Week6- Erin Yen

This week’s topic is “Giving Life and Life Giving.” The article “My mother not my mother” by Caroline Valverde, the author describes the relationship of herself and her mother, how she did not grow up and raised by her mother. There is one sentence from Chinese, “who raises you is greater than who gives you birth.” That is the reason why Valverde considers her grandmother to be the one who cares about her more than her mother does.

And moves on to my own personal story, I grew up with my grandmother taking care of me, she was the one who woke me up in the morning, cooked for me and picked me up from school bus stop because my parents were busy working, so in a way, my grandma is my mother as well.
And for the past ten years I have been living and study in the U.S. on my own without family aside, I only see them twice a year, even though they are the one who supports my tuition and stuff and I talk to them on the phone often but I feel they don’t know my life much.

Sometimes I feel odd because isn’t the reason why our parents decide to give birth to us is to raise us up and when we grow up then we go on to live in our own life? but why would some parents would give away their child because they cannot afford to raise the kid; and why would some parents pay money and asks someone else to take care of their child? So, what is so called a good parenting?