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Reviews tagging 'Child death'
More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter by Shen Yang
1 review
atulyakriday's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The Heihaizi —also known as Illegal Children, Shadow Children, Ghost children, and Invisible Children among other names—are a direct and ill-fated consequence of One Child Policy implemented in China during the 1980s. The very existence of Heihaizi goes against the law. Branded guilty for being born, these children pay for the ‘crimes’ of their parents. To escape from the fines imposed by the government for giving birth to illegal children, parents often resorted to drastic measures like infanticide and abandonment of infants or less severe measures like circumventing the law by hiding such children away from prying eyes of the Family Planning Officials.
The clash between the traditional mindset where multiple children are regarded as the backbone of families rooted in an agrarian society and the Draconian measures taken by the government to curtail the exploding population growth often resulted in devastating and bleak futures for these illegal children.
Illegal children are denied hukou and deprived of basic rights like education, healthcare, and access to government posts and jobs. Of course, there are families who paid fines imposed by the government to gain a hukou for their illegal children and there are others who used their connections to legitimate the existence of the said child. However, not all families could afford such money and there are many children who lived their entire life in the shadows. The author herself and her friend nicknamed ‘Sunshine’ being the obvious examples of the above scenario. While the author has a chance at education, her friend is stripped of his right to go to school despite his bright academic performance and has no choice but to work in a factory.
‘My childhood may have been grey, but the days I spent with you two were brightly coloured.’
For me, ‘Sunshine’ is an unforgettable character. His optimism, forgiveness, and his understanding of his own circumstances broke my heart. He is the representative of the countless children whose innocence and bright futures were destroyed by the whims of an ignorant and harsh government.
More Than One Child provides a detailed account of the author’s life as an illegal child and the abuse and trauma inflected by her family. Reading about the domestic and emotional abuse the author suffered as a child made me angry, sad, and hateful. But in the ending chapters, where the author explained the background of her family and the trauma an entire generation suffered during and because of the cultural revolution(when the Red Guards are in force), I suddenly understood the reason behind their actions. Forget about the author, even I as a reader couldn’t bring myself to forgive her family. But I can understand why everything happened in the inevitable way it had.
In simple words, the author paints how violence and trauma can generate a cycle of abuse that can affect generations of family. And as she rightly said at the end ‘although the one-child-per-family era has ended, the wounds it inflicted over three decades have not healed. People lost their jobs and families were fined, women were injured and baby girls were abandoned. Time only heals surface scratches, and there are still women with their hearts full of pain.’
More Than One Child is a moving memoir of a girl’s resilience and her ability to forge through life despite her bitter circumstances. It is history—a mosaic of inked words legitimating the experiences of the illegal, a brave voice echoing the memories of the countless children otherwise lost in the labyrinth of time.
The clash between the traditional mindset where multiple children are regarded as the backbone of families rooted in an agrarian society and the Draconian measures taken by the government to curtail the exploding population growth often resulted in devastating and bleak futures for these illegal children.
Illegal children are denied hukou and deprived of basic rights like education, healthcare, and access to government posts and jobs. Of course, there are families who paid fines imposed by the government to gain a hukou for their illegal children and there are others who used their connections to legitimate the existence of the said child. However, not all families could afford such money and there are many children who lived their entire life in the shadows. The author herself and her friend nicknamed ‘Sunshine’ being the obvious examples of the above scenario. While the author has a chance at education, her friend is stripped of his right to go to school despite his bright academic performance and has no choice but to work in a factory.
‘My childhood may have been grey, but the days I spent with you two were brightly coloured.’
For me, ‘Sunshine’ is an unforgettable character. His optimism, forgiveness, and his understanding of his own circumstances broke my heart. He is the representative of the countless children whose innocence and bright futures were destroyed by the whims of an ignorant and harsh government.
More Than One Child provides a detailed account of the author’s life as an illegal child and the abuse and trauma inflected by her family. Reading about the domestic and emotional abuse the author suffered as a child made me angry, sad, and hateful. But in the ending chapters, where the author explained the background of her family and the trauma an entire generation suffered during and because of the cultural revolution(when the Red Guards are in force), I suddenly understood the reason behind their actions. Forget about the author, even I as a reader couldn’t bring myself to forgive her family. But I can understand why everything happened in the inevitable way it had.
In simple words, the author paints how violence and trauma can generate a cycle of abuse that can affect generations of family. And as she rightly said at the end ‘although the one-child-per-family era has ended, the wounds it inflicted over three decades have not healed. People lost their jobs and families were fined, women were injured and baby girls were abandoned. Time only heals surface scratches, and there are still women with their hearts full of pain.’
More Than One Child is a moving memoir of a girl’s resilience and her ability to forge through life despite her bitter circumstances. It is history—a mosaic of inked words legitimating the experiences of the illegal, a brave voice echoing the memories of the countless children otherwise lost in the labyrinth of time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Sexism
Moderate: Abandonment
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