Donate to Protect Our Right to Vote

Image from "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith." Obi-Wan says to Anakin, "Anakin, my allegiance is the the Republic, to democracy!" Image source.

I am highly concerned about this year's presidential election. I'm concerned about how the president is already trying to discredit it. I'm concerned about keeping voters safe from COVID-19. I'm concerned about voter suppression.

This election is a really big deal. It is absolutely essential that we get Trump out of office. 

So. Here are 2 organizations that are working to protect Americans' right to vote, and make sure the election is fair. If you are able, please donate or volunteer to help them.

1. Common Cause 
   
2. Fair Fight 
   

Blogaround

1. Regis Philbin, beloved TV host of 'Regis and Kathie Lee' and 'Who Wants to Be A Millionaire,' dies at 88 (posted July 27)

2. U.S. Missionary With No Medical Training Settles Suit Over Child Deaths At Her Center (posted July 31) This is about Renee Bach, who I wrote about last year. The whole thing is so tragic and should cause white American Christians to completely change the way they talk about missions.

3. the tree who set healthy boundaries: an alternate ending for Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" Yes!

4. 'The Magic School Bus' Series Author Joanna Cole Has Died (posted July 15)

We Hired a Nanny

A Chinese ayi and two white children cooking together. Image source.

So when I was pregnant, my mother-in-law came to live with us, because this is basically what you do in China. The grandma takes care of the child while the parents are at work.

I have heard of daycares in Shanghai, but seems like this is very rare. And when the child is 3, they go to kindergarten (in China the term "kindergarten" is used for what we would call both "preschool" and "kindergarten" in the US- 3 years long, from ages 3 to 5) which is for the full day, so I guess that's kind of like daycare. But younger than that, it's not very common to put the kid in daycare.

So basically, the other option besides the grandparents doing childcare (or being a stay-at-home parent) is to hire a nanny. In China a nanny is called an "ayi"- and actually "ayi" 阿姨 has a lot of meanings. A dictionary will probably tell you it means "aunt" but oh wow what a bad translation. Sure, sometimes it means aunt- but family vocabulary in Chinese is complicated, there are different words for if it's a relative on your mom's side or dad's side, if they're older or younger, if they're your parent's sibling or in-law, birth order, etc- so in practical terms, most aunts actually are NOT "ayi." Sure, some are. But most aren't.

And most of the time when you say "ayi" it should very much NOT be translated as "aunt." It's often just used as a friendly term of address for any random stranger who's a woman your parents' age. (Oh wow, this confused me SO MUCH when I first came to China- I had Chinese friends talking about "aunts" and "uncles" who weren't actually their aunts or uncles, and I thought maybe it's like, sometimes you have a friend of the family who's so close and involved in your family's life that basically you do think of her as an aunt even though she's not technically biologically related... lol, no. No, nope. Nope, that is not what "ayi" means. It's literally just any stranger off the street.)

And "ayi" sometimes means a woman who works as a cleaner- like in the office building where I work, if someone says "I asked the ayi..." everyone knows they mean the cleaning lady. And it can mean a domestic worker like a maid or nanny. People talk about "we're going to hire an ayi" and you understand they are talking about hiring someone to do housework or cooking or childcare.

So anyway. My mother-in-law watches the baby when we're at work. But recently she's been having some health problems, so we decided to hire an ayi to help.

There are ayis who specifically work with international families, and expat moms have social media groups where they post ayi recommendations or search for an ayi to hire. So that's what I did, and I found several ayis to interview.

Even though they work for international, English-speaking families, most of these ayis don't speak English. (I'm talking specifically about Chinese women working as ayis- but Filipino ayis are also a thing, and there is a market for them because they speak English. However, as far as I know it's illegal for Filipinos to work as ayis in China.) In their letters of recommendation, the expat moms say "she doesn't speak English but we had no problem communicating with WeChat translate." That makes me wonder, why would you choose to work in a job where you and your boss literally don't speak the same language? I guess it's because they can get paid more than if they worked for Chinese families. Still, it doesn't really seem like an ideal job situation.

