The Charm & Challenge of China

Two and half years before I adopted my daughter, when my girl was nothing more than the germ of an idea planted, lying in wait, at the back of my mind, I decided to go to China.

I figured if adoption was feasible, if motherhood was pending, I should try and sate my appetite for adventure while I had the chance. I’d always wanted to see the Great Wall and thought, if I was going to adopt from China, it made sense to visit – to see if I felt an affinity for the people and the culture.

REI offered a bike tour through southeast China’s most picturesque country, through Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. The literature waxed poetic, painting peaceful, pastoral scenes of picturesque hamlets, villages, farms, crystal clear running rivers, and towering karst limestone mountains, scenes that inspired China’s great painters and poets. I signed on and convinced my friend Carol to join me. We embarked on rigorous training rides, imagining, anticipating the bucolic charms of China.

The reality proved slightly different.

By November ‘98, I found myself biking along a dirt path bisecting a long and narrow dike. It was our group’s first day out riding on open roads -- but all I could think was how relieved I was to leave the smog, the tension of the cities and towns, the odd looks from the locals, the stern lectures from our guide, and the ominously empty 7 Star Crag Park with its haunting lakes and lush gardens. To say the trip had strange, uneasy beginnings, that I had misgivings, was an understatement.

Our small group of six had flown into Hong Kong, briefly explored the smog-infested city, and stayed the night. Early the next morning, we boarded a commuter ferry and rode 4 hours up the Pearl River, deeper into the smog, squinting through thick layers of gray and brown haze. Factories and cranes, -- heavy industry -- hugged the shoreline.

I’m in China, I thought. So why am I thinking …Newark, New Jersey?

I exchanged nervous glances with Carol but said nothing. We landed in the PRC, in the town of Zhaoqing, and met our guide and driver. As we bumped and bounced along in our shock-absorbent-free tour van, our guide, Ji-wei, turned to welcome us. He had a solid muscular build, short cropped hair, a wholesome face, and a broad, handsome smile. Using close-to-impeccable English, he gave us an introduction, a lecture really, on modern China’s history.


China, or Chinese, he explained, was really Western nomenclature. For thousands of years, the people have called their country Zhōngguó, meaning central or middle kingdom, the world that lies between the celestial heavens and the underworld. (Hint, hint, he seemed to be saying, the center of civilization.) Mao Tse Tung the father of modern China, defeated the corrupt, debauched General Chiang Kai-Shek after a long and difficult civil war. (The notion of a Communist Revolution, again, was a western construct.) The Russians were not involved but America had meddled intrusively, backing the evil General. Mao understood and supported the people, lifting China up and out of oppressive imperial rule and medieval privilege. Deng Xiao Ping brought economic reforms and further transformed the country.

Lecture complete, the group stopped for lunch at an eerily empty resort, a place bounded by karst limestone formations and filled with pools, lakes, quiet paths, pavilions, pagodas, and lush green gardens. With little explanation (and a touch of disdain?) our guide noted the man who’d designed and built the elegant 7 Star Crag Park had paid for it with his life -- in the Cultural Revolution.

What to say? The group grew silent. Had I made a mistake? What were we doing here? I avoided Carol’s glances.

We climbed back into the van and headed deeper into the country. The van stopped again and Carol and I, and the others, tested and fitted our bikes. We set out, peddling, climbing a path up onto the dike, looking for a touch of something less …official, less ominous, more authentic.

A school girl rode her bike up beside us. She asked timidly, in broken English, if we were American. We nodded, smiled, and showed her our map. She offered to show us the way and asked if she might ride with us and practice her English. We nodded, Sure. We rode. We chatted. We began to relax.


Over the next 9 days, we biked 50-60 miles a day -- and encountered China, in all its rich, confusing complexity. We found a rapidly changing landscape, a country undergoing massive change, on a massive scale. We found a people, a culture, as charming as it was forbidding.

We biked through the country and saw paddies, fields, and farmland that glowed green and gold in the sun, even as coal factories hovered on the horizon, belching black plumes of unscrubbed smoke. We watched fishermen setting their nets, families working their fields, threshing rice, raking grain, burning the empty stalks. Those who weren’t fishing or working the land, dug ditches, lay roads, logged forests, erected new concrete and brick structures.

Everyone worked. Well, almost everyone. We passed clusters of men in small towns, lingering in pool halls, smoking, loitering in the square, leering as we passed. We noticed more often than not, that women and children worked in the fields. They carried astonishing loads, on heads, shoulders, bikes, and backs, lugging firewood, brush, persimmons, potatoes, hay, and big buckets of water. They smiled as we passed even when their bodies bowed under the loads they bore.

Some of the people were poor. Dirt poor. We passed a few places where hygiene seemed non-existent. The bathrooms were the worst I’d ever seen, putrid, open air fly-fests.

