Transcript of a July 13, 2025 broadcast of After the Kids Move In (AFFCNY Radio Forum) on WGBB 1240 AM / 95.9 FM, Long Island, featuring Lakshmi G. Iyer alongside filmmaker Chithra Jeyaram and birth mom Kat, in conversation about the documentary Love Chaos Kin. Listen to the original broadcast on SoundCloud.
Interview: Love Chaos Kin — Chithra Jeyaram, Lakshmi Iyer, and Kat
Broadcast: Sunday, July 13, 2025 · Runtime: 29:18
Speakers
- Host — After the Kids Move In (AFFCNY; Pat O’Brien hosts the show, with co-host Jessica Johnson — the audio doesn’t reliably distinguish the two, so both are labeled “Host”)
- Chithra — Chithra Jeyaram, director of Love Chaos Kin
- Lakshmi — Lakshmi Iyer, adoptive mom
- Kat — birth mom
Transcriber’s note: Lightly cleaned for readability (fillers removed, false starts smoothed). The host’s studio audio is poor in places; the show introduction (1:30–5:50) is largely inaudible and summarized. [unclear] marks words I couldn’t make out with confidence.
[00:00] Announcer: The views expressed in the following program do not necessarily represent those of the staff, management, or owners of WGBB.
[00:30] Host: Hello there, welcome to this week’s live broadcast of After the Kids Move In, Radio Forum, on this wonderful Sunday evening — every Sunday night right here on WGBB, 1240 on your AM dial or 95.9 FM, the radio station that serves our Long Island community. This broadcast is supported by the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York and one of the coalition’s signature programs, the Long Island Adoption and Guardianship Assistance Program for Everyone. I’m your co-host, along with this week’s and every week’s other co-host, Jessica Johnson. And our three special guests: the filmmaker Chithra Jeyaram, as well as two moms featured in her most recent film — adoptive mom Lakshmi Iyer and birth mom Kat. Hey everybody, are you there?
[01:23] Guests: Yes, we’re here.
[01:25] Host: All right, I’m going to get right back to you all after I finish introducing this broadcast for the folks that might be driving around and listening in for the first time this evening. [1:30–5:50 — largely inaudible over the phone line: the host describes the show as first and foremost a conversation for all the Long Island adoptive and guardianship families, mentions adoptee and foster-care voices, parenting strategies, experts, and the helpline; notes Chithra’s films and screenings, and that the film is having its first New York screening. Audio resumes clearly:] We are here this evening to discuss [the film] in the course of the chat. Welcome, Chithra, and thank you so much for [joining us].
[05:53] Chithra: Thank you for having me.
[05:57] Host: Could you tell us how the film came to be?
[06:12] Chithra: Eight years ago, I found myself at a crossroads. I was recently divorced at that time, and I was considering adoption. For various reasons, I could not adopt from India. So I knew I was going to adopt in the United States, and I had a bunch of questions. I did not know if, as an immigrant, I could adopt in the United States. I also had questions about how one preserves their language, culture, and religion while also raising a child adjacent to their birth heritage. Like many of us when we have questions, we turn to the internet — I started Googling, and that’s how I stumbled on Lakshmi Iyer, the adoptive mother in the story. I just sent her a message into the ether, like a single email, and that really took us on this extraordinary journey. One single conversation, a request to meet, and asking her if I could film her family for three days took us on such an unexpected journey.
[07:19] Host: Tell us about the title, because I think that will start telling us about the movie — Love Chaos Kin, those three words. How did you come to that, and how does it help describe the film?