And this whole process really makes it obvious how there are very unequal economic classes of people, and it's effed-up. Like, how could it possibly make sense to hire *another person* to spend her entire day watching *my child* while I spend my entire day at my own job? Well, obviously the reason it makes sense is that my salary is MASSIVELY HIGHER than what I pay the ayi. And isn't that messed-up? That's extremely messed-up. Nobody "deserves" to have a salary twice as high as another person, if both of them work hard at what they do.

We rely on the ayi, but no matter how good she is, we'll never pay her a good salary like what I'm paid. Because if it cost us that much, then instead of having an ayi, me or my husband would quit our job. (Or, actually the math is a little more complicated than that, because you have to take into account the long-term effect on my career if I stayed home for a few years, and we could have a whole discussion about how women's careers aren't valued as much, and people think the wife has to quit her job and stay home because "that's how the math works out", but that's a separate topic, we won't get into that.)

I guess I'm extremely privileged... when I was little and I heard about economic classes, I thought that was just like back in medieval times when there were kings and peasants, and nowadays it's not like that. Well, it's like that. I have a good education in a field that society values, and so my options for jobs and my salary range are completely different than, for example, the options available for a woman who works hard as an ayi. And we can't move from one level to another. We're stuck in our own economic classes, and that's the way it is. (Actually as an immigrant I am not able to get a "low skilled" job in China- work visas are only available for jobs that you can't easily find a Chinese person to do.)

Also, many of the ayis we interviewed told us about "I worked for a family with 3 kids", "I worked for a family with 5 kids", etc. Again, this is messed-up, because China still has a two-child policy (the one-child policy was changed in 2016). So you have these Chinese ayis taking care of 3 kids for a foreign family, when they're not even allowed to have 3 kids of their own. (Note: When I say "this is messed-up", I don't mean the ayi did anything wrong, or the foreign parents with 3 kids did anything wrong. I mean it exposes the reality of the world itself being messed-up.)

Also, who watches the ayi's child? (I say "child" instead of "children" because even though the one-child policy isn't in effect any more, more families still only have 1 child because of financial reasons.) Some ayis send their own kid back to their hometown for the grandparents to raise; that's seen as normal in China. Isn't that messed-up, that they're watching someone else's kids, when for financial reasons they're not even able to watch their own kid.

Another aspect of this is how the expat ayi market has been severely impacted by COVID19. In March, China closed the border. International people are not allowed to enter the country, because of COVID19. In the months since then, the rules have been changing, and gradually there are more and more exceptions- so yes, they are letting some international people in, but you have to jump through hoops.

So there are lots of international families who left China back in February or March to get away from the pandemic, and now are stuck in other countries. And their ayis are still here in China, trying to find new jobs now- but it's not a good market for the ayis. Actually most of the ayis we interviewed told us this same story- their current employer is stuck overseas somewhere.

So... this is the world we live in, and it's not fair. But still we hire an ayi and participate in the system. Like, it's not like *not* hiring an ayi is going to help address the economic inequalities of the world.

And also, I'm not like, "ah I feel bad for the ayi so I won't hold them to a high standard"- no, we're talking about finding someone to care for my child, who is the most perfect and precious thing in the world- well, in my world, not ayi's world, and isn't it messed-up that it makes financial sense for someone who doesn't love him to be the one who takes care of him. Actually the first ayi we hired didn't really seem to be, shall we say, interested in doing a good job, so after a few days we told her it wasn't working out, and we found a different ayi. So yes, this is my precious child we're talking about, and I'm going to make sure we get the right person to take care of him.

So. Going through the process of hiring an ayi has been a lesson in class inequality and how effed-up that is. But there's not really anything we can do about it. This is the world we live in, and we are in need of this service and there are ayis providing the service. The system is effed-up, but within the context of this effed-up system, it makes perfect sense for us to hire an ayi, so that's what we're doing. My point isn't that ayi employers (like me) are doing a bad thing. It's the entire system that's messed-up.