Ji-wei reminded us of China’s difficult history, of floods, famine, and quakes, of the terrible loss of life. The forces of nature prevailed. In the end, human life was fragile -- and cheap. It’s why, he explained, nature looms large in classical Chinese painting. Humans are small, insignificant figures against a larger landscape.

I looked for ways to encourage our typically tight lipped guide to share more of his life and culture. When I learned he had an 8 year old daughter, I asked for the stories he told her. He shared two examples:

The first was the story of a boy who rescued a sick, injured wolf he saw scrambling to escape a horde of hungry villagers. The boy took the wolf home and nursed him back to health. Later, when suspicious villagers confronted the boy, he hid the wolf in the folds of his coat. But the wolf chewed through the boy’s stomach -- and the boy dropped to his death.

Ji-wei stopped.

That’s it? I asked, somewhat shocked. (Where was the happy ending? )

Uh huh, Ji-wei nodded.

And.. the moral of the story is..?

If you show your enemy weakness, Ji-wei replied, he will destroy you.

Oh...!

Ji-wei launched right into his second example, a tale of a famous general. His troops had fought a long, hard campaign but ended up outnumbered, cornered with their backs to the sea. Several ships lay at anchor nearby but, as the enemy approached, the general burned every last ship, the men’s sole means of escape. The soldiers were forced to stand and fight.

So... they beat the odds and won? I asked hopefully.

No. Ji-wei replied. They were slaughtered.

I paused, eyebrows elevated. And, the lesson is…?
True patriotism is when you stand and fight to the finish -- even in the face of terrible odds.

It was the last story I asked for.

We continued along open roads, biking from town to town. We passed men peddling to market on rattling, rusted bikes that creaked and groaned with the weight of 200 pound pigs, or huge 100 pound sacks of grain slung over the back of the bike. We passed women hacking raw boulders out of the hillside. They wore straw hats, thin blouses, cotton trousers, and flip flops and worked with young children seated beside them.

It dawned on us what a sight we were -- in our space-age helmets, special shoes, spandex shorts, and padded seat pants. We rode brightly colored bikes with aluminum frames and fat tires, using fancy sprockets and shifters. We carried maps and a camera.

And yet, while a few people hid, or averted their gaze, others stopped and stared at us openly. More more often than not, the stares turned to grins, then smiles. They welcomed us with great curiosity and warmth. Mothers held up their children and waved. School boys rushed to greet us while the girls, more bashful, held back, wide-eyed, soaking in the sight of us.

One small girl with dirty hands, dirty face, dirty clothes, ran to bring me a present: a single, soot-covered taro. I was loathe to take it (was it dinner?) but I couldn’t refuse her.

We passed through local “hamlets” -- towns of 200,000, small cities of 500,000, and mid-sized cities of millions. We dodged pedestrians, pushcarts, pedal carts, pigs, bicyclists, buffalo, cars, cats, trucks, ruts, boulders, ditches, and dogs. The sheer number of people was staggering.

At the end of the trip, I traveled north to see Xian and Beijing. Streets and shops with neon signs promoted modern life’s amenities, from designer clothes to electronic gadgets. Young women wore make-up and tight trendy clothing. Men sported suits and cell phones. Still, signs of poverty and ill-health remained. I don’t recall seeing anyone with a weight problem and the smiles of many, especially the elderly, revealed crowded teeth, crooked teeth, missing teeth, even blackened yellow teeth. Beggars, some deranged, some deformed, wandered at will.

I saw the Terra Cotta warriors, the Great Wall, the Imperial and Summer Palaces and marveled. But I cringed at the sound of long throaty wind-ups, at men flinging their phlegm. I watched in amazement as parents held out their babies to pee through split pants at the edge of a public sidewalk. And I winced at the treatment of rabbits, chicks, cats, and dogs in various public markets.

We arrived back in the States and it felt good to be home. I looked through my pictures and saw China had so many different textures, so many different faces: people like Ji-wei, the official face of China. But also everyday people, the men, women and children we passed in farms, on fields, by the rivers and roads -- the unofficial China, the people trying to eek out a life, all the while smiling and welcoming us with a warmth that was hard to forget.

My favorite photo remains the one I took of the school girl we met that first day on the dike. She looks back over her shoulder and holds up her finger, as if she is pointing the way, beckoning me on toward my future.

Now my daughter and I join other FCC families. We celebrate Chinese New Year, Egg hunts, Moon festivals, and Heritage Camps. My daughter loves learning the language. She loves the martial arts, the dances, the costumes, the chance to perform. I watch her partake with pride. But part of me wonders if she’s learning Chinese culture or, if really she’s learning what is, for the most part, white, adoptive America’s take on Chinese culture. And I wonder someday if, when she travels to China, she will discover a deep rooted connection but also, a dissonance -- confronting that part of herself that is, like her mother, deeply American.

