The Unset Path of Parenthood

How many times have we been annoyed with our parents? The constant demands and expectations set? How many of us complain about our parents strictness or their prohibitions on certain things? Parenthood is one of the most complex experiences in life, and many of us will one day be have the responsibility to navigate the rocky terrain of raising a child. What most of us children fail to understand about our parents are the challenging choices and sacrifices they make for our success on a daily basis. Parents tend to use their childhood and past to aid in their style of parenthood, usually wanting to prevent their children from making the mistakes they made or teaching their children valuable lessons that would have helped them. In the novel The Leavers, author Lisa Ko presents the troubling life of a parent, revealing some inside information in their life choices.

Circumstance is one of the most prominent factors when parents are raising a child. A parents wealth and financial stability can dictate the type of parent one may be, and their own goals and aspirations also influence how they treat their children. In the case of Polly Guo, Deming’s mother, we can see how her life in America and her childhood in China affected her ultimate decision to leave her son. Growing up in Fuzhou, China, Polly didn’t have the smoothest of childhood. After leaving the 8^th grade for smoking a cigarette in class, Polly convinces her father to let her leave their small village and go to the city to work. After living in the city for a while, Polly realizes that she got pregnant and then desires an abortion. After being rejected by both the rural and city hospital, Polly impulsively takes a loan from loan sharks and travels to America where she has Deming. After barely making ends meet, Polly decides to leave Deming with Vivian,  she retreats back to China. Polly now lives a more stable life and is married to a man who owns a textile factory, but still carries guilt and regret with her. She expresses her remorse for leaving her son, but still backs her decisions, “If you knew more about me, Deming, maybe you wouldn’t blame me so much, maybe you would understand me”.

Polly, because of her past and her then current situation, believed that she was inadequate in being a mother Deming deserves, feeling that she couldn’t take care of a son and provide a stable life for a young boy. After already attempting to leave him, Polly “abandons” Deming, leaving him in the care of Vivian, believing he would be better off. Deming is then put into the care of Peter and Kay, where the readers see more challenges of being a parent. Peter and Kay attempt to stabilize Deming’s life and try to assimilate him into their culture. Now Daniel, his adoptive parents fail to help him balance his Chinese identity and his American identity, wanting him to be more socially acceptable while keeping connected to his past. They both acknowledge that “[parenting] isn’t going to be easy”, as they both try to give him a “more stable life”. As we learn more about the Wilkinson’s, there seems to be similarities between them and Daniel. Like Daniel, Kay was always seen as an “outsider”, claiming that she “ was a bookworm with glasses” and “never belonged in her hometown”. Being college professors themselves, they urge education upon Daniel, wanting him to pursue a career that was socially acceptable and one that wasn’t unlike their own, pushing their influence onto him.

As we see with Polly, she leaves her son as she doesn’t want to subject him to a life of misery and restrictions, believing that leaving him would be the best option for him and herself. Meanwhile, Peter and Kay attempt to guide Daniel’s life so that he become like them, wanting him to assimilate into their culture. In this difference, we as readers get to witness the complexities of parenthood, and how a parent is raised influence their mentorship to their children. Polly grew up without many of the freedoms and privileges Peter and Kay had, and because of this, she feels unworthy and unprepared to be a mother. Peter and Kay on the other hand, grew up in a much more liberated manner, resulting in them having respectable jobs, and when they adopt Daniel, they attempt to mold him into themselves. In this novel, Ko reveals how each characters past and present affects the choices they make in the future, exposing some of the unseen challenges of being a parent.