Limits on Relationships

In my orphanage, and perhaps others, the nannies often don’t support children continuing their relationship with the people they love.

Sometimes children from the foster families would be sent to my orphanage and often without knowing how long it will be until they see their foster family.  Most cases were never, but sometimes my orphanage would let some of the foster parents to visit their foster children. Children often cried, but the nannies often just stood by instead of comforting them. Once a girl missed the family so much that she asked if she could call her foster family. Two nannies, who stood in front of the phone, said, “We don’t have any phone!” The girl immediately pointed the phone and asked about it. The nannies laughed like she was naïve and said, “The phone can’t make phone calls outside of the orphanage.”

It was two years later when I found out that if you dial nine, you could call people outside of the orphanage. I was so excited and started talking to my best friend from my class without telling the nannies because my friends in the orphanage and I thought they were going to punish us. Surprising, there are some nannies that were okay with it. From there I called my foster family who I had not seen for three years. I enjoyed talking to them so much that I made couple phone calls per week. Then about a month later, after the I finished interviews that will help me find a family, a nanny who works with adoption papers came up to me and said with a very straight face, “Alice, your foster family told me that you called them. Is that right?” I was silence and then she told me, “Don’t lie to me.” I just nodded my head, which means I did make a phone called to them, because I was so surprised that she found it out. Other nannies in the room were on her side. My friends who made phone calls also got warned. When I went to my room, I was mad and wondered why did my foster family told them? I also was frustrate and confuse that the nannies don’t want me to call my foster family who raised me for 6 years.

I asked my foster family for the answer when I came to America. My foster mother told me, “We wouldn’t dare to do it after we finally got to talk to you! I did ask the orphanage to visit you before you were going to America. I told them, ‘I missed my daughter. Can I visit her?” They told me no!” I trusted my foster family more than the nannies in the orphanage because for many times, the nannies would promise they would do something, but never did those things. Also, they would say one thing, but their action proved the opposite of what they said. After I heard my foster mother’s side of the story, I wondered how could that nanny lie to get a child to tell the truth when I did nothing evil?

The phone calls issue didn’t stop when I got adopted. Once when I was talking to my favorite nanny, I asked her the supervisor’s phone number for some reasons that I can’t remember now. My favorite nanny immediately told me that if I call the supervisor, the supervisor is going to ask me where I got the phone number. If I tell the supervisor the truth, she is going to ask my favorite nanny, “Why are you talking to Alice?” and my favorite nanny will get in trouble. I was shocked by the news.

Phone call wasn’t the only thing that top nannies doesn’t approve. A request of goodbye doesn’t get easily accept either. After I got adopted, one of my close friend YL told me her saddest story. One of her friend, YR, was going to be adopted a day later when YL was the only person who was scheduled move to a different orphanage. She asked the top orphanage nannies if they could move her moving day after YR got adopted since they were good friends. She tried more than once convincing nannies to change the date, but the nannies refused to change it.

Not all nannies were hard to deal with. Some nannies are fun and nice, but they sometimes get to move to different areas of the orphanage. Once when a nanny, who was beloved by many kids, visited us since she moved her job, a lot of kids got super excited and got up from the seat and greeted her warmly. Another nanny, who was watching all those, commented after she left with an unhappy face, “You guys greeted her like she was your mom!” Then when the top nanny told other nannies to take their group of kids to different rooms to play, she made all of us listening to her scolding the kids who greet the visiting nanny! Even though I wasn’t as excited as other kids, I was puzzled of why that nanny got so mad.

There was one time when I got scolded because I let people from outside of the orphanage show their affections towards me. The orphanage often took in some middle school kids in the summer. They helped the nannies do chores, helped us with summer homework, and spent times with us. Every time there was at least one helper that was very fond of me. Once there was one girl who wanted me to sit on her lap, and I let her. On the second day, I got scolded for being childish by sitting on a person’s lap. I disagreed because I didn’t ask her to. Besides, we didn’t get hugs, kisses, or any other way of showing affections on our daily life, so why shouldn’t grab the opportunities that we have.

We got a lot of affections when the there were special visitors like Americans, people from the government, or the orphanage directors. When they were here, they acted as they love us. On my last Lunar New Year, the old and new orphanage directors came to visit us. Our supervisor told us to call them Mom and Dad, which I and another friend of mine refused to call. Why should I call a person mom or dad when they don’t know me nor are they adopting me?

I saw similar things on my Gotcha Day, the day when I first met my parents, expect I was with the nannies that I didn’t see every day. I was happy before, but as soon as I enter the room, I become dead like a rock. I didn’t have the energies to fight, so I just do what they told, but in my mind, I was annoyed on how they acted. They don’t know me, yet they put a smile like they loved me so much and knows me for a long time. They said, “she looks a like her mom!” How could an Asian person looks like a European person? My parents also told me that the nannies told me to say I love you, which I totally don’t remember. Then the Vice-Director gave me a hug, which I played along but wasn’t comfortable with it. Does she even know me? She never talked to me in the orphanage. I wondered if she knows that what she’s doing didn’t really represent what the other nannies have been treating us.

Another time when the nannies sent a message of how much they love us is a National Children’s Day, June 1st. There they presented the orphanage director a song that said, “If only everyone offers a little bit of love, then the world is a beautiful place.” They sang like they mean it, but in reality, we didn’t feel a bit of love from them. The worse part of that is that we can’t express any longing for it or show gratitudes of others who love us.