My Beautiful Orchid

Even in the West most of us can identify with these pressures. Social surveys have repeatedly shown that the average American is overworked and overstressed. Most of us say we’re working longer and harder hours than our parents’ did. Few salaries are keeping pace with the cost of living, and with economic globalization tightening its grip on every sector of our domestic job market it’s getting increasingly difficult even to keep the incomes we have. Here in my home state of Washington a recent study found that less than two-thirds of available jobs have salaries that could pay the mortgage on an average home where they live, and one-third will not even support basic living expenses for a single parent with two children. Our parents grew up in predominately single-income homes with large blocks of discretionary time for family and relationships. Today, single-income families are the exception rather than the rule, and it shows in our daily lives.

Far more is at work here than our own values. Despite the highest standard of living in the world, a significant majority of Americans report that they chronically worry about money. We abhor debt and would gladly trade more discretionary income for time with family and loved ones, if only we could. But the society we live in has values of its own, that drive markets, housing and transportation costs, goods and services…. and ultimately our debt ratios. These values are imposed on us by our culture and limit our options in ways we have little control over. Consider salaries for instance. Ultimately, the pay structure of our job market reflects the value we place on services rendered. It’s no accident that the average American science teacher earns less than half of his or her counterpart in industry, and both earn less than the average corporate attorney. Even in the developed world few other nations show similar trends. I read once that in Japan, the entire national population of attorneys, corporate or otherwise, would fit in a single hi-rise building. Teaching, on the other hand, is one their most respected professions. In the early 90’s the average Japanese teacher could expect to earn $73,000 American per year. At the same time his or her American counterpart could expect to start at around $25,000 and retire at $45,000 after 20 years—the entire tenure of which will have been spent living with the anger of large sectors of the American public who believe that even this is too much and resent every penny of their taxes that goes to school levies. Is it any wonder that American science and math literacy rates are among the lowest in the developed world?

A high school science teacher trying to buy a home has little power to change these values or the salary structures that result from them.

Our hearts and minds are battlegrounds too. Most Americans surveyed believe in God and say that moral values and spirituality are an important part of their lives. Over 80 percent claim a major religion (all but a few percent of which are Christian). At least 25 percent of us attend church on a weekly basis, and 40 percent attend semi-regularly. Yet the society we’ve created for ourselves imposes a seductive gospel on us that bears little resemblance to the faiths we claim to be living by. Every day we’re confronted with it. Billboards, popular music, the media, peers at work and school, our paychecks, even our loved ones—all jack-hammering our hearts and minds with the same message: My income is my worth; I am what I own; he who steps on others to get to the top has good balance; everything has a price; beauty is desirability; if it hurts, there’s a pill for it that will bring instant relief; in the sword we trust; and much more. The hour or two we spend in church each week can scarcely compete with this onslaught and few have negotiated it unstained. ⁵

Difficult as these pressures may seem to us, they pale when compared to what China’s rural peasants must endure—life in the shadow of a spiritual tradition that is over 2000 years older than our own, without the incomes, social freedoms, and economic safety nets we take for granted. For them the thumbscrews are tightened a hundred-fold more. Regardless of their feelings about daughters, it’s little wonder many of them believe they have no choice.

Abandoning Families in China

Between 1995 and 2000 Kay Johnson of Hampshire College, MA and her colleagues Wang Liyao of the Anhui Academy of Social Sciences and Huang Banghan of Anhui Agricultural University conducted what is likely the most reliable study to date of the motives and driving factors behind infant abandonment and adoption in rural China (Johnson, 2004). Using informal networks and word-of-mouth inquiries Johnson and her colleagues located 247 families who had abandoned at least one infant between 1950 and the present, and 771 who had adopted either secretly or through approved channels. Of these, all but a few were from rural counties in one south-central province and had adopted or abandoned between 1980 and 1999. Most had an average income and educational level for the regions they lived in and reported agriculture as their occupational category and type of hukou (household registration). Data was gathered mainly by questionnaire. Of the 247, information on siblings and birth order was obtained for 205. 60 of the target families were interviewed in person at least once (most were contacted on several occasions over an extended period). All interviews and data gathering were done anonymously by Chinese personnel to protect the identities of those contacted. Additional information on abandonment and adoption trends was obtained from local officials, social welfare institutes, hospitals, and government and media publications.

Their findings were striking. Even though girls were abandoned far more often than boys (90 percent of those sampled), the overwhelming majority of abandoning families (92 percent) already had a daughter who had not been abandoned. Fewer than six percent of those that provided information on siblings had abandoned an only-child, and a mere two percent (four families) had abandoned an only-daughter. Of the latter, one reported that they had done so only because the father had been threatened by officials with the loss of his job at a local factory if his over-quota child did not “disappear”. That family already had two sons and reported that they would have been willing to pay the requisite fine to keep their daughter. In fact, over 15 percent had already kept at least one over-quota daughter and paid the resulting fine, despite having no sons. Two had even abandoned healthy boys because, they said, they already had sons and were hoping for a daughter—had their child been a girl, they too would have paid the fine and kept her. Of all 247 families surveyed, only one reported that they “didn’t like girls”.

Some perspective on these choices can be gained by considering that for rural Chinese couple’s with an agricultural hukou, the first over-quota pregnancy would result in a fine of roughly one year’s salary, and would escalate dramatically for each one after that. For a median American worker, an equivalent fine would run around $45,000 for a first offense, and possibly as high as $90,000 for the second. For the median college educated professional the corresponding figures would be $55,000 and $110,000. Furthermore, because Chinese peasants don’t have access to loans, credit cards, HELOC’s, and other financing options most Americans take for granted, these fines would have to be paid either via heavily garnished wages or out of pocket—something few American families in a similar position would be able to do so without selling their homes. Yet one out of every 5 to 6 abandoning families surveyed had already done this at least once to keep an over-quota daughter even though they had no sons.

There is a general perception in the West that in China, infant girls are abandoned because they are not valued—when reproductive options are constrained their parents prefer to get rid of them rather than go without a son. Clearly, the evidence does not support this myth. The typical abandoned girl in China is a healthy newborn infant. Her parents are rural agricultural workers who make an adequate living but are not people of means and have little or no social security apart from family. She has at least one older sister, often more. More likely than not, her family is already at or beyond their pregnancy quota without her and cannot afford an over-quota fine. She may even have one or more over-quota sisters for which such a fine has already been paid. She is being abandoned because her parents already have daughters and want, or need a son. Odds are she will be left where she is likely to be found and taken in by someone who will care for her—the doorstep of families known to be seeking a child, populous urban areas with ample social services, or the doorstep of a social welfare institute. More often than not, her parents will have traveled a long distance to achieve this end. While not insignificant, her actual risk of death from infanticide or neglect is relatively low.