How perfect for you!
It's deja vu. I feel like I've been here before. It's a movie I've already seen, isn't it?
I hear it so many places I go, in English and in Chinese, about how perfect our family will be once our baby is born. We've known for some time that we are expecting another girl. We are excited for, as Myles says, "whoever God sends us." We've really come to understand that the second half of that statement is "whenever God sends them."
Two years ago I heard how perfect it was going to be for us. In the US people frequently said to me something along the lines of one boy, one girl, and then you can be done (sometimes this last part was said, sometimes implied). I'd hear something like that occassionally when I was visiting China at the time, but not as much as I do today. These days, living in a Chinese neighborhood and much more able to converse with Chinese people in Mandarin, I hear it almost every day.
Chinese people are sometimes surprised I already know with certainty that Myles will have a meimei. It's illegal to find out this information in China, though many doctors have gotten rich accepting the bribes to read on the ultrasounds or amnios the gender. Of course, it isn't illegal in Hong Kong. I tell people that my doctor is in Hong Kong, and they nod their heads, dangran. Of course.
For many Chinese people, what we seem to have is really perfect to them, culturally. Despite one-child and the allowance for some families to have two if the first is a girl, culturally many still believe in the son-first idea. I've even heard of a wedding tradition where the couple eat peanuts as part of the wedding day. There's a rhyme or chengyu or something about eating peanuts assure the boy comes first. So when Myles proudly tells someone that he's having a meimei, the "how perfect" line comes out. Yes, we could just tell people we don't know, but Myles is much to excited not to share the news. He's difficult to contain on the matter.
I don't know that I would be so affected by all the how-apparently-prefect if we hadn't already been here before. Outwardly, we smile, and try to say something about any baby is welcome. Inwardly, though, it's hard to think of this as perfect, again. There are many other adjectives to describe how we feel--ecstatic, happy, tentative, worried, thrilled, blessed--but perfect is not one I dare even come close to considering.
I hear it so many places I go, in English and in Chinese, about how perfect our family will be once our baby is born. We've known for some time that we are expecting another girl. We are excited for, as Myles says, "whoever God sends us." We've really come to understand that the second half of that statement is "whenever God sends them."
Two years ago I heard how perfect it was going to be for us. In the US people frequently said to me something along the lines of one boy, one girl, and then you can be done (sometimes this last part was said, sometimes implied). I'd hear something like that occassionally when I was visiting China at the time, but not as much as I do today. These days, living in a Chinese neighborhood and much more able to converse with Chinese people in Mandarin, I hear it almost every day.
Chinese people are sometimes surprised I already know with certainty that Myles will have a meimei. It's illegal to find out this information in China, though many doctors have gotten rich accepting the bribes to read on the ultrasounds or amnios the gender. Of course, it isn't illegal in Hong Kong. I tell people that my doctor is in Hong Kong, and they nod their heads, dangran. Of course.
For many Chinese people, what we seem to have is really perfect to them, culturally. Despite one-child and the allowance for some families to have two if the first is a girl, culturally many still believe in the son-first idea. I've even heard of a wedding tradition where the couple eat peanuts as part of the wedding day. There's a rhyme or chengyu or something about eating peanuts assure the boy comes first. So when Myles proudly tells someone that he's having a meimei, the "how perfect" line comes out. Yes, we could just tell people we don't know, but Myles is much to excited not to share the news. He's difficult to contain on the matter.
I don't know that I would be so affected by all the how-apparently-prefect if we hadn't already been here before. Outwardly, we smile, and try to say something about any baby is welcome. Inwardly, though, it's hard to think of this as perfect, again. There are many other adjectives to describe how we feel--ecstatic, happy, tentative, worried, thrilled, blessed--but perfect is not one I dare even come close to considering.
Comments
When I had two, one boy and one girl, people used to come up to me in the grocery store and say, "Now you have your boy and your girl and your family is finished", or "and so you can stop now." This was not at all my intention or desire, and finally in frustration I said to one woman, " Oh, no, I think I will have a baby every 18 months for the next ten years." The look of shock on her face cannot be described. She was white and speechless. She turned and walked away from me as fast as she could.
I didn't quite achieve that rate, but I had eight in 12 years, and then my ninth three years later. (She is a college sophomore now.) I find myself wishing I could do it again, have a few more, perhaps do some things better than I did before, and most of all appreciate the time with them more. But of course, I am too old now. These are wonderful days you are in now. I do see from how you write about Myles that you are appreciating them.
God bless you!
Susan Peterson