Long-Distance Mom

Because of work, this arrangement we’d made, was, for the best translated…

There’s this developed means of social networking software online, I got to share the moments of life my children are experiencing by the moments, but I’d only posted the goings-on of my firstborn’s life, and little of my second child’s. And my friends, coworkers all inquired, “you’re being unfair! How come there’s no photo from your younger child?”, I’d always replied lightly, “can’t, my younger child lives in Kaohsiung, my mother-in-law is looking after him, and we couldn’t make it back every single weekend.” But, what I didn’t tell my friends and coworker was that every time as I’d gone to Kaohsiung, and taken photos of my younger child, as I was about to, post them, I’d felt, that these photos are a reminder of how I, the long-distance mom, couldn’t live up to the responsibilities for caring for my younger daughter.

what modern day women looks like, not my picture…

Before I had my daughter, my mother-in-law made the demands, that she hoped that we can set our younger daughter up to live in Kaohsiung, while we both worked in Taichung. And, after considering how we couldn’t possibly manage looking after TWO young children while we worked, plus my in-laws are close to retiring, they’re on the verge of losing focus in their life, maybe, taking care of a newborn child can give them back their smiles again, and so, we’d, both agreed.

With the passing of time, my younger daughter started crawling and stumbling to walk, but slowly, she’d failed, to recognize us, her parents……every time we’d gone back to Kaohsiung, we’d always had to, reacquaint our younger daughter to us again; watching how scared she looked at us like we were strangers to her, my heart ached, and, I’d heard about my coworkers, inquiring, “how can you bare living so far from your young daughter?” “Don’t you ever miss her?”, tears will overflow my eyes.

don’t go, mommy!!!  Not my photo still…

But, there are always, TWO sides to the story, because of this, we’d had more time to spend as a couple, and, our first AND second born children both had never-ending care and love provided to them each, and my in-laws got the chance to enjoy time with their young granddaughter. And now, my younger daughter is one-and-a-half years-old, and can already call out “mama” and “dada”, we’d used webcam, to interact with her every single day, and enjoyed this long-distance connection with our young daughter.

And now, I’m, looking forward to when my daughter turns two, then, she can start daycare here in Taichung, and we can all, live together, as a family. By that time, I will be, posting a TON of her photos, with absolutely NO guilt whatsoever!

So, this, is the best arrangement you can come up with, given the situations, and I can only imagine how difficult it must be, for this woman, to be AWAY from her own young daughter, especially as the young child doesn’t even recognize her own parents, because the parents worked away, but now, as the baby girl gets older, the parents will be taking her back closer, to daycare, so they will all be together, and, the mother won’t be, missing out on any of the major milestones of her daughter’s life again!

what a family looks like, not my art…