Half a World Away

I was thinking we were through the worst of it. Silly.

Less than a week after my daughter admitted her fears I stole her from China, a story from the New York Times online edition appeared April 5th on the first page of the site, above the fold, announcing itself with a heavy black headline: Chinese Hunger for Sons Fuels Boys' Abductions, by Andrew Jacobs.

I wait till late at night, when I hear long, deep in and exhalations emanating from my daughter’s room, when she’s deep asleep, when it’s safe to click on a story without fearing two small eyes peering over my shoulder. Idle worry? Not when your daughter’s in third grade. Not when she was reading at a 6th grade level in the fall of 1st grade. She misses nothing.

The bulk of the story revolves around China’s demand for sons. Lacking any form of social security, Chinese families, especially poorer, rural families, yearn for a son, for someone who won’t marry and leave, for someone who will care for them in old age, for someone to continue the family bloodline. But the one-child-one family policy has frustrated this yearning. So now, more than ever, boys are in demand, in danger of abduction. Heartrending stuff in its own right. But then, a quote stops me cold:

A grieving father of a four year old boy, Peng Gaofeng, started an ad hoc group for parents of stolen children. His claim? Girls are abducted as well -- and some of these girls are sold to orphanages. They are the lucky ones Peng says. These girls often end up in the United States or Europe after adoptive parents pay fees to orphanages that average $5,000.

It feels like a punch to the gut.

The claim makes no sense. To even entertain the possibility, that I could have been an unwitting accomplice, that I could have taken a child from her family, sickens me.

I finish the article but there is no further mention, evidence, or explanation regarding these supposedly abducted girls. The focus returns to the issue of boys and China’s desire for sons.

I write Jacobs to ask (politely) what this claim is founded on. If it makes any sense for China’s orphanages to pay for girls when the orphanages are flooded with more girls than they can handle. Does he have any idea how this claim might hit adoptive families in this country? Can he substantiate the claim with hard data? Answers would be helpful.

I have yet to hear from Jacobs.

Adopting a child from this country, as a single parent, was never an option for me. I’d never thought about adopting, much less looked to China, till a friend graciously served up the idea. I’m not one to move into big decisions lightly (an understatement... I can hear friends chortling.) I weighed my decision carefully, asked the hard questions, gathered the data over months, in truth, years.

Was it right to pull a child from her country, her culture?


My understanding was that there were hundreds of thousands of girls in China, that domestic adoption was uncommon in a country where families held an overwhelming bias and preference for blood ties. Hundreds of girls needed families, loving care. Orphanages were underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed.

It all made so much sense: me, wanting to love and raise a daughter. All those girls in China needing a home.

I adopted my daughter in 2001 and these larger existential, philosophical, moral questions were instantly relegated to the furthest recesses of my mind as everyday demands overwhelmed me: bottles, diapers, Desitan, formula, feeding schedules, nap schedules, bath routines, bedtime routines, books, teddy bears, dolls, nursery rhymes, nonsensical rhymes, hand games, finger games, food games, numbers, colors, letters. Such joyful days. An innocent interlude.

Eight years later we’ve come full circle. But now it’s my daughter asking these questions.

How could I have been born to one family, … and ended up with another, half a world away? How could my parents have given me up?

Knowing her as I do, loving her as I do, I hear these questions in a new light. They have new meaning, new urgency. Worse, a harder question confronts me:

Could I somehow be …culpable?

Its insane to consider. But I don’t like avoiding hard questions. In the face of bad news, I want to know the worst, confront the truths, then deal with them.

I dig out Kay Ann Johnson’s book, Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son. Johnson, a professor of Hampshire College with her own daughter from China, spent ten years researching the elusive story of abandonment, adoption, and orphanage care in China. She published her book in 2004. A friend recommended it. I’d promptly bought it – and shelved it.

Johnson’s book is full of hard data. I’m a former MBA. Hard data is my friend.

China’s one-child policy was initiated under Deng Xiaoping in 1979 in an effort to control China’s population. Resistance to the one-child policy was most widespread in the countryside – where 75-80% of the population then resided, scraping a difficult existence off of the land.

In the 80’s, desperate families developed private work-arounds. Yes, some aborted. Yes, some left their daughters out in a field or on the roadside to die. But many others hid their girls or quietly, informally, adopted their girls out to family, neighbors, or friends. In the early 90’s, authorities responded to this subterfuge with what appeared to be greater leniency, offering a “one-son or two-child” policy for the countryside. But they matched this leniency with stricter laws going beyond a narrow focus on births to address the loophole: informal adoption.

Cadres of birth planning workers blanketed the countryside to monitor household head counts and reproductive behaviors. Penalties for violating birth planning laws were as harsh for adoptive families as birth families and included stiff fines (anywhere from one, to five, to even ten years’ worth of wages,) lost promotions, lost jobs, forced abortions, sterilizations, as well as public humiliation via tv and radio. (How easily we forget what it means to be free...)