[07:36] Chithra: For the longest time, our film was called Our Daughters, and that worked as well. There were these two gorgeous girls at the center of the story, and I was seeing a lot of them. I was seeing the birth mother, Kat, and the adoptive mom, Lakshmi, making all these decisions and choices out of love for them. Our Daughters represented everybody’s position in this. But by the time we came to releasing our film, there were several films with the title Our Daughters and people were confusing our film. We had to come up with another title, and we were just throwing random words around, texting back and forth with Lakshmi and the children — and we feel like these three words really encapsulate our film. The decisions and choices — we hope an adoptive family, or anyone coming into the adoption journey, is centering love. And it is a very complex process. Everyone coming to it is experiencing some form of loss: the birth family is experiencing loss, the children are experiencing loss, and often families that come into adoption are coming from a place where they were unable, for whatever reason, to have biological children. And hopefully what emerges is this complex web of kinship that holds everything together and leads to healing. So these three words encapsulate the broader adoption journey, but also our film.
[09:23] Host: One of the things that was most amazing to me about the film when I saw it — it really hit me in the throat, and I didn’t even know how to digest it. I’ve been in the field for a very long time, as an adoptee and also as an adopter [unclear]. It just really struck me, and your answer just now — the idea of your understanding of adoption as a loss-driven experience — really makes it clear why the film is as good as it is. I really think that underlying appreciation of the fact that everyone comes to this with loss makes possible this kind of open sharing that we see. I’d like to ask the moms to talk a little bit about this — somebody comes along and says, hey, I’d like to film you for three days, and it doesn’t stay that way [unclear]. What was that like for you both? Maybe we can start with Lakshmi first and then ask Kat the same question. What was it like in the beginning, this idea that you would open your life to the public like this?
[10:41] Lakshmi: Thank you, Jessica — this is Lakshmi, and thank you for having me on the show. I thought about this question quite a lot. When Chithra contacted me for the first time, initially it was just a conversation about adoption. Then we met, and she made a request to make a short — she said seven to eight minutes, three days of filming, and that was it. So it was a novelty for me. I’m a writer, so the notion of using film as a medium to tell my story was very appealing. So I said yes. And then after she shot it and showed it to [unclear], she came back and said, you know what, this is larger than a short film. At every point it was always framed as a summer of filming, a year of filming — and then it kept expanding and expanding. And at every point we were [free] to walk back, or to have talks about what we wanted to do. So at some point it became a journey that we were all equally invested in. And I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.
[11:58] Host: And Kat — what about your thoughts, initially and later on down the road?
[12:03] Kat: Honestly, at first I didn’t really worry too much about anything. I thought it was kind of interesting that somebody wanted to even know more about the story. I decided on open adoption with the parents that I chose, and to me it was kind of an opportunity. But I got some backlash from my family, and some little snippets that people were saying — like, “you gave up the children.” I had to go to therapy and have several conversations with Chithra and Lakshmi about the fact that yes, I am the birth mother, yes, I placed them. But there was a choice I had to make in this situation, and I really should worry less about what other people think about the choices I made — and be more proud of myself, because I made those choices.
[12:55] Host: And what was that initial introduction like? What did you feel initially when you [unclear]?
[13:06] Kat: Is that a question for me?
[13:09] Host: I’d like to ask Kat first and then I’ll come back to you.
[13:13] Kat: I’ll be 100% honest and say that I cannot tell you what I was feeling in the moment, because I struggle with those same questions.
[13:20] Host: Okay, very good. Lakshmi, you can fold that into your answers to the other things. So — you recognized this is bigger than a short film, that it deserves much more than that. What was it like building the relationship between all of you? Everybody is on their own journey, obviously in their own skin, and we’re all wading through our own personal losses. I’d ask a couple of you to talk about: as this thing took on a life of its own, what was happening with you, in terms of your own feelings about the whole process? Maybe we can start with Chithra.
[14:10] Chithra: The film takes us through an experience we don’t always see on screen — right from the composition of the family, the intersectionality, the dynamics between the different races and cultures and religions. And also the fact that we follow, because of their generosity. Initially me as the filmmaker, and now the viewers, get this front-row experience of all these decisions from three different points: from the birth mom, from the children, and from the adoptive parents. That was precious, because it’s one thing to speak of what is in the best interest of the children, and it’s another thing to live it. It’s easy to talk the talk; it’s harder to walk the walk. And there were these parents allowing me to witness that and giving us a gift. Therefore, from my end, it was important for me to constantly advocate for time. Initially, in the first year or two, I did not realize how important it was. But over time, once I was a believer that this needed more time, I started advocating for it. I’m grateful that there was a reasonable amount of trust, and after a while there was ownership from all parties concerned — that hey, this is our story and we need to get it out. Put simply, I feel like we need diversity in adoption stories. We need a variety of stories, and that’s the biggest gift this film has given us.
