder why the other animals, like the frog and the cow, rejected the duckling? Was there a cruel law of the jungle which said that someone who doesn’t fit in, isn’t welcome?
Some researchers have lauded The Ugly Duckling as a positive story of personal transformation – a story about how one can improve oneself to overcome one’s shortcomings.
I think the story holds up a mirror to us humans. Animals don’t abandon their young because they are ugly or weak. Yes, when there is scarcity of food, there may be cases of infanticide among certain species, but then, isn’t man supposed to be a more evolved, “social” animal?
The kind of actions that the human species carries out, using sophisticated technology wherever possible, is far more disturbing than that which happens in the animal kingdom. Humans consider the girl child a liability, and a financial burden. Hence, humans kill girl children in the womb, or throw them in dustbins after they are born.
Equally reprehensible is the treatment of children born with a physical or mental disability. Humans have been known to abandon their young and leave them to starve. They throw babies in canals and rivers. They beat and abuse their children and make them work hard. These children are forced to skip childhood and mature early. And when these children grow up, bitter and unloved, they abuse others. It is a vicious cycle.
Lessons From Happy Feet
Some say that it is poverty that dehumanises humans. That is a valid point.
However, there are those among the well-off who abandon girl children and children born with disabilities, when they can very well afford to spend on them. Hence the logic that this inhumanity is restricted to the poor sections of society, flies in the face of cases involving the rich, whose unwanted progeny turn up in orphanages and care centres.
Isn’t it time we stopped treating this as a problem of “the other”, to be read about and forgotten? Isn’t it time we humans act humane?
I would like to leave the reader with an imagery – a happy one – from the Academy award winning movie Happy Feet, which is based on the touching story of a baby emperor penguin. ‘Mumble’ is initially rejected by his peers because, unlike others of his flock, he can’t sing the song penguins need to, to mate! Soon, this baby penguin discovers his special gift. He can dance! By and by, he teaches dance to other penguins, and one day, together these “Happy Feet” manage to achieve the impossible. They succeed in sending a message to humans to leave their habitat alone.
Humans could do well to learn from these “Happy Feet”. The lesson of accepting all, despite differences in appearance or ability. The lesson of loving our young ones unconditionally... to become truly human again.
(The author is a Commissioner of Income Tax at Delhi and former Director (Films) at Ministry of Information&Broadcasting, GOI. The views expressed in this article are her own.)
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