cause and effect essay

                The Limitation of Births

I had always seen the saying “Fewer and healthier births benefits the country and the people” in my village when I was a kid. In the 1970s china, family planning became a huge reformation in the society that limited the number of births for women. At that time, women had to give birth to a boy, which means women had to get pregnant until they were pregnant with a boy. According to Chinese culture, men were the only one of the family that passed down family name, and men were the leaders in the family. I can’t image how hard it was to be a woman in old China because women were worthless for men if they didn’t give birth to a boy. My mother was one of the many women who couldn’t flee from the family planning policy when she had her second pregnancy. Thus, the family planning law deeply influenced my mother’s whole life and my family.

Under the force of the government, my mother became an escaped woman that had to run from village to village. The government tried to arrest my mother for violating the law, so she had to escape about one week after she gave birth to me. Additionally, my family didn’t care about my mother because she didn’t have a baby boy. However, my mother couldn’t hide well without any help when she escaped, and finally she was arrested by the government. At that time, if a family had about ten thousand RMB to pay the fine, the government would not arrest the women who had more than one child. Moreover, if my father paid the government, my mother didn’t need to suffer the pain of sterilization which was another cruel part of this policy. Nevertheless, the truth was cruel. My father even went to take a look my mother after she sent to the detention center, and she finally got sterilized. As a result, the life of escaping was over, and my mother’s hope for her husband had also ended.

After suffering the days with helplessness from escaping and sterilization, my mother became a strong woman. She started to develop business, and left her ruthless husband who left her alone in the detention center. The reason that made her struggle was because of my sister and me. Today, I still can remember the scene of my mother working until late night and falling asleep on her desk. I never heard my mother complain about how tired she was of working, but I knew she needed to work hard because supporting two kids alone was not easy for a woman. About one year later, my grandfather found my mother and requested her to come back. My grandfather came to ask my mother for help because the family was having economic situation and my father was laid off. Because of her mercy, my mother decided to come back to the family with my sister and me. Finally, my mother’s life became more difficult because she had to support a big family.

            Furthermore, my mother’s business enabled my family to have a better life when we moved to the U.S and to get away from the one child policy. After my mother started her business about 3 years, she earned more money because she found a copartner to expand it. Latter, the business was getting better and better. Even though it was many years ago, my mother is still bitter about the sterilization. Until I was twelve years old, the family planning was still practiced in China. As a result, my mother decided to apply for immigration and move to the USA. I knew it could be extremely hard to start everything again, especially for my mother. However, for my mother, having a better life for her daughters was more important than anything. Today, we are living in USA; my mother is still struggling with her two daughters. She works about eleven hours six days a week, and she has to pay everything for the family. I am not sure whether every woman in my mother’s generation is as strong as my mother, but I am sure my mother is the one of the greatest mothers in the world.

            To conclude, the family planning was the reason that made me lives in a free country, without limitation of births. I wish that one day that the institution of the family planning law will change. Also I hope the traditional Chinese ideology of older generation will change because today there are still many older people that think that having a boy is better than having a girl. Finally, I appreciate everything that my mother did, and thank her for giving birth to me.