What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding

Exasperated little blonde girl meme, with the text: "How much milk does your baby drink? Idk a boobfull?" Image source.

I have a baby now, and for the first 6 months of his life, before he started eating solid food, I exclusively breastfed him. I'm really happy with it; turns out I really love breastfeeding.

But in the beginning, there were definitely things that I had a messed-up perspective on. So I'm writing this post about it.

So, some background about my views on breastfeeding, before I got pregnant:

• My mom breastfed me and my siblings, so I always believed that's what you "should" do, and that's what I wanted to do for my hypothetical future babies. 
• However, whenever I read an article that mentioned breastfeeding, it was always about "hey don't shame moms who feed their baby formula, it's so terrible how we're making women compete with each other and feel like they're not good enough moms, don't say 'breast is best' because there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU if you feed your baby formula, you are NOT a failure" and "breastfeeding is SO HARD, physically and emotionally."

So overall, I wanted to breastfeed my baby, but felt extremely skittish about "shaming" the idea of giving a baby formula. 

When I was pregnant, sometimes friends asked me "are you going to breastfeed?" and I answered "I hope I can." Because I thought, even though I really want to exclusively breastfeed, well, everyone keeps saying how breastfeeding is "so hard," so ... well maybe I just can't.

"I hope I can." Fully open to the possibility that, hey, maybe I just can't, and oh well, then I'll give the baby formula. I now see that this "I hope I can" attitude was all kinds of wrong. Believing that it was all out of my control and hey, if it didn't work out, well, *shrug*. No. Instead of "I hope I can", I should have been educating myself about how to breastfeed successfully.

(Really, it reminds me a lot of how, when I started studying Chinese, everyone was like "learning Chinese is SO HARD" and so I actually literally believed that maybe, as a white person, I'd just never be able to, no matter how hard I worked. Maybe I "just can't." Umm, spoiler: I am fluent in Chinese now.)

During the pregnancy, I read the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting" [affiliate link] (which was very useful for me, but I'll warn you that it's extremely heteronormative and cisnormative). It had a lot of information about how breastfeeding is the best source of nutrition for babies, how it's good for their immune system, and gives all kind of other benefits. About studies that showed breastfed babies went on to live healthier lives than formula-fed babies.

And I was very surprised. I didn't know that before- I thought it was the same. I thought with modern technology, surely we've developed baby formula that's just as good as breast milk. Well, no, we haven't. (And after Square Root was born, I learned a lot more about the differences between formula-fed and breastfed babies- for a lot of our "what's normal" questions, there are actually 2 different answers: what's normal for breastfed babies and what's normal for formula-fed babies. About their poop- what it looks like, how often. About how often they eat. About weight gain. About whether or not they are likely to be constipated, or overfed. It's like there are 2 different types of babies. No, formula is not "the same" at all- formula is not as good for babies as breast milk.)

I'd read articles about "hey don't shame moms who don't breastfeed" so I thought it didn't matter one way or the other. But I don't want to get up and wash bottles in the middle of the night, so I hope I can breastfeed.

Yeah, I literally didn't know breastfeeding was way better for baby's health than formula-feeding. I'd heard too much rhetoric about "it's okay to not breastfeed, you're not a bad mom", so I thought it was the same.

Perhaps this is a more accurate way of putting it: If your only consideration is what the baby eats, then breast milk is SO MUCH better than formula. Formula is fine, but breast milk is just WAY BETTER. But there are other factors that should be considered too: like mom's mental health. If breastfeeding and pumping is taking a huge toll on you, that matters, and maybe it would be good to give your baby formula instead. And also: mom's pumping schedule. If you have to go to work, and your job doesn't allow you to take breaks and pump milk, then the breastfeeding is just not going to work. You can't make enough milk to exclusively breastfeed, while also going 8+ hours without getting the milk out. Your boobs will be giant and hard as rocks, oww. If you're in that situation, breastfeeding is just not workable. Don't feel bad about that; formula is fine.

