Here's Why Mindy Kaling Won't Be Discussing Her Daughter's Paternity

Mindy Kaling is having such a moment right now, and her longtime fans (read: me) couldn't be happier. The former Kelly Kapoor from The Office is now a serious Hollywood screenwriter with her recent hit movie Late Night (starring none other than Emma Thompson, how huge is that?). She is enjoying industry accolades for her work that are long overdue and, oh yeah, she is also a first-time mom to 18-month-old daughter Katherine. The Mindy Project star has been open about all her parenting experiences, save one. Mindy Kaling's daughter's paternity has never been up for discussion, and the star recently shared why she won't be talking about it anytime soon.

Ever since the actress/producer welcomed her daughter in December 2017, the internet has been wildly speculating about who the father might be. There has been lots of interest in her former boyfriend and long-time best friend BJ Novak, but that's never been confirmed. And here's the beauty of Kaling: while some people might get justifiably indignant about the invasion of their privacy, she just rises above it. She doesn't answer questions and refuses to give out any details beyond what makes her comfortable. She smiles and keeps her cool and just continues to stake her claim on the entertainment industry.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Kaling said that she might be willing to talk about her daughter's paternity publicly, but only after she shared the information with Katherine herself:

My feeling is that until I speak to my daughter about that, I’m not going to talk to anyone else about it.

Kaling is also fiercely private about sharing her daughter's image on social media. She has shared just a few photos of Katherine and they are all from behind. As Kaling once explained in an interview with Glamour, it's vital to her that she be able to choose how much she shares and what she keeps private:

I’m on social media and like sharing with people what my interests are and how my day’s going and all of that, but I do feel entitled to have privacy about my daughter and my relationships. It’s really essential to my life that there be something not everybody knows about. That’s a boundary, but it’s a very small boundary. Everything else I really don’t have any issue sharing.

The proud mom might want to keep her daughter's face and paternity private, but that doesn't mean she isn't willing to open up about how much she loves being a mom. As she told The New York Times, she was "surprised" by her own "maternal instinct" when Katherine arrived on the scene:

I’m very impatient, and having a baby requires an amount of patience that I was worried about. But they don’t tell you that the thing will look so much like you, and do things that are so sweet and adorable, that you’ll naturally not have the same impatience that you would have with a stranger or someone who works for you.

Mindy Kaling is really in the sweet spot these days. Success is hitting her in a big way after years of working in the entertainment industry, and perhaps that's why she knows how to set up clear boundaries. To say to her fans "you can see this but I'm not showing you that" without letting all of that people pleasing nonsense get in her way.

She knows where to draw the line, and that line is around her little girl.