Here's how to teach youngsters about ‘donor children'
The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority recently predicted that by 2030 there'll be an average of 'one or two donor-conceived children in every English state primary school'. And yet while there are plenty of picture books on the theme of donor conception – My Mummy Made Me; Happy Together; You, Me, We – stories for older readers remain relatively thin on the ground.
Kristina Rahim is the mother of two donor-conceived daughters, and The Doughnut Club, her engaging debut novel, was written with the intention of helping donor children of nine years old and above to feel better understood. The story, aimed at readers of nine and above, is narrated by Quinn, a 12-year-old who has two mothers. 'You probably know that to make a baby, you need a sperm and an egg. Mum and Mama were missing the sperm part, so they needed a donor for that,' Quinn explains. And while Quinn and her brother Olly have the same sperm donor, she's the biological child of 'Mama' and Olly's the biological child of 'Mum'. 'I call Olly my brother,' Quinn tells us, 'because that's what he is. Technically he's my half-brother, but I'd never call him that.'
Theirs is a secure, loving family – but at home, Quinn sometimes feels like the odd one out. She's the only one with red hair and green eyes; and while her mothers and her brother enjoy daredevil sports, she would always sooner be reading a book: 'I appear to be the only one who likes things slow and steady instead of fast and furious!'
When the story begins, the family is setting off on holiday to the North Devon coast, where Quinn fears she'll be forced to spend her time rock-climbing and surfing. 'Holidays are meant to be relaxing aren't they? Not when you're a member of the Parker family.' So when Mum and Mama choose the holiday to reveal that she and Olly have 16 donor siblings, spread around the world, Quinn determines to track them down, hoping to find a soulmate. 'Who knows, some of them might agree with me that scrambling across a bouldering wall will be zero fun.' But as she begins her detective work, she starts to fear the most extraordinary coincidence: could one of her donor siblings be the priggish Monika, whose family is staying at the same hotel?
For some young readers, not even Quinn's no-nonsense explanations will fully demystify the idea of donor conception. But Rahim weaves those complex matters into a mystery with an absorbing plot, driven by its plucky, warm-hearted heroine. 'It's annoying sometimes, having to explain the two-mum thing to new people, but apart from that, our family is our family,' says Quinn – and that's all we need to understand.
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