Anyway, back to me when I was pregnant. Friends and family recommended that if I wanted to breastfeed, I should go to a class on it, or go to La Leche League meetings, or join social media groups where people discussed breastfeeding. I was like "Why? Like, what's there to learn, doesn't the baby just suck your boob? Seems pretty straightforward... how can there be a whole class on it?" But people told me, no actually it's not that straightforward. Sometimes there are problems. You have to learn how to do it, it doesn't *just happen*.

So I did. I read a lot of articles about how to have a successful breastfeeding relationship, and I joined a social media support group for breastfeeding. I'm so glad I did. I learned about how to teach your boobs how much milk to make. I learned about how you shouldn't pump until your baby is maybe 4-6 weeks old, because you want to establish your supply before you start pumping. I learned that a lot of people worry their baby isn't eating enough- because you can't see how much the baby is eating- but actually a lot of the signs that make people worry are completely normal and do NOT mean you have to give your baby formula. I learned about blocked ducts and mastitis and how to avoid them. I learned about a lot of the common misconceptions about breastfeeding.

So basically I knew what I'd do once the baby was born.

My husband, on the other hand... So when we were putting together our list of things to buy to get ready for the baby, my husband (Hendrix) said we should buy a can of formula, "as a backup." And I was concerned- if we have formula, then are people going to try to pressure me to give it to the baby, so we "don't waste it" or some nonsense like that? Hendrix reassured me that that wouldn't happen. So we bought the formula.

At our prenatal appointments, the nurses told us "Our hospital supports breastfeeding, so we don't provide formula. If you want to give your baby formula, you have to bring your own." I'm very glad I gave birth at a hospital that explicitly supports breastfeeding; apparently in China a lot of hospitals pressure you to give your baby formula. Which I think has a lot to do with formula companies trying to make money.

The issue, though, was that I was coming from a background of "breastfeeding is normal, and I've done a lot of reading and I know what I need to do in order to make breastfeeding work" but Hendrix and his mom (who lives with us) were coming from a background of "giving the baby formula is normal, of course you need to have formula as a backup in case the mom doesn't have enough milk." It was like my mother-in-law 100% expected that I wouldn't "have enough milk" and we would give the baby formula. (Apparently this "you don't have enough milk" is an extremely common misconception in China- the reality is that it's extremely rare that you're just biologically unable to produce enough milk.)

So we packed up our hospital bag, and Hendrix said we have to bring the can of formula. I was uneasy about that, but we brought it "as a backup." And looking back on it now, I wish I had communicated with my husband better about this.

Fast-forward to the day the baby was born. I breastfed him immediately after he popped out and the nurses wiped him off and weighed him. And that day, I breastfed him a bunch of times, and it went well.

And then that night, he was crying and he wouldn't sleep. And my mother-in-law was saying he's hungry and I don't have enough milk, and my husband was worried and wanted to give him formula, and I said no. I said no, but I felt so scared and weak. I'd just given birth 24 hours before and I couldn't even stand up without help. And everyone was speaking Chinese- and I can speak Chinese, but not about something as complicated as this... and I didn't even know what to say anyway. Just thinking that if we give him formula now, that means we're giving up on the whole breastfeeding thing, giving up on it so fast. I wanted to breastfeed until the baby is at least 1 year old, and we're just gonna give up on it now, 1 day in, because I'm too weak to stop it. I know what to do, I did the research and my husband and mother-in-law didn't, but here we are at 2 am and they just keep telling me "he's hungry" and I don't know what to say.

All I could do was tell my husband "this is really important to me." And keep trying to feed the baby, keep putting him on my boobs and hope something was coming out. And eventually the baby fell asleep, and we got through the night. Without giving him formula.

Looking back on it now, I wish I had discussed this with my husband more beforehand. Not just "I want to breastfeed" because we did discuss that- but "we need to do x, y, and z, and here are the reasons why." I now see that it wasn't enough that I knew what to do- I needed to make sure my husband knew too. Because he loves the baby too, and if he thought the baby was hungry and needed it, it's understandable that he might have fought me and insisted on giving our baby formula, and unknowingly screwed up my milk supply. (Like, it's not the end of the world if you give the baby formula at the beginning- you can still exclusively breastfeed, but it's harder; you've dug yourself into a hole.)