Still, babies were born.

Thousands of brave families continued to adopt abandoned girls in the face of great personal cost and risk -- and another problem emerged. None of these girls could be registered at birth or beyond. They weren’t supposed to exist. But lacking formal registration, they also lacked basic civil, legal, and medical benefits: the right to go to school, the right to basic medical care, innoculations, or the right to reside in a given region or district. Those girls who made it to school were targets of derision – as if in fact they had no right to exist.

With fewer options to hide or care for the children, the number of abandonments soared.

State orphanages maintained a low profile to obscure their purpose. Signs suggested a preschool, or kindergarten, or children’s dance institute. Or there were no signs. Or the entrance was hidden. The fear was that if these places were discovered, their purpose known, they’d be flooded with babies.

They were flooded anyway. And flooded with healthy children. In the years preceding the one-child policy, Johnson estimates roughly 90% of abandoned children in orphanages were disabled. But by the 1990’s Johnson found that, for example, in her daughter’s state-run orphanage, fewer than 20% of the children had any known disability.

Overwhelmed with children, China's state-run orphanages grappled with mortality rates as high as 40%. In smaller, more remote areas, mortality rates approached 80%.

Foreign adoption was viewed as a way for the government to release some of the pressure, to provide some of the children with homes, to bring in much needed funds -- while still masking the problem.

Conditions in China’s orphanages have since improved. The government has slowly owned up to the problem and turned to the public for funds while also easing some of the restrictions on domestic adoption. Foreign money has helped. Over the last decade, Johnson estimates international adoption fees brought in more than $100 million. (Part of the cost of my daughter’s adoption was a required donation of $3,000 in support of her orphanage.) But, in her book, Johnson also raises a troubling possibility. Would China become dependent on foreign adoption? Was it too lucrative?

I wrote Johnson to thank her for her book and ask about recent developments. Had she seen Jacobs’ New York Times article? She is currently working on a grant to pursue further research in China. With a scholar’s caution, she was reluctant to be quoted. She generously shared her sense that the situation in China hadn’t yet changed in the time I adopted my daughter (2001.) But she also senses things have changed in the past four or five years. Domestic adoptions have increased. And now, there are far fewer healthy girls in orphanages. She is wary.

I confide my worries to a friend, a mother of two. What kinds of things will my daughter read as she grows older? What will she think? Did I contribute to something, in some small way, that’s beyond my wildest imagining?

She’s not an adoptive parent. She tells me we can’t control what happens in the world or what our kids hear. I know she is right. I can’t change what happened or what’s currently happening in China. And I can’t protect my daughter (protect myself?) forever. I can only hold her and love her.

Still, I never truly understood the extent of my vulnerability as an adoptive parent. Till now.

Two Mothers

It’s close to midnight and, as I get ready for bed, my mind returns to the start of the day with my daughter.

I'd woken her that morning and rubbed her back and she’d mumbled something about a bad dream. In the rush to get ready for school, I said I was sorry and urged her to tell me more -- once she was downstairs, dressed, and ready for breakfast. But breakfast came and went in a blur. We finished our morning routine and I sat on the stairs to wait with her for her carpool. She tossed her lumpy, blue book bag -- bulging with books and a snack -- down by the door, then jumped and danced about the living room with her usual light-hearted spirit.

She was dressed in a boy’s blue and white, striped t-shirt, baggy, bright red, athletic shorts that hung over navy leggings with a giant hole in one knee (she likes the hole there,) and running shoes. She prefers the “boyish” look even while she often complements these outfits with a ponytail tied with a large, lavendar, sequined scrunchie.

She is lucky her mother doesn’t give a rip about fashion.

She was silly, almost slapstick, striking funny poses. One minute, the sultry mystery woman, the next, a ninja spy, a karate master, a fierce warrior woman, then a swash buckling feminine sword fighter. (Oh… to be nine again!)

We'd had a great week together the previous week, over break. She spent a day skiing with her beloved uncle – and arrived home exuberant, full of tales schussing down the slopes. (And I got to sit in the front seat on the way home, Mom!) We picked out a new bike -– her first with gears -- and spent sunny days pedaling around town. When the rain returned, we spent lazy mornings reading books, playing piano and card games, and watching movies cuddled on the couch (including a wonderful old Danny Kaye movie: The Court Jester. Hilarious. Run, don’t walk to your local video store.) She enjoyed play dates, sleepovers, and a special evening performance of HMS Pinafore. She loves Gilbert & Sullivan, the language, music, rhythm, poetry, and patter song. She's memorized the lyrics to most of their productions.

As I sat on the stairs and watched her happy, high energy dance I thought, It's been a good week.

