issues that are deeper than pee

It's only 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm sitting here on the couch wishing my can of American coke was about seventeen times bigger. I'm exhausted, mentally and physically.

Last night, we stayed up until after 1am, doing an unexpected favor for a friend in town who needed some help. But that's not even the reason I'm so tired. I'm so tired because we took emma to kindergarten today, and it was one of the most stressful days I've had since moving back here.

I guess I was expecting it to be easier on me. After all, I've lived in this country for about three years, so culture-shockish things don't usually bug me. I'd already seen the kindergarten and although it would likely never pass in the states, it was pretty good for places here. Plus, the principal and lots of the teachers are believers, so I felt like even if we had lots of differences, at least our major thoughts about life and such things were the same.

And then we went.

When we got there (we is me, the girls and my house helper), the principal seemed to try to back out of some of the things she had earlier assured me about - that it was ok if I only wanted to bring emma twice a week, that it was ok if I stayed with her for the first several times to help her get accustomed to the place. It was like she was trying to convince me that doing things that way was somehow going to negatively influence the other children, or whatever.

In my most polite voice (which doesn't sound so polite since I'm getting over a cold that has likened my voice to that of a bullfrog), I told her that I understood her concerns, but that my thoughts were that I would stay with emma until I felt comfortable leaving her alone, and that I would not send her more than two or three times a week. In my mind, these are non-negotiable. The truth is that if I lived in America, I wouldn't send emma to a daycare two or three times a week. Maybe like a mother's day out thing, ok. And she would get to play with her grandparents and aunts and uncles, of course. But even preschool or daycare at this age is something we just wouldn't do - just because I like being with her, I like the fun activities we do together, and for our life situation it's just unnecessary. Plus, I personally feel responsible for the things that influence her at this age, and even more so since we live in asia.

[All this does not imply that if you ever considered, have in the past, or currently send your children to preschool or mother's day out then you are the low rung on the totem pole or some other very negative metaphor. These views are purely the views of the author and are not intended to be generalized over a population segment!]

So for me to even consider letting her go kindergarten in the first place was a big step. I'm home all day, I have the time to be with her. I'm only sending her for language, new situations, and little friends. So when mrs. principal starts trying to convince me that she needed to come every day, well, I just had to convey that, regardless of their customs, twice or three times a week was my max.

Then, she wanted to tell me that I just needed to drop her off and leave, and let them handle it. "Don't worry!" she told me. "You can rest easy, relax, we can take care of it." Hmmmm. Yeah. Since all of you can speak english and are used to western culture, I bet you can! My insides were screaming that she has no idea what this must be like for emma, that she has no idea what might happen if I just dropped emma off at the door and bid them all a happy farewell.

AAAH, THEN...after half an hour of activities in a little room, the kids all went outside to play and sing songs. As soon as all the kids are outside, they do just like all the other little asian kids, and start squatting in the grass and over the drains and in the bushes and pee everywhere. I'm not kidding, there were like three or four kids peeing in the grass at any given time, with all varieties of modesty being displayed. One girl - who won the modesty award - hid behind a bush and didn't expose herself for the world to see...but most of the girls and all of the boys just went whenever and whereever. Emma, like her friend Clara (who recently had this experience) was so unbelieveably curious, and wanted to know why everyone was just peeing at their pleasure whenever they felt like it. I coudln't ask her to give them privacy because we're stinking outside on the playground! Who can have privacy on the playground? Bathrooms were created for just that purpose, you know!

I start cringing inside. My mind is racing, wondering how I can reconcile these ideas in my mind - I want emma to go to local school and have friends, and learn asianese...but I also want her to retain certain cultural norms that are important to our family and culture, like when you have to use the restroom, you GO to the restroom. It is unacceptable to pee in the grass or in the bushes. I want her to know that she is safe and won't be punished for something she doesn't understand. I dont' want teachers to shame her into behaving properly like they do other children. My mind is swirling, my emotions start flaring up. Of course, emma comes to me and pulls my hand toward the bushes and tells me she has to go peepee. "Sorry, emma," I tell her. "You have to go inside to peepee." I take her inside, we do her business, then we come back outside.

