It Took Me Thirteen Years To Go Home

According to Chinese and Taiwanese custom, the second day of the Lunar New Year is the day when a married daughter returns to her parents’ home. This year, I finally brought three-year-old Baby J to visit my parents. It was the first time in the thirteen years since I came to the United States—and the eight years since I got married—that I returned to my parents’ home for the Lunar New Year.

My relationship with my parents has never been good. I always felt like my parents, especially my mom, didn’t like me. My dad is naturally tight-lipped and irritable. He was was always itching to scold or hit me. My mom, a housewife for most of her life, seemed to have no identity outside of parenting; all her attention was focused on me. As a child, I could be spanked until my butt was red and swollen for something as trivial as not finishing test scores. Even in college, I could still get punched and kicked, simply because I bought a piece of clothing that my mom dislike. 

It may be hard to imagine, but the most difficult thing for abused children is not the physical pain. It’s the struggle to win the their parents’ love midst of that pain. 

Chinese-America writer Eileen Chang once said that children are not as confused as people think; parents often don’t understand their own children, but children often see though their parents. I don’t know if she was right, but growing up, I always tried to understand my parents. I made excuses for them and rationalized their repeated loss of control and harm they caused me. 

I excused my dad’s behavior by attributing it to the trauma of his own mother running away when he was young. I thought it made him neurotic and insecure, leading him to be irritable, rough with his children, and controlling toward his wife. For my mom, I reasoned that being a strong woman confined to a life of housework must have left her feeling unfulfilled. I thought that unfulfilled desire for control drove her to lash out at me when things didn’t go her way. 

Still, I never knew if my guesses were correct. While I spent years in vain trying to earn their approval, I grew up. I saved some money, moved to the United States to study and work and distanced myself as far as possible from “home.” Except for attending my grandma’s funeral, I never returned to Taiwan and even lost my residency status there.

When I was pregnant with Little J, my mom called from overseas and said they wanted to visit their grandson. Her words felt eerie. You don’t like children—not even your own daughter! I thought. What are you coming for?

But my parents came. Despite having undergone lymph node removal due to breast cancer, which made long-distance flights difficult, my mom braved the journey. I saw her swollen right arm and thought, It’s so swollen. She probably won’t be able to hold the baby.

Yet, as soon as we stepped out the airport, my mom picked up Little J, and as if by magic, his crying stopped. 

When I breastfed, I held Little J in one hand and scrolled through emails or watched the news with the other. My mom, however, gave him full attention during bottle feedings, talking and smiling at him. 

Little J was often had gas. I relied on the flatulence medicine prescribed by his pediatrician, but my mom didn’t like her grandson taking medicine. Instead, she would spend an hour burping him.

When I changed Little J’s diaper, I used baby wipes. My mom, on the other hand, brought him to the sink each time and carefully washed his buttom.

Under my mom’s meticulous care, Little J learned to laugh. Even Dr. J admired my mom, saying “Your mom is amazing. There’s no baby thing she can’t handle.”

Watching my mom’s patience with Baby J, I didn’t know how to feel. In my memory, she was always angry—beating, scolding, even biting me. As I watched her care for my son, I subconsciously touched the scar on the back of my left hand from one of her bites. Why didn’t I deserve to be loved like this? 

A month later, when my parents returned to Taiwan, Dr. J and I took Little J to the airport to see my parents off. Little J fussed the entire time. He cried for food one moment, wet his diaper the next, and then sprayed urine everywhere during a diaper change. I grew frustrated.

Finally, after feeding him and cleaning him up, my mom held Little J burped him one last time before boarding. I snapped, “Be good! This is the last time Grandma will burp you. No one will treat you like after she gets on the plane!”

My mom retorted, “Don’t you scold him! He’s much better than you were. You cried day and night for no reason when you were little and drove me crazy!”

Her words stung. Over the past month, I had tried to imagine her loving me when I was a baby. But no matter how hard I tried, all I could picture was the terrifying woman with disheveled hair, beating her children. I didn’t understand why she treated her grandson so differently. Maybe her temperament changed with age. Or maybe I was oved in the first year of my life, but that love was gradually eroded by out-of-control parenting and conflicts. 

Now that Little J is three years old, I oppose corporal punishment more strongly than ever. Even at my angriest, I have never yelled at him, let alone hit him. Over these three years, my hatred and resentment toward my mom have softened into deep sympathy. Some say that while all children love their parents, not all parents love their children. But I’d rather believe that parents who hit their children are not loveless but isolated, unsupported, and overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting. 

I wanted to give myself a chance to be a beloved daughter, give my mom a chance to be loving mother, and give Little J a chance to know his grandma. So, on the second day of the Lunar New Year of the year after Little J turned three, I finally brought him back to my parents’ home. The road to reconciliation between mother and daughter remains long, but after thirteen years, I finally returned home. 

**This post was originally published on Commonwealth Parenting Magazine on January 26, 2017. This is an English translation.