[16:12] Host: Absolutely. And the layers and layers and layers. You did a wonderful job of storytelling, certainly, and the openness. The thing that strikes me about the movie is that it’s really these folks’ stories. It’s not a propaganda film, it’s not pushing a particular agenda. It’s really this beautiful, in many ways, journey to becoming kin, to becoming family. Can we talk a little bit about [building kinship] in the context of adoption? What was that like?
[16:57] Chithra: I might ask Lakshmi to jump in — but one thing Lakshmi said in an interview that really stuck with me is: we don’t choose our in-laws, we learn to love them. And for her, that was always the framing about adoption. But I’ll let Lakshmi and Kat talk more about it.
[17:18] Lakshmi: Yeah, so in many ways that’s what this became. The whole process of adoption itself, for me, was an evolution in my thought process. I went from just wanting to be a mom — to, once I became a mom, listening and hearing from all the adoptee voices, and then there was this moment of struggle as to: did I do the right thing? Questions about ethics. So for me it was very fluid — how do I put it — it’s a learning process, and I’m still learning. Because of that place of uncertainty, a place where I didn’t feel like I was an expert on anything and I was learning on the job, so to speak, it was easier for me to involve all the parties. In this case, making sure that my relationship with Kat stood on its own — not just as my children’s mother, but as someone I’m parenting my children with. And when it came later to reaching out to the birth father’s side of the family, everything was done with good intentions, giving the benefit of the doubt to all the people concerned. When you approach everything with that mindset, over time these relationships blossom and take on a life of their own. Yes, they are my children’s parents, but they’re also family in their own right. And that’s the metric I use for almost every relationship in my life.
[18:50] Host: That’s amazing. Kat, do you want to add anything to that?
[19:09] Kat: There’s not much I can really add to that. I can tell you that Lakshmi is a stubborn woman who believes the best of everybody, no matter what. And while I had a lot of negative thoughts about myself and my involvement with the girls, Lakshmi was very insistent that it was good for everybody.
[19:23] Host: And I think that really comes through in the film — the fact that there is a connection there, a genuine connection and commitment to the girls. What do you think one of the girls would say if somebody were to ask them, “what does this give you?” I mean, I know they started out so young that it kind of always seems like it’s always been there. But what kind of changes have you noticed, perhaps, as they became young women — young people?
[19:53] Lakshmi: I’ll jump in for this one — I’m [the girls’ mom] in the movie. When we started, they were eight years old, still in elementary school, trying to figure out stuff that was not pretty deep. And they kind of grew up alongside the film. In the process, I think the film — not just the film, but the interview processes, the notion of having the camera, and the trust that they built with Chithra — all of that gave them a space to process what they feel about what’s happening to them. And I also feel they were always afforded the space to opt out, and I think that was just as important as making sure their voices were heard. So it was all about making sure they had agency in the process. And they used that agency well, in my opinion.
[20:55] Host: Yeah — you get that sense in the film. There really is a sense of family, a sense of commitment to the whole unit. And given how difficult this kind of adoption can be [unclear], you can see the love that surrounds the girls in the way they interact, even with the camera, and with each other. It’s really pretty remarkable. What were some of the more challenging elements — I mean, parenting in general has its moments of “oh my gosh” — some things that maybe surprised you?