The kids play outside, and eventually form a line behind one of the teachers. She starts singing a little song about a rabbit who hops from one end of the field to another. She hops across the paved area, and then hops back. All the children happily sing along and hop with her, and then stop when they reach the end of the paved area.....all except emma, who understands not a single word of the little bunny song and after hopping to the end of the paved area just keeps meandering off into the grass toward the slide that is a few yards away, because she didn't catch the part that the little bunny hopped back to where he came from.

Mrs.Principal approaches me a few moments later and says, "you know, all the other children have started wanting their mommies because you are here with emma." I looked at my house helper and I said, "What should I say? Should I say, 'Oh, I'm sorry', or 'I'm so embarrassed,' ? I don't know what to say because I'm not leaving." Then Mrs. Principal tells me, "It's ok! You really can leave her. The kids dont' have a problem being left, it's just the adults that have a hard time leaving the kids. She'll be fine."

And then I lost it. I got tired of feeling like the plan was being changed on me, was tired of dealing with the conflict in my mind about if this was really worth it, and I was struggling in my mind with the cultural implications of everything. I want her to learn asianese, I want her to have asian friends, but I don't want her to BE asian! I don't want her to think she has to stuff her emotions, i don't want her to pee in bushes. But I want her to love the place where she grew up. I want her to have happy memories of her childhood, I want her to remember fun times and fun friends. I don't want her to look back and only remember a mother who had nothing but contempt for the ways people did things.

The tears welled up, and with every question someone asked me or statement someone made, they threatened to come out. When I could no longer hold them back, all the teachers, my house helper, the principal and all manner of curious onlookers had no idea why the foreigner was crying. I think the principal thought it was her fault (which, partly due to her frequent nagging, it was) but the truth was that I was facing issues that none of them could understand. Their attempts to make me feel like they could understand - ie, all parents deal with this, it will be ok - just made me more upset. My nose turned red and blotchy like it always does when I cry, and my best efforts at damage control were in vain. I politely said my goodbyes and we left.

By the time we got home and had just slipped our shoes off, josh called and wanted to know how everything went. Poor guy. As soon as I opened my mouth, the tears that I had tried to hold back at the kindergarten spilled out. Through my weepy blathering, I tried to explain to josh about the pee and how that was just a picture of the huge cultural differences that I hadn't thought about, and were we doing the right thing, and was emma really ready for this or was I just being an overprotective parent who just doesn't want to send her kid to kindergarten and and on and on and boo hoo hoo. Josh answered excellently: "Whatever you want to do, honey. We can take her out, we can keep going. Whatever you need to do." He's a good man.

The girls are sleeping, lunch is cleaned up, my coke is gone, but my emotional fatigue remains.
Maybe I'm trying to bear the burden of culture shock that emma has yet to experience. Maybe I'm just trying to protect her from things that I see that would bother me. Maybe I just need to loosen up and just see what happens. I really didn't think that I would be one of those moms that stands outside the door on the first day of school when their kid goes to first grade - and I still don't think it's that. It's not that I'm unwilling to let her go. I guess I just thought it would be simpler than this.

But I guess the truth is that emma's life won't be simple. She'll never be 100% American, she'll never have the same experience as her friends in America...and yet she will never be fully Asian either. I always knew that in theory, but now I'm experiencing it in the flesh. If she pees in the bushes in china, they'll think she's weird because the foreigner is peeing in the bushes. If she pees in the bushes in america, they'll think she's weird because she's peeing in the bushes. Bottom line: when it comes to peeing in the bushes, she can't win.

Before I laid emma down for her nap, I asked emma to tell me about going to kindergarten. She told me that she played with blocks and played with friends and took her shoes off. When I asked her if she wanted to go back tomorrow, she opened her eyes wide and whispered "Yeah!"

So, episode 2 airs tomorrow, if I can pull myself back together.