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The Ancestors and the Babies
29 Sep 2019 Leave a comment
in Adoption, Child Welfare Committee, Culture, Original Families, Religion, Uncategorized
Part I: Boys will be boys; girls will be mothers
A baby girl has been born to a young woman in India. She wants to keep her baby. She writes to me for help. The boyfriend will not marry her, a reversal of past promises. In India it is nearly impossible for a single mother to raise a child. She cannot rent a place to stay or get a job if her status is known. For the child it is impossible to come through childhood unscathed by the names, insults, bullying, and exclusion because no father is present. For now though the baby nurses peacefully, unaware of the forces suddenly focused on her existence. She has no idea how her birth has turned a corner of the universe into chaos.
The issue is SHAME, the loss of the girl’s family’s Houour, which includes the presumed anger and sadness of the ANCESTORS. I step back in wonder. “Is it really true that one young woman’s birth of a child has the power to undo generations of respect and standing in current times and even causing anguish for past generations no longer here? Can 2 kg. of human infant wreak such destruction on families and community? And is it true that if the baby’s father “mans up” and marries the mother the baby is no longer the source of family dishonor and the Ancestors can go back to doing whatever ancestors do?
Part II: The Voices in my head.
Mostly I hear adoptees talking in my head and mostly they are Indian adoptees. My daughter is an Indian adoptee which is how I came to be here in Kolkata to care for the girls rejected for adoption. She doesn’t say much, mostly because she has seen and experienced too much of the pain of women’s lives here. But others ask:
“Why couldn’t people help my mother keep me instead of adopting me?’ This is a frequent question I think of when faced with an unmarried mother who wants to keep her baby, The biggest barriers are not financial but social and now we are back to the family HONOUR and SHAME, and the wrath or sadness of the ANCESTORS — the ruination of generations by the arrival of a baby without proper papers! She will be banned from her mother’s home. Her friends will turn their backs. Others will simply be to afraid to help because then they too will be stained by protecting a baby who has no proper papers
The only way for a baby to have proper papers is to have a father who is married to its mother. In India, the choices for the baby are to be raised by a single mother which is almost impossible, and unlike the US she will not be able to find a place to live or a job, and will find that many schools will not accept her child. The child will be subjected to teasing, bullying and social exclusion. But the child will still have its mother.
The second option is adoption, domestic adoption in India where there are thousands of families on waiting lists for infants free for adoption. This may be successful in that the child is raised as a natural child of the family, or not. The child may be told, or maybe not told, or maybe have a sense of secrets about its origins or may be told by others. When the child discovers it is adopted it will also wonder why it was given up, why it was not loved, what it had done wrong. I hear these voices in my head because these are words told to me over and over by adoptees.
Am I against adoption, not at all. Sometimes it is the ONLY option, but the adoptive mother, including myself, is the child’s second mother. We may wish we were the first, just like the child may wish it bad been birthed by us. A solid identity must be built on truth, not half-truths or lies. We owe that to our children. And if it is difficult to us to manage emotionally then we are doubly obligated to sort it out and come to a comfortable place about our motherhood. Children read our emotions. They should not have to bear our pain.
I stand, holding the baby in my arms, wondering her future, feeling sad and impotent and torn apart but clearly not as much as this young college girl, now a mother, still hoping maybe the father will marry her, give her and the baby the papers, still hoping her family and community will accept her and her baby without the papers, and torn between what she is told will be a “better life” for her baby — but wondering how she herself will survive the pain of loss.
Part III: Why? Why? Why?
Whether one believes in evolution, or God, or Gods, or G_d, or a god force within all life, none seems to require that newborns come with passports or papers. We arrive naked, without accessories. Honor and Shame are about culture, about people making rules, about beliefs – because if papers or passports were required for new life, then why are babies born without them?
Why? Why? Why?
In Search of Security-UPDATE 19 November 2012
11 Nov 2012 1 Comment
in Daily Life, Obstacles, Safety, Uncategorized
UPDATE: Sometimes things DO work out. The man did not want to lose our business. In fact he seems to really want to protect us. So, he is doing the night duty himself until he can find someone reliable. This is a huge relief as he stays awake, walks around, and keeps an eye on what is going on. Has he dozed off sitting in the chair? Of course. It’s really normal. I don’t get upset about that. This morning he brought in a new day guard to meet me. The boss will continue at night for now. He asked if we can start over. New day begins.