[21:44] Lakshmi: [Audio degraded in this section; reconstructed from a second transcription pass:] Let me jump in first. My husband — when you’re [along for the ride], you kind of go along with what’s going on; I dragged him into it [unclear]. Over the eight years, there have been many moments when he’s really questioned whether it was right of me to put him through all of this. He was not a willing participant, but eventually he’s grown into this role as somebody whose story is being told, and he’s [come around to feeling] good about it. There were definitely difficult moments during the whole filming process.
[22:33] Host: Kat, do you want to add something?
[22:37] Kat: I don’t actually have anything to add to that.
[22:42] Chithra: For me, I think the editing process was really hard. Because if you film over eight years, there’s a lot of material. Every minute in the film is really precious real estate, and what stays, what does not, and what gets left out was a really difficult choice — coming down to this core essence of what the film is.
[23:15] Host: In terms of the broad release — what do you hope the reaction is to the film? What do you hope it helps accomplish in the field of adoption?
[23:28] Chithra: For people that are in the process in some way — for instance, someone who, like when I started the film, is exploring this as an option to build a family; or someone like Kat, who is in the space where they’re considering placement; or a family navigating, okay, how do we deal with openness in adoption — I feel like for all of them, it’s like you said: a single story where we are seeing adults and children grappling with their choices, with kindness and care. I hope the film gives them space to reflect on their own circumstances — not necessarily as an example of “this is how to go about it,” but: this is how we can have conversations and come to whatever it is that makes sense for our own selves. I also see this film as a way for folks that are not in the adoption world to get a sense — because I think there’s a lot of misinformation, or rosy [unclear] looking at adoption through those tinted lenses — and I feel this would give a sense of the complexity and nuance, and just the lifelong journey this is, for people from whatever part they are in.
[25:00] Host: It’s a brilliant peek into a very complex thing, it really is. Do you have other screenings coming up?
[25:12] Chithra: Yeah — we premiered in San Francisco at the Center for Asian American Media film festival in early May, and then we also screened in Brooklyn later that month. We have an upcoming screening at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York City on the 8th of August, and then we will be at the Middlebury film festival in Vermont, and then a few more screenings that have come up — we will be in film festivals for the rest of the year. And we are building partnerships with adoption organizations; we are in conversations about possibly a US broadcast, and also to go on a road trip with the film across the country — not just centering adoption stories, but also cross-cultural relationships and building bridges with people that do not look like us or [don’t live like us]. How do we make friends? How do we connect with an America that is super diverse, with different lived experiences?
[26:33] Host: And you’ve got a website, right, that folks can follow along with?
[26:40] Chithra: Yes, we have a website — LoveChaosKinMovie.com. We also have an Instagram account, so follow us on Instagram, and visit our website to know where we’re screening next. And if you want to bring it to your community, there is a sign-up sheet which will help us keep you updated.
[27:07] Host: Very good. So just to summarize: Love Chaos Kin is doing an in-person showing at the Asian American International Film Festival, and that’s going to be from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Regal Union Square at 850 Broadway in Manhattan, on East 13th Street, on August 8th. If you happen to be hearing this after August 8th, [check] AFFCNY.org. By the way, is there going to be a Q&A after the film?
[27:50] Chithra: Yes.
[27:51] Host: Oh, good. And that’s the best part of these films — you’ll watch it, and then you can have a conversation after it. All right — well, thank you so much, everyone, for being on this evening; the hour goes fast. I just want to end with some of the things I like to end with. The first is: we parent children by the power of our example, and not by the example of our power. Speak to your children [unclear]. Children who have experienced trauma and loss have a prayer, and that prayer is: love me the most when I deserve it the least, because that’s when I need it the most. I’m going to leave it at that. Give us a call on Monday morning at 631-598-1983, or call our helpline any time at 888-80-HELPLINE — that’s 888-804-3575 [number partially unclear in audio]. I just want to say good night to everyone on the broadcast, and always remember, never forget: a child whose behavior pushes you away is a child who needs connection more than anything else. Good night, everybody.
[29:07] Guests: Thanks, guys. Good night.
[29:11] Announcer: The views expressed in the previous program do not necessarily represent those of the staff, management, or owners of WGBB.