Then I realized: I never checked back in about that bad dream.

Did you want to tell me about your dream? We have time now.

She came and sat down beside me.

This was a strange one Mom! We were cuddling in my bed like we always do. But when I looked around, it wasn’t you! The hair was frizzier than yours, (sorry -- hard to imagine) and the eyes weren’t green. I jumped up and found you in the closet -- tied to a stake. When I untied you, the woman in the bed sat up and said, (pointing with dramatic flair) “You have betrayed me!”

Then, my daughter, imitating the woman from her dream, made the motion of someone slitting their throat.

Wow! I said. Was that your birth mother?

Yeah. she said. I think so.

She didn't seem the least bit upset. She seemed more surprised by the strangeness of the dream.

Do you feel torn between two mothers? I asked.

No. It was just weird, Mom. Really weird!

Did you wake with your heart pounding?

Yeah!

That’s intense…

Yeah!!

Well… I paused. (What to say?) Thanks for untying me.

Sure. No problem.

She shared this all in a completely matter of fact way. Her ride came and she hugged me with enthusiasm before running down the steps to greet her friends and take on the day.

I checked in with her once more when I picked her up from school that afternoon. We chatted about lots of things, then I referenced the dream, reassuring her she didn't need to pick sides. She could love two mothers -- and even love them in different ways if she chose. She knew this. She was cool about it. The dream was already, so... yesterday.

That night, I flash on an image of myself tied to a stake, stuffed in my daughter’s closet.

I guess it was my turn this time.

Part of me wonders if I need to call Jonna again. Or, if I’ll need to lock my door when my daughter reaches her teens and hormones kick in.

I remember Jonna's words:

This will come up again and again.... the first time is usually the hardest.

Then I can’t help but smile as a voice in my head whispers,

It's the battle of the mothers...

Or… is it the mother of all battles?

I give silent thanks again for my daughter’s honest, open heart, and climb into bed.

Gratitude

We could be in someone’s living room. There are two big armchairs in the corner and the coffee table and walls are decorated with brightly colored Latin American dolls, textiles, and totems. There are plants, a lamp, and a nice spread of magazines. But there’s also a large desk in the corner piled with papers and the lights are turned down awfully low for 4:00 in the afternoon. A large box of tissues sits conveniently within reach on a low table to my right.

Thankfully, I don’t need the tissues today.

I am sitting in a large cushioned armchair talking with Jonna, a child therapist I tracked down and met with last spring. (My daughter met her back then too.) She’s a petite, brown haired woman probably in her mid to late fifties with a lean, angular body. She sits in the other oversized armchair facing me. Just like our visit last spring, she’s slipped off her shoes and tucked stocking feet up snug under her thighs. She leans to one side, balancing a small notebook in her lap. Her arm lies casually draped over her thigh and a pen dangles loosely between two fingers. She listens intently, focusing round, birdlike eyes on me. Her face is lined with wrinkles -- as if she’s taken on the cumulative cares of her clients. I like this woman for her compassion, for her work with children, but even more -- for her direct, no-nonsense feedback.

I tell her about the events of the past week. About my daughter’s fears and worries. About confronting the truths of her story. Then too, I tell her of the night my girl asked to re-read her Homecoming story, outloud, together. How it felt like coming full circle, a joyful celebration.

Jonna tells me it’s common for adopted children to have these fantasies and fears. What’s more unusual is for grade school children to share their concerns so openly with their adoptive parents. Many are afraid to air their feelings. They stuff them and hold them inside, then wrestle with their confusion, or anger, in their teen years. (I’m afraid of the teen years.)

Jonna reaffirms what she told me last spring. That my daughter is perceptive, and emotionally solid. That abandonment is the most profound, fundamental fear we face as humans. That she needs to be able to grieve, and that grieving is a process. That these issues will come up for her again, in different ways, but that the first time is usually the hardest. And, that it’s a testament to her courage, our relationship, she can be so honest with me.

So… how are you doing in all this? Jonna asks.

I concede it hasn’t been easy but, with each passing day, I am grateful – indeed immensely grateful -- for my daughter’s courage, her willingness to trust in me. It tears me up to witness her pain and yet, I stand in awe of her strength.

I admit, with trepidation, I’ve been writing about our journey, sharing our story -- anonymously – in a blog I started. I’m scared Jonna will tell me I am betraying my daughter’s trust. Which is the reason why I know I should tell her about the blog. To get her candid assessment. Do I kill the blog? I don’t want to kill the blog. Writing about all the ups and downs of this journey helps me make sense of it all.

Jonna’s answer is not what I expect.

This is your story too. You’re entitled to a life as well.

I pause, and swallow an unexpected lump.

Damn. I do need one of those tissues today.