When you give birth, you NEED to have someone with you who knows what you want and fully supports you. Your partner, a family member, a doula, someone. Someone who can stand up for you, because you'll be in pain and full of hormones, and you might not be able to stand up for yourself.

I wish I had thought more about the reasons that one might choose to give their baby formula. Because I now see that there are lots of good reasons. But "the mom is right here and wants to breastfeed the baby, but her husband's family is telling her 'no, you can't, you don't have enough milk'" is NOT one of them. That's effed-up. And I still feel bad about having been in that situation, even though in the end I "won." And I feel bad thinking about other moms who did get pressured into giving their baby formula when that's not what they wanted.

And I wish I could have viewed the formula as a tool that is possibly useful to me in some situations. But I didn't- I just had this very emotional "formula is bad" feeling about it. But now I see that formula could have been a very useful tool for me, for situations where I had to go out and leave the baby with my mother-in-law, and there wasn't enough pumped breast milk in the fridge. See, that's what we should have used the formula can for. As a backup for if I'm PHYSICALLY NOT THERE and baby needs to eat.

After that first night, though, things have gone very well with the breastfeeding. I love it because it's such a beautiful, loving bond with my baby, and it's so convenient. (I don't like pumping milk at work though... that's a pain, but I have to do it.)

We do a disservice by putting so much emphasis on "you're not a failure if you give your baby formula" without also providing the education and support that is needed to successfully breastfeed. I wish people could just see it for what it is: here are the advantages, here is the work you have to do, here are the things you'll need to buy, here is the knowledge you need for if you run into problems. (And same for formula-feeding or mixed-feeding: here are the advantages, here is the work you have to do, etc.) But there's this fear that the entire topic of breastfeeding is so emotionally-charged and tied to people's identity of being a "good mom", so we can't discuss it in an objective, informative way.

Let me sum it up like this: If you're pregnant and you're wondering if you'll breastfeed or not, first of all, know that it is your decision and it is a very personal decision. Next, I strongly recommend you research the options- exclusive breastfeeding, formula, or mixed-feeding. Learn about how they each work in practical terms and how much work each of them would end up being for you. Learn about the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby's health. Decide what you want to do- and if you want to exclusively breastfeed, don't phrase it like "I hope I can, but eh I understand if it doesn't work out". No, that's ridiculous to have that kind of defeatist attitude when your baby isn't even born yet. Do your research, arm yourself with information, communicate with your partner, and be confident.

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Related:

Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body 

Breastfeeding resources:

Kelly Mom 

La Leche League

Great News! My Baby Is Vaccinated!

A doctor examines a baby. Image source.

You guys you guys you guys, I have such amazing wonderful news! My child is never going to get sick from hepatitis B. Yeah, see hepatitis B is a disease which can cause liver damage and a whole lot of problems. But guess what! My little son, Square Root, is not going to have those problems. He is vaccinated.

Also, rotavirus. Oh my goodness you guys, I have great news! My child is never gonna get sick from rotavirus. It's a really nasty virus that causes diarrhea and can even lead to death. (Mayo Clinic says it causes 215,000 deaths annually. And "Before the development of a vaccine, most children in the United States had been infected with the virus at least once by age 5.") 

Sounds awful, right? Well I am very happy to tell you that little Square Root is vaccinated for it. He's not going to get rotavirus. Ever.

And more good news: He's not going to get polio. He's vaccinated for it. He's not going to get Japanese encephalitis. Or pneumococcal disease. Or tuberculosis. Or a whole bunch of other diseases. He's vaccinated!

Well this is awesome. We don't have to worry about him catching any of these diseases.

It's astounding to think about how different the world is now from the world before vaccines. Nasty childhood diseases were common and could cause life-long effects or even death, and that was just the way it was. Can you imagine telling parents 100 years ago that in the future we won't have to worry about any of those things at all? Like, all those childhood diseases will just *be gone*. Polio, measles, whooping cough, and so on- they just won't be a thing anymore. Can you imagine trying to tell that to parents living back then? It would be unbelievable for them.

