It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

“It takes a village to raise a child.” Something I’ve heard ever since I before I was pregnant.

While you’re the one with the child, someone else always have some suggestion or advice for you. Sometimes they are your parents, sometimes they are your friends, sometimes they are non-parents themselves. They mean well, and they really do, but inevitable judgments are passed on along with the well intentions.

It is especially apparent now CC is sick with his first cold.

People blamed the daycare…and I do too. But while blaming the daycare, they also are criticizing my decision in sending him to daycare. Do I have a choice? Yes I do. You always have a choice in life. But it’s a matter of it’s a reasonable choice.

I don’t want to coup him up at home with a nanny, because I do want him to be socialized as early as possible, given he is most likely going to be an only child. I also don’t trust any one single person to tend to him without any other watchful eyes. I mean, I don’t even trust myself alone with him!

I don’t want to be a stay-at-home Mom. I know, it’s again, choice. But being home for the 3 months during maternity leave made me realize I am very ill-suited for such a life. For the sanity of everyone in the family, this is not an option.

I do wish I can have my village here to raise this child for me. But my “village” is either in Kamloops, Canada, or Taipei, Taiwan. If there were any “one” person I would trust to care for CC alone, that’ll be my Mom, my aunts, and my sister-in-law. But, it’s all wishful thinking.

My last option is to send him to a daycare. Yes, I hate it. As a person who was an extremely timid and shy child, I would cry and cry and cry when going to a new school. So it pains me to say good-bye to CC every morning, especially when he is starting to have stranger and separation anxiety. I also hate it because it took me months to train him to take the bottle in preparation for daycare, and even then he’s not drinking much, and it pains me to see my child hungry. And then I hate it because he can hardly nap at daycare, being so sensitive to noises. And then I hate it because 3 days into daycare, he is now down with his first cold.

I hate it. There are times in this past week when I’m alone, at the verge of tears, wishing for my own Mom.

In this modern Western society, we are lucky to have doctors who aren’t filling us with chemicals, but told us, “No medicine needed, he’ll work it out himself.” But between the puking due to snot in throat and 101F fever, I wished I could give him something to make it all better, even if it’s me taking over all the discomfort. Wishful thinking did come true and now I’m down with it as well, making me the anti-viral factory to make him better faster. But it doesn’t remove the suffering from him completely. Every time I saline-drop him and using the nose-suction device on him, he is always screaming and fighting but looking so tiny and helpless at the same time. Even Twilight couldn’t stand it and comes by for moral support. Yet immediately afterwards, he would cling to me as if he has already forgotten I am the devil with the mean nose-sucking apparatus, sobbing and whimpering but finally with a cleared nasal passage. He forgives me instantly and is even grateful.

Talk about being brave, and talk about breaking your heart.

So we are here, 4 days into this nasty cold, our little village of 3 people and 1 dog, stayed brave and keep plugging along.