Today’s narrator’s name is Nameless. Her hometown is in a township in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and her grandparents have four children, three boys and one girl.
In the middle of the Family hall was an eight immortal table, and every Time they ate, the family sat neatly around the table.
According to the custom there, grandfather, as the head of the family, had to sit on the main seat. And the seat next to grandpa was reserved for the most favored child.
Because of this position, Wu Ming first realized the concept of “son preference”.
-01-
The seat next to grandpa
We had an eight-person table in our house.
For as long as I can remember, a large family always sat around this table when we ate together – my grandparents, our family, my second uncle’s family, my third uncle’s family and my aunt.
I was the first grandchild born in the family, so even though I was a girl, it didn’t affect everyone’s mood too much. Grandpa was also very happy to have a child born in the family, so when I was young, whenever the family ate together, the precious seat next to him was always reserved for me.
Later, when I was six or seven years old, my second uncle’s family gave birth to a son, which is my second cousin. When he grew to the point where he could almost sit at the eight-people table to eat, the exclusive seat next to Grandpa was given to him. I didn’t think it was unreasonable at the time, and I thought the rule of this seat should be this – give it to a younger child.
After a few more years, by the time my second cousin was six or seven years old, my third cousin came along, a child who was adopted because my third uncle couldn’t have children. But the seat next to grandpa was not passed on to her, the reason given by the adults was that she was smaller, and if there were not enough seats, she could sit at the table next to her and eat.
I felt a little confused at the time, but I didn’t think too much about it, and the matter passed.
Later, when I went to college, once I came Home and we were eating together again, my second cousin still sat in the seat next to my grandfather, and my grandmother still told my sister, “You’re smaller, you go next to me. “
I suddenly found it unbearable – I could accept that when I grew up, the adults asked me to give up this seat to my brother; but I could not accept that when my second cousin grew up, why they never asked him to give up this seat to my sister.
This thing, it’s small, it’s just a matter of a seat. But one thing I understood in this seat was that, in my grandparents’ hearts, they never treated us children as equals, and in their hearts it was always the second cousin who was most important.
-02-
Mom and dad got divorced
When we were young, our family was always rich because my mom was in business, she was hardworking and good at making money. In those days, my mom wore lipstick and nail polish, and she painted my nails when I was three years old. My grandparents resented the fact that my mother loved to dress up, and they always instilled in me, “Your mother is a different kind of woman, she is not like other women, this kind of woman we don’t like in our family. “
However, their beloved eldest son – my dad – was a good-for-nothing person who barely spent a few years of his Life in serious work. My mother told me that she kept the $10,000 she was going to use for business under her pillow, and the next day there would always be a few missing, taken secretly by my dad.
When I was three or four years old, my mom found an abandoned little boy on the road and felt sorry for him, so she brought him home. My grandparents didn’t like him, so my mom had to pay to foster my brother in a neighbor’s house.
After another three years, my mother was pregnant again, but this time she gave birth to a girl. Also in this year, my second uncle’s family gave birth to a boy, that is, my second cousin.
My grandparents liked the oldest grandson with their own bloodline, so you can imagine how much cynicism my mother, as the eldest daughter-in-law, received in the family during those years. So, all of the emotions came together in that year. My mom divorced my dad in a fit of rage.
The day before they divorced, my grandparents, second uncle, third uncle and aunt all gathered around the Pat Sin table and solemnly discussed where I would go. They wanted to keep me because they decided that my mother would definitely take the two younger children away, and if she took me away again, there would be no one to support my father in the future.
In the dim light, my grandparents tearfully told me, “If you go to court tomorrow, you must say with Dad, you must not say with Mom. “
My aunt spoke out against this, standing on the third flight of stairs and saying, “Mom and Dad are already so old, how can they take on another little one, in case they are not taught well and have to listen to that woman’s insults. “
The words just fell, the second uncle standing on the second flight of stairs directly back to the aunt, he means, “this time where it is your turn to speak? ” – My aunt had no say at home either.
I was sitting cluelessly on the bottom step of the stairs, not really understanding much of what was happening in this house. I thought I’d be pretty happy if my mom and dad both grabbed me, as well as being a little shocked to see my aunt get a slap on the wrist.
The next day the court didn’t summon me, they sentenced me directly to my dad.
How to say, in those days, adults in the countryside do not treat children as human beings, they want to do anything they decide, and then my mother left, she took her sister, who was still breastfeeding, and adopted back just learned to walk brother.
Before she left, she also left me some money and a house, and thought it was enough to guarantee me a secure childhood. But she did not expect that I would not even be able to eat a bite of meat because of my grandparents’ eccentricities in this affluent rural area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
-03-
The Nightmare Begins
I discussed it with my mother many times afterwards, and she said that if she knew what happened later, she would never have left me behind.
But I don’t know what to say, you have to know that time can’t go back, and what has been experienced, is always experienced.
After my mom left with my younger siblings, I always heard about them from people with small mouths who said, “You know what? Your siblings are taking Cambridge English for $500 a month! “
I was thinking, “I can live on 500 yuan for a year, and I can eat a lot of meat for 500 yuan.
At that time, our family made meat puffs, and when we bought the meat and chopped it up, my grandmother only gave me the skin. My grandmother told me, girls eat skin is good for the skin. Everything my grandmother said had her logic, and there was no way I could refute her because her logic was always self-consistent. She was perfectly able to convince herself why the family was in this state, why my dad was unmotivated to work, and she felt it was all my mom’s fault.
Not long after their divorce, my mom came to pick me up from school. I refused to go with her because I was afraid that when I got home, I would be scolded by my grandparents again. My mom didn’t understand, and she dragged me away hard. She took me for a weekend, did my laundry and cooked my meals, and I was actually quite happy at that time.