Warriors

The rain has been relentless. It's gray and cold and late in the day and we’re driving home from Chinese class. My daughter reminds me I promised to buy her a book from her favorite series, The Warriors. I joke about being a softie, then pull into the parking lot by the grocery store. The bookstore lies across the way. As I turn the key in the ignition, the car grows quiet except for the slow, steady tap of the rain. My daughter confides:

Mom, I worry you’re not really who you say you are.

This is the second time she’s offered this. The first time we talked was three nights ago, in my bed. She asked if I had any secrets, if I was hiding things from her. If maybe I’d locked her birth mother away in a cabinet.

I'd paused. Stroked her arm. Asked questions. I tried to explain – gently -- that I never met her birth mother. That I didn’t come along till later. She arrived at the orphanage a 7 day old baby and was placed in her foster mother’s care. I arrived a year and a half later. We went into her room and I pulled Kids Like Me in China by Ying Ying Frye from her book shelf and asked if she’d seen it. If she wanted to see it. She wanted to. So I scootched in behind my daughter on her bed and held her as she turned the pages, reading, studying every picture. The photos of the children are sweet, but they’re sobering. The room fell unnaturally quiet. My heart throbbed in my throat. We talked a little more but she was subdued and I knew I shouldn’t push. So I tucked her into bed, kissed her, hugged her, and told her I loved her.

I hated she had to face that.

For the next three days it felt as though my stomach had flipped and couldn’t quite right itself. It rattled me to think my daughter could think me evil or possibly hurtful. That she might lose her sense of trust. That she might be afraid. Of me.

This is a child who’s watched me gingerly capture lady bugs and bees in glass jars in our house so we could free them from her window.

My first reaction was to second guess myself. She is so very sensitive. I try incredibly hard to be patient, to communicate, to be logical, loving, and fair. But I’m a parent. I get frustrated, and I get testy. Her radar is so acute. She takes it all to heart. It doesn’t leave a lot of room to be human.

Was I really that awful? That scary?

A part of me wanted to ask her more questions, to reason with her, yes, even argue with her. I wanted to defend myself. Then, a small voice in my head whispered: This is not about you.

I stepped back and tried to ponder if there might be another reason for her to think this. Perhaps she’s not thinking evil or scary. She knows I love her. We have our own little mutual adoration society. Maybe… maybe she saw me as …desperate? A single mom so wanting a child she might steal from another…?

I struggled but knew I had to hold off, to be patient and offer quiet hints of support. And wait. I had to make it safe for her to talk and let her choose her moment.

The rain drums harder on the roof of the car now. I twist round and look back at my daughter on the seat. I feel, I hope, if I am still, very still, perhaps she will tell me more.

You worry I’m not who I say I am?

Yes. I worry Mom.

Tell me more, honey.

I worry you’re just being nice to me but that… maybe you might hurt me…

My heart feels almost too big for my chest. My child thinks I want to hurt her. It’s beyond imagining. I wonder if the world as I’ve known it may be slowly breaking apart.

Oh honey… do you really think I could ever hurt you?

Well… not you maybe… but that maybe you might hire someone…

But… why…? How could I ever hurt you? I love you, honey.

Its hard to breathe. I need to breathe. And be still. And listen. Closely.

Well… I wonder if maybe you locked my birth mother in a cabinet somewhere…

But… that would truly be a horrible thing to do, wouldn’t it?

She nods sadly, agreeing. Her eyes fill. A lone tear drops onto her cheek.

Do you really think I could do that to another mother? I ask this gently. That would be just awful. Wouldn’t it?

She nods and agrees again. More tears drop down, dotting her cheek. She leans forward to rest her elbows on the compartment between the two front seats.

Do I really scare you?

She nods a weak no. A few more tears escape. She lowers her face in her arms as if she is weary. I feel sick. Heartbroken. I ask, almost beg, her to come and sit with me in the front. I want to gather her in my arms. She nods her head weakly again, no.

I ask if it's okay then if I might come back and sit beside her. She nods her assent. But when I do, she leans forward, away from me, hiding her face and her tears in her arms. She seems so conflicted.

I place my palm on her back and rub, gently. Very gently.

We are quiet. Together.

Then… a thought …

Do you think.. that maybe.. you worry about this because it’s just too hard to believe you could have been born to one mother, half a world away, but now, you’re here with me?

A bigger nod, yes. She is only half facing me but I see a fresh well of tears surge up. They fill her eyes and course down her cheeks.

I pause.

Do you think… maybe…. it might be easier to believe I could be evil than to imagine your birth mother could have ever actually… let you go?

She lifts her head and finally turns to look at me directly. Her face puckers and breaks with emotion and I reach to draw her gently toward me, into my lap. She lets me. Drawing her knees in close, she sobs openly, releasing the sadness.

Oh honey. It hurts doesn’t it? I’m so sorry.

I stroke her arm and we cry together.

Minutes pass. Then she sits up and wipes her face clean and takes a deep breath.

