My original family

Dear MooMoo,

Chances are that by the time when you are born, none of mommy’s parents would be around to witness. The current pandemic continues and the travel between the two countries has been restricted.

This has given my mom a lot of regret as she has been so excited about coming over to take care of you and mommy. As a result, she has tried to make it up by constantly mailing us stuff that we can easily get it here, such as towels, baby clothes, and bed sheets. As my dad said, this means more to her than to me.

My parents and I don’t always have the best relationship — something that I hope you and I would be better. I’m the only child in the family and my parents both worked while I was growing up. In my memory they were always busy. They both worked till late and it was already dark outside by the time when they came home and started preparing for dinner. By now I would understand that at that time they must have been exhausted from the work that helped to make a living to the work that helped to raise me, but then as a kid who had to be stuck in my neighbour’s house after school until my parents came home and “claimed” me, the feeling of being ignored is difficult to remove.

And although I understand the situation by now, I hope that we would be able to do a better job to raise you. I plan to return to work as this would help with the expense but I also want to make sure I give you enough companionship so you’ll have this sense of security in your mindset from the start. It would be challenging to balance work and life, and the life of being myself and that of being a mom, but I hope I can do it.

While this pregnancy has given me lots of unforeseen challenges (and more to come as I heard from others when the baby is here), I do hope that one day daddy and I might have a second one. I have been the only child my whole life and even though some of my friends were jealous of part of being the only child that they wish they were the only child too, I wish I could have a sibling. Being the centre of the family means that you are provided with all the resources, but it also means that all the expectations (and the pressure that comes with it) are on you. I was the so-called “other people’s child” for a long time — in Chinese it translates into “other people’s child who always behaves so well and get good grades at school so his/her parents could be proud”. Perhaps the expectations to be self-discipline has been in my blood that at some point I would infuse the idea in you to be an Grade A student, but for now I really hope that you can grow up a happy kid who instead of putting your head into books and homework after school (unless that’s what you are passionate about!) you can do swimming, cooking, painting, or whatever that would inspire you.

I believe that my parents have done their best to provide and educate me. They managed to take the financial pressure off me so I could be focused on education, and for this I will always be grateful. Growing up although I have never been a rich kid, my parents managed to support so I learned how to play the violin through college. My dad, who would keep wearing the same shirt for years, has never said no when I asked to buy a book.

Dear MooMoo, I hope I’ll be able to provide to you what my parents have provided to me on education, and I hope that one day your grandfather would be showing you all his collections of books. I would assume you will be growing up in an English-speaking environment, but I also hope that you will learn Chinese to appreciate the culture behind thousands of years of history, and to learn mommy’s original family.

Much love,

Mom