Dear Dr. Laura,
My neighbor just told me a story that shook my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I immediately thought you would understand.
My neighbor's son goes to a local day orphanage. She chose this particular day care because it has "sunny yellow walls and the toys looked clean." This was her standard for the people who would raise her child.
This day care recently acquired a three year old Chinese boy, whose parents are recent immigrants from China to attend medical school at a local university. This boy speaks no English. Today was his first day. The situation I heard went like this: the boy's mother hurriedly rushed him inside, said something to him in Chinese, and then left again. Immediately, the boy started bawling and backing himself into the corner. As day care workers and other moms tried to soothe him, he only became more frantic, until one day care worker scooped him up and took him away because he was upsetting the other children.
Imagine this scenario from our grown-up, rational mind: being dropped off into a new, frantically busy environment, where no one speaks our language and our one connection to this new world has just driven away with tires squealing. That would feel like prison. Now imagine that as a three year old boy and you can see why he was "freaking out," as my neighbor so delicately put it.
My heart hurts for this little boy, who has truly been stuck in a day orphanage, in every sense of that term. The best I can do is keep my own two girls close and be thankful for the life my husband and I have chosen.
Thanks for being a voice for children, no matter their race, creed, language or origin.
Thanks for reading,
A Proud SAHM