Okay Mom. Another sigh. Let’s go get that book now.

I try to pull it together even though my insides are jelly.

Okay. How do I look?

She manages a small smile and shakes her head.

You’re a mess, Mom. A mess.

We pull on our hoods and climb out of the car. She takes tight hold of my hand and we dodge through the rain together.

A Day in the Life of a Single Mom

Most of the time, I am surpremely organized. I keep our home neat and clean and file away our papers and bills. I track our family obligations using a paper planner and Outlook and schedule little pop-up reminders with sweet sounding bells that go ding! several days in advance. I keep our endlessly variable summer calendar in a separate Excel spreadsheet (yes, I blush to admit) complete with color coding. Still, every once in a while, fate intervenes to remind me: I am not in control.

I enrolled in a class this past January to bring my skills and resume up to date. The class meets all day for the first Friday and Saturday of each month for six months. Those days are a scramble as they require changes in our carpool schedule (involving as many as 5 moms), our after-school schedule, our Saturday morning schedule, and our Chinese carpool and class schedule. I call a neighbor lady to help relieve and walk the dog. Max is twelve. He’s older now, a little more mellow, a little more fragile.

I thought I had it all under control.

So when I drove home one Friday from class, I was feeling quite pleased with myself. My daughter was off on a play date and I had a whole extra hour. I was thinking how nice it would be to use that hour to do a few things for my class, in my office, at my computer, stringing whole thoughts together, uninterrupted, before retrieving my girl. That was before I opened the front door. Max greeted me with his normal wiggle and wag, but then --

Sniff. Sniff, sniff.

Something was wrong. I followed the scent and found the source. Max had eaten something that didn’t agree -- and required a full-scale evacuation. Whether it was a case of shame or sibling rivalry, he’d retreated upstairs to my daughter’s room. And crapped all over her carpet.

Pffft! So much for that peaceful hour, quietly composing my thoughts.

I took Max outside to be sure there was nothing left, then grabbed the poop bucket, the spatula (yes, when you have a dog with a sensitive stomach, you keep one of these in reserve, clearly labeled), along with rags, and the Spot Off. I threw open the windows, changed my clothes, and spent the next hour furiously scooping and scrubbing the rug, emptying the bucket thinking:

Maybe I can get it all up... Maybe it won’t smell so bad with a little more air. Maybe she won’t notice…!

I knew my daughter. If she got worked up about this, it could potentially sink us both. She wouldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t sleep. We’d be a mess in the morning. There was even the risk I’d miss my class. I needed this class.

I threw the rags in the washer, changed my clothes (again), and hopped in the car to fetch my daughter. Her friend’s mom had sent an email that afternoon, inviting me and another mom to join her for a drink. I’m not a drinker. Truth is, I’m a total light weight. But it was Friday night and I thought: What the heck. I’ve earned this! The girls will be happy and I could use the company and conversation.

When the mom brought out the tequila, I was honest. I put up my hand and said, Oh, no... I’m just not that much of a drinker. But the moms poo-poo’d me and I didn’t exactly argue, so we sat back and started talking. And you know what? I like sucking on those cute little lime wedges, I like salt, and I like Tequilla!

Before we knew it, it was 10 o’clock. I looked at my watch, jumped up, thanked the mom, extracted my daughter, and drove -- carefully -- home. I thought: If we move quickly, I can tuck my girl into bed, get that hour of classwork done, and still get some decent shut-eye. Woo-hoo! I’m a single mom and I do have a life!

We pulled up to the house and parked. Then I remembered,

Oooh… I wonder if she’ll notice..

Mom. Look. There’s a note on the door.

That’s funny, I thought. Must be a promotion.

We walked to the door and I pulled out the note wedged in the handle.

Oh no…!

Mom? What is it?

Oh my God!

What, Mom?

Uh… Remember that lovely new piano teacher we finally tracked down and booked? She came. Tonight. For your lesson. And she waited. Oh my gosh…. How could I?

We opened the door. I was sick at the thought of that nice lady standing on our doorstep, waiting. And waiting. This was bad, really bad—

Huh? (Sniff. Sniff, sniff.)

The odor was stronger this time –- no, fresher.

Mom? What’s that smell?

NO…!

I bolted upstairs. He’d done it again! All across the exact same area where, on my hands and knees, for close to an hour, I’d scooped and scrubbed.

I looked up. Max stood in the hall, cheerfully wagging his tail. My daughter stood in the doorway, wailing. He did it in my rooooooom!

Time for damage control. I grabbed the dog and shut him in the bathroom. I grabbed my daughter by the shoulders trying to prevent a descent into the abyss.

Come on kiddo. Don’t lose it now. You’re tired. I’ll take care of it. Trust me. Work with me. Hold it together.

It occurred to me I was begging.

But I can’t sleep in here!