Hundreds or thousands of children used to die every year from those diseases, and now they just ... don't.

Like, they just don't.

You can just, like, opt out. You read a description of what polio is, you say to yourself "how bout we don't do that" and then you just get your kid vaccinated and that's that.

Like, holy crap. That is amazing news.

It should be completely mind-blowing to think how good vaccines are- but most people don't really think about that, because vaccines have so effectively eliminated these terrible diseases, that people aren't even aware of how terrible they were. 

But anyway. Just wanted to share my good news. My baby is vaccinated. 

Blogaround

1. Aces in Space: An Asexual Reading of Star Trek (posted June 26) 

2. Grant Imahara, Host of 'MythBusters' and 'White Rabbit Project,' Dies at 49 (posted July 13) Oh my god.

3. U.S. Rescinds Plan to Strip Visas From International Students in Online Classes (posted July 14) Good news.

4. John Lewis, congressman and civil rights icon, dies at 80 (posted July 18)

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And 2 reminders about things I've posted before:

1. Vote From Abroad: If you are an American living abroad, request your ballot for the November elections.

2. My 2020 Reader Survey will be open until July 20. (Or, probably actually a few days longer...? I don't even know when I'll have time to write a wrap-up post about it...) Thank you to everyone who has already taken it!

Blogaround

1. ICE says foreign students taking online-only classes in the fall can't remain in the U.S. (posted July 6) Well I'm MAD AS HELL. ICE is evil. Like, this is so mind-bogglingly evil I don't know what to say. Just because someone's an immigrant doesn't mean it's no big deal for them to just move back to their home country. I'm an immigrant in China; I've been living here 7 years. And you know what, one of the biggest reasons I came to China was I was inspired by the international students I met in college in the US. It is a hard life, being an immigrant- I know because I am one. There's always that worry at the back of your mind that you don't really have rights and they could kick you out of the country- even though you've done your best to follow all the rules and do everything legally. Kick you out of the country IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC.

They fucking live here. ICE is evil.

2. Not Everyone Has Accepted Women’s Suffrage (posted July 8) "It was fairly clear to me that this dad was sizing me up as a possible wife for one of his four teenage sons."

3. The “Purity” Hoax (posted 2019) So uh, if you actually read Jim and Elizabeth Elliot's letters and journals, you realize they were super-repressed. Why is this portrayed as a perfect fairy-tale romance in purity land?

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And 2 reminders about things I've posted before:

1. Vote From Abroad: If you are an American living abroad, request your ballot for the November elections.

2. My 2020 Reader Survey will be open until July 20. Thank you to everyone who has already taken it!

On HR and Being a Legal Immigrant (Don't Turn the Other Cheek)

Meme that says "Brace yourself: HR just sent out another email." Image source.

Recently at work, HR sent out an email about an annual tax form that everybody has to submit. I've done this in the past- there's an app, you just log in and your salary and tax information is already there, and you click "submit." It's quite easy.

So I tried to log in, but I couldn't. A week later, HR sent out a reminder about it, and I tried to log in again- 1 day before the deadline. Still no luck, so I emailed the HR manager, Jessica, to ask for help.

I got a reply from another HR employee, Anna, telling me that foreigners can't do it on the app, and I have to go in person to some tax office and bring my passport, work permit, etc. And as I said, the deadline is tomorrow.

Ugh, I was so mad! The way she just dumped this on me like it's no big deal, like oh guess what, because I'm an immigrant I have to do this whole complicated extra task, and she just leaves me to it and moves on with her life, while I try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. Like it's totally fine for HR to just tell me, 1 day before the deadline, oh by the way here's the address for the tax office, have at it.

SOOOO MADDDDD.

Here's the way I see it:

Things that are my job:

• Be a software engineer

Things that are not my job:

• Understand all the legal implications of me, an immigrant, working as a software engineer in China

Nope, not my job. That's HR's job. And I've worked at several companies where I was the only international employee, so I've run into this kind of problem a lot. Something I have to do that's different than the Chinese employees, and HR doesn't have a freakin' clue. (A while back I wrote about the worst one.)