All security agencies provide deteriorating service over time. It’s one of my “Harrison’s Rules of Life.” It can take a year, or two weeks, which seems to be the latest case. Each starts the same, whether they came recommended by someone, or from the internet…. They “LOVE’ this home and the work I am doing. Usually they call me “Ma” but this one refers to me as Didi. The line goes something like, “You are my Ma/Didi and I will take care of you.” I think they learn this from watching satire.
I get scared when I realize our security is falling apart, as it is now. We are alone here, women and children. We are surrounded by criminals who would love to have access. I just called the boss, the new boss, and he was “shocked” that the night guard didn’t show up, said the day guard would stay on. I said I don’t do 24 hour shifts because they can’t stay awake! Two nights ago at 2 am when I was up with a crying child, I saw that the guard had shut himself away and was fast asleep. I called the boss in the morning but his phone was “lost” and the second number didn’t answer and he had already asked for “one more chance.”
Old stories for context…
First ever security agency was fake. One of my board members, actually our Treasurer, arranged the service. Then the local goondas discovered he was fake, fake company…..
Then there were the ones who were getting drunk from alcohol from the goondas next door.
Then there was the one I found, around 3 am, lying in our entrance way playing with myself. It was really hard to make the phone calls to tell the company what the problem was.
Along the way I hired G4S. They are the same company that didn’t do so well for the Olympics in London. They are the best known, and guard the consulates here in Kolkata. It was nice to have them because they responded to the complaints, so it was a feel good, but the guards slept and drank.
Early on the local goondas decided my guards were entitled to sleep. These were 12 hour shifts. The goondas demanded I provide blankets and pillows. I refused, said I’d rather save the money and guard by myself (behind the locked grille). When I finally demanded this guard be transferred he turned to the community and that was the cause of the first of our riots. By riots I mean about 30 drunken men, and the women neighbors too screaming at me to leave, telling the girls they will kill me, and telling me not to call the police because they owned the police. When I called the local political leader he said, “They don’t want to hurt you. They just want your money.” That was so reassuring.
One time when I got rid of a company, we cleaned out the locker and found a bag of condoms and empty alcohol bottles.
The cost has ranged from about Rs. 16,000 to Rs. 26,000 a month. That’s a huge part of our budget.
This is really sickening, isn’t it!
We had a guard about a year ago we really liked. All of us liked him. Then we found out he was giving his mobile phone to the girls and trying to set them up with local boys.
Oh yes, and then there was the massi who was stealing money from me and passing it through the window to the guard…. and riding home with him on his bicycle.
Remember, these are only the stories I know……
Where do I go from here? I guess I go the same place, the same route, because it is the only one here…. This is Kolkata. Nothing works. It’s not intended to work. I’m angry. I’m angry enough to tell him just to leave, to fire them now, to just live without a guard. We would be safe for the night, but the criminals would come over the fence and steal everything that was not chained down.
Another guard story. Saraswati Puja is celebrated in late Jan or early February. Two years ago we bought a woven cane pandal to put up, and to decorate. The statue of Saraswati was inside. (No, that wasn’t stolen.) After the holiday I wanted to put it in the garden as a play house for as long as it survived the weather. It was about 6’x6’x6′, perfect for the kids. A couple of days after the Puja, I suddenly noticed it wasn’t there, in the front and it wasn’t in the garden. It was GONE. What is amazing is that neither of our guards had any idea where it had gone! Six by six by six had just absconded. The next day I heard from someone, I can’t remember who, that a neighbor had it. So I went to the neighbor with one of our teachers to translate. We were a funny sight. Only the woman was home in their tiny rented quarters. “Yes, my husband brought it here.” I didn’t see it though and she pointed to the ceiling as the panels had been taken apart and put up for insulation. I smiled and thanked her and said no, there was no problem. I just didn’t know where it was. So then the guards who had no idea where it had gone said they thought I was throwing it out so they gave it away, and so on.
This is boring, to write, and to read, but it’s the stuff of what drains my time and my energy. I feel incredibly alone with this.
The Pandal That Absconded 2011
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