There are over 50 staff members at Bethel, including administrative staff, cleaning ladies, cooks, and nannies, to take care of 31 kids. In comparison, the Luoyang state orphanage has over 600 kids with about 200 staff to take care of them. And still many children at Bethel seem so needy for attention.
I think it is rare in Chinese culture for people to really care about and love children who are not one's own, and I think it's even rarer when it comes to handicapped children. The nannies here are paid to take care of children for most of the day; each nanny is in charge of 2 or 3 kids, I think. All of them show the kind of love a mother has for her own children. A requirement Bethel has for all nannies is that they have to already have their own kid so they know how to raise a child. But most of the week the nannies are here at Bethel instead of at home with their own flesh and blood. I wonder how their families are affected by their job.
Guillaume said that when sometimes he asks the nannies how their kids are, they automatically assume he's talking about the Bethel children, so they go on and on about how Xia Bao and Xia Lu or Chun Yan and Xin Ju are doing. They seem to really think of these orphans as their own children. Last week at the hospital, the doctors woke up Chun Yu to mark her face with stickers before the surgery. She started to cry and struggle, and two of the nannies held her feet and hands so she wouldn't mess things up. By the time the stickers were on, there were tears in both the nannies' eyes. I can only imagine how hard it was two days ago for the nanny who watched Chun Yu have a seizure. She said that when she was feeding Chun Yu some fruit, suddenly the girl's hands couldn't reach her mouth, and they kept shaking back and forth. Then she stopped breathing. That would probably scare the wits out of any mother.
But I still do wonder how much time the nannies get to spend with their own kids. What they do at Bethel does not seem to be nothing more than paid work. It is much more meaningful than what they could get elsewhere, but does it take away from their own family life? Is it worth their toiling here to give their hearts to orphans while their own kids miss their mothers at home?
I think it is rare in Chinese culture for people to really care about and love children who are not one's own, and I think it's even rarer when it comes to handicapped children. The nannies here are paid to take care of children for most of the day; each nanny is in charge of 2 or 3 kids, I think. All of them show the kind of love a mother has for her own children. A requirement Bethel has for all nannies is that they have to already have their own kid so they know how to raise a child. But most of the week the nannies are here at Bethel instead of at home with their own flesh and blood. I wonder how their families are affected by their job.
Guillaume said that when sometimes he asks the nannies how their kids are, they automatically assume he's talking about the Bethel children, so they go on and on about how Xia Bao and Xia Lu or Chun Yan and Xin Ju are doing. They seem to really think of these orphans as their own children. Last week at the hospital, the doctors woke up Chun Yu to mark her face with stickers before the surgery. She started to cry and struggle, and two of the nannies held her feet and hands so she wouldn't mess things up. By the time the stickers were on, there were tears in both the nannies' eyes. I can only imagine how hard it was two days ago for the nanny who watched Chun Yu have a seizure. She said that when she was feeding Chun Yu some fruit, suddenly the girl's hands couldn't reach her mouth, and they kept shaking back and forth. Then she stopped breathing. That would probably scare the wits out of any mother.
But I still do wonder how much time the nannies get to spend with their own kids. What they do at Bethel does not seem to be nothing more than paid work. It is much more meaningful than what they could get elsewhere, but does it take away from their own family life? Is it worth their toiling here to give their hearts to orphans while their own kids miss their mothers at home?
posted by Ann Chao at 7:04 PM
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