I know you can’t. Don’t worry. Hang on. Look! I’ll set you up in the den!

Now, I was bargaining. I stepped into the den and started frantically pulling cushions off the couch. But then –-

Sniff. Sniff, sniff.

I wheeled around and couldn’t believe my eyes. The dog was a flippin’ poop machine!

My daughter started up again: He did it in here too! Now I really don’t have anywhere to sleep!

I took her by the shoulders again.

Honey! Its okay. You can sleep in my bed!

Full scale capitulation. But it worked. She perked up.

Really?

She never gets to sleep in my bed. She loves my bed.

But where will you sleep?

Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out. Just go brush your teeth and get in your jammies.

Twenty mintues later, I was tucking her into my bed. She kissed me good night, her face a broad, happy smile.

I spent another hour and a half scrubbing the upstairs, fifteen bleary-eyed minutes on my classwork, and finally, ten more minutes on an abject apology to the piano teacher.

Then I slept downstairs. With the dog.

Why a "Pack?"

I meant to start this blog two weeks ago. No, the dog didn't eat my homework. But as luck would have it, my daughter, nine, came down with a horrible case of the flu and we were in lock-down mode for eight straight days. (Aaaaaugh!) It's a scary thing to watch a normally exuberant, even ebullient child, grow feverish and listless. I found myself running endless laps about the house, washing sheets, towels, my hands, pajamas, my hands, dishes, my hands, cough medicine cups, and yes, my hands, again.

I bear raw, chapped knuckles like a badge of courage.

When it all migrated to her head, neither of us slept. She went through five or more boxes of tissue. Then I ran laps supplying tissue, Sudafed, emptying trash, supplying more tissue, more Sudafed, more tissue, etc.

She recovered (finally... whew...) and bounced off to school while I looked in the mirror and saw ...a train wreck. I tried to clean up, dig out, and get my bearings. And begin this blog. Which, appropriately enough, is about the life of a single mom (me,) my daughter who was born in China in 2001, and Max, our Portuguese Water Dog (he was born here.)

How did I come to choose the name Pack of Three?

We're a family. A happy, loving, boisterous family. At least that's how I think of us. And my daughter, obviously a key part of this equation, is also happy, loving, and boisterous. At least most of the time. The truth is, she also struggles with the facts of her adoption, with the loss of her birth family.

She's always been proud of the fact she's Chinese. (Yes, I've tried to instill that and encourage it.) But she's sensitive and perceptive. Over the years, she's begun to process the loss in her story at a deeper level. And so, sometimes, in the middle of dinner, in the car on the way home from school, or even at bedtime as I lean down to kiss her, she'll pause and say:

Sometimes, I think you're just the babysitter.

I miss my real mom.

Sometimes I wonder if you stole me from my birth parents...

Now, I should be clear. I adopted my daughter legally. I am not an abusive parent. If anything, I am at times an overly attentive parent. A worrier. Perhaps, even, an overachieving parent. Most of the time, my daughter writes me poems, love notes, "you rock" notes, you're the "awesomest mom ever" notes. She draws pictures of hearts and flowers and happy children. We laugh. We cry. We love each other.

It pains me to hear her say these things. To know she struggles. To know there is only so much I can do to help her resolve these losses. At the same time, I'm human. Having turned my life over to her most every need for the past 7 1/2 years, I have to admit the first time she called me the babysitter.... a voice in my head nearly screamed:

Are you kidding?? I'm sleep deprived, cranky, fat, and frazzled, trying to keep three steps ahead of you. The sitter?! I could be on a beach in Bermuda right now! I'm your mother damnit!

Of course I realize I'm supposed to be the adult in this relationship. So when she said this the first time and asked, Does that hurt your feelings? I denied my first reaction and offered the empathy I also genuinely felt, offering her the validation she needed, the opportunity to express her feelings.

But I've had other moments since. Where I've slipped. Where I thought she was only mad at me for not getting what she wanted, when I thought she was trying to play the 'other mommy' card.

How do you compete against a phantom mommy, a mommy who never says no? So yes, there have been those moments when I have fought for the title of mommy, arguing...

Who's there when you go to bed each night? Who's keeps you safe? Who's there when you wake each morning? Who's there at 2am when you have nightmares? Who's there when you get a bloody nose on the playground? Who's there when you're sick with a fever of 103? And who nags you to eat your vegetables, to watch for that mug of boiling hot chocolate, to watch for the car in the street?

Then, one day, in a more enlightened moment, I let it all go. I thought,

Who cares what we call this? A family? A tribe? A pack? I know what we are and I know I'm in it till I draw my last breath. That's what counts. Someday, whatever she calls it, acknowledging the depth of her losses, my daughter will also see what we have -- in all its beautiful, complicated glory.

Welcome to our blog. Our stories. Our little Pack of Three.