When she sent me back to school on Monday, I asked her, “Can you just take me away? ” – that was one of the rare times in my life when I was weak.
But she didn’t come to pick me up after school that day. It became clear to me at that point that she couldn’t protect me and I had to find a way to protect myself, so I had to get on the same page as my grandparents and show that I hated my mom.
So, I didn’t speak to her again for over ten years after that.
-04-
Punished and forgiven
Growing up my dad was stingy with me when it came to money. When I was ten years old, my eyes were nearsighted. My dad took me to a small commodity market to get a pair of glasses for 50 yuan, with the cheapest frames and thickest lenses.
Once, in the classroom, a few students threw books for fun and accidentally broke my glasses. My classmate was particularly scared and asked me not to tell the teacher, he went back to his mother and gave me another pair.
We arranged a place and time. When I arrived at the place, my classmate was not there, we may have said the wrong place. On the other hand, my classmate called my house and asked where I was, and that’s when my grandparents found out that I came out to get a pair of glasses.
When I got home, they made me kneel in front of the God of Zao. My grandmother even stuck a needle in my mouth; she thought lying was a very serious matter. At that time, I didn’t think my grandmother had done anything wrong, but I lied. I didn’t say I was going to get glasses, I lied to her and said I was going out with my classmates.
Then the incident with my second cousin happened and I realized how naive I really was.
When my second cousin was in junior high school, he took 2,000 yuan from the family and said he was going to enroll in a tutorial class, but in fact he took the money and went out to play, and it was not until the Parents‘ meeting that my second aunt learned the truth. The second uncle came home very angry, he raised his hand and pushed the second cousin a little, the next slap before the hand, a side of my grandfather slammed the bowl: “Children are to be taught.
“Children are to be taught, how can you teach them well in this way? “
Growing up, I gradually realized that although I always resented my grandmother, my grandfather was actually the mastermind behind these things. My grandmother was also just a victim, and the words she spoke and the things she did were actually fulfilling my grandfather’s intention. He was like the unsmiling villain behind this family, who showed no expression but always expressed his opinion.
Little by little the accumulation of anger has made me a little numb, I just find it all hilarious, I just want I must get out of here and never see them again in this life.
-05-
Ten years later, I met my mom
I grew up studying very hard, and I understood that studying was the only way out for me, and the only way to make my grandparents treat me better.
Even so, my father was not willing to pay for me to attend tuition classes, he always withheld money from me, the reason being “I am so poor because of you, I do not want to work now because you are a girl, if I were a son I would have gone to work. If I had a son, I would have gone to work.
So, I grew up telling myself that I must make my own money, and since high school I have often used my spare time to work odd jobs.
One year before the Chinese New Year, I was selling clothes in a clothes store in a shopping street in our area, and suddenly I saw a mother and daughter, I thought it looked a little familiar, I felt as if I knew her, and only after a while did I realize that it should be my mother. I subconsciously looked away and pretended not to see her.
But she still saw me, she froze for a moment, then turned around and dragged my sister away. When they left, my sister even looked back at me a few times.
At that point we hadn’t seen each other for probably ten years, and it didn’t seem like much of a shock to see each other again – just two very strong people who met on the street and separated.
Sometimes I would think, just lie down and quit, I want to kill myself and forget about it. My grandparents could also see the beginnings of this, and I often carried injuries on my body. Because at that time I really do not understand why these things happen? Why am I born to my mom and dad, like my sister, and my mom would rather raise a child with no blood ties to him, but left me here?
-06-
Escape Plan
I ended up going to college on my own and became the most productive child in my family.
During my undergraduate years, I was always concerned about various information about going abroad, hoping to do my best to get away from that family of origin. Later, I successfully applied for an undergraduate program at a foreign university, and at that time, my family’s house started to be demolished, and each family received a lot of money. My father also finally agreed to give me $60,000 to study abroad.
After I graduated from college, I have been working abroad and started my own family there, and had a daughter. I found that no matter how parents treated their children back then, when they grew up, everyone still tried to barely maintain an even keel.
My dad got hooked on gambling after I left the country and married a woman from the poker table who ran away after they lost all the family money. Then my dad kept telling me how hard he worked, how pathetic he was, and how he had to work all the time. Although at that time I had just worked and had a baby, my salary was sharply reduced. But I still told him, “How about I pay for your airfare and daily expenses, and you come over to help me watch the kids. You’ll hide for the next two years, and when I’m actually working, I’ll see how I can help you pay back the money. “
After my dad came to me from abroad, he saw my kids and then asked me, “Can you let the kids call me grandpa? I want to be a grandfather, I don’t want to be a grandfather. “
I said, “No, have a son if you can, my daughter can only call you grandfather. “
Later one day at noon, I drove him to play, parked the car, he suddenly felt a sense of emotion, coldly said a sentence, “daughter is also quite good. “
He used a tone of praise, I did not know what to say, I could only smile bitterly and pretend not to hear.
As my daughter grew up, I thought back to my childhood countless times. I didn’t want to cling to the past, but I couldn’t seem to fully convince myself to forget it. The truth is, as a woman, I’m tired of living. I got good grades in middle school, and adults would say, “You’re getting good grades now, but when you get to high school, you’re not going to be able to beat the boys. I didn’t believe this, I had to prove that I was still doing better than the boys when I got to high school.
But it seems that this obsession is not much use, my grades are so good, grandparents still prefer second cousin.
In the process of growing up and running away, I still often feel a sense of powerlessness – when I see my cousin being beaten somehow, when I see my cousin crying, I still can’t seem to do anything. All I can say to myself is that I should never treat my daughter this way.
Perhaps in the eyes of the world, I have the least reason to resent or blame those people, because I escaped and I’m doing well now, but what about the people who really have reason to resent and blame those people, their whole lives are accounted for there.
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