I believe in boundaries now, and that means, since I'm the one who will suffer if this bureaucratic stuff isn't done correctly, I have the right to push HR about it as much as I feel is necessary. If, for example, my residence permit doesn't get renewed on time, which of us is worried about getting deported- me, or Anna? See, even though it's Anna's job to do it, I'm the one who suffers massively if it doesn't get done right. So I no longer just "trust" that HR knows what they're doing and they're going to take care of it. No, I tell them "it's time to start the process of renewing my residence permit" and then Anna replies "we don't have to start yet, it only takes 2 weeks" and then I get angry as I remember all the past renewals where various bureaucracy problems came up and it definitely took MORE THAN 2 WEEKS- but I don't show her I'm angry; I need to be polite and calm and professional. But I don't accept her nonchalance about it, and I push her to get started on it now. And if she doesn't, then I bring my manager into it and tell him that the process of renewing my residence permit every year is very stressful for me so I want to get it done as early as possible.

I'm the one whose worst-case-scenario is getting kicked out of the country- even though it's HR's job to do this stuff. So I get to decide how seriously HR needs to take it. That's boundaries.

Anyway, I'm usually good at guessing which legal policies won't apply to me and then asking HR to clarify what I should do. (Even though it should be THEIR JOB to notify me, without me asking.) This tax thing caught me off guard, though, because in previous years I just used the app like everyone else and it worked. Apparently this year the system is different. 

So, as I said, I was SO MAD.

Going to the tax office isn't a big deal. I can do that. I can accept that I need to do that, as an immigrant, even though the Chinese employees don't. That's fine, I understand that for practical reasons, that's the way the world works. The reason I was mad, though, was because THIS IS NOT MY JOB. Figuring out how my specific situation as an immigrant should be handled is NOT MY JOB. That's HR's job. If they had told me 2 weeks earlier, that would have also been fine. But 1 day before the deadline, just mentioning it like it's no big deal, no, that's not okay. That's not fair to me. I deserve to be treated better.

And then I thought, you know, if I was still in a "personal relationship with God," I would have accepted it. "Submit", "turn the other cheek", "put others first" and don't stand up for yourself because that's "selfish." I would have just told HR "okay" and gone to the tax office. And then I would remember, and be mad about it again every time HR acted like it was no big deal to just put new requirements on me because I'm an immigrant. Get more and more mad about it every time, as the accumulated list of injustices against me that HR never even acknowledged grows longer and longer. Every time, remembering every single previous incident and how I was wronged and I just suffered it without standing up for myself.

I would have thought that's what a good Christian should do. And that I'm even more sinful for continuing to have feelings about things that happened years ago.

No, now I believe in boundaries and standing up for myself. Now I believe in "that's not my job" and "I deserve to be treated better than this." I didn't know about those things before. I used to just trust whatever HR said, and do whatever HR said.

So anyway, continuing on with my story. Anna came to my desk to ask me if I'd gotten her email, and I tried to take the polite approach of "I'm concerned about if I go there tomorrow and there are problems and I can't get it done" rather than the more blunt "this is your job, not mine." Anna said oh the tax office isn't that far away, you could go and come back in less than an hour, hey how about today you go there and confirm what materials they need you to bring, and then tomorrow you go again.

And I was like "... you want me to go twice?"

And I was like "how about YOU go today and confirm what materials I need to bring, and then I go tomorrow?"

And she said she can't go, she doesn't have time. And I said WELL YEAH I can't go, I don't have time.

(But, actually, I did have time. Or rather, by "I don't have time" I did NOT mean "there are extremely urgent things I need to do today and it's just not possible to rearrange my schedule", I meant "I am not willing to treat this as a higher priority than the other things I was planning to do today [because, even though those things aren't very urgent, this is NOT MY JOB]." So. That is also boundaries.)

So then I was more mad at Anna, and I said she should have told me about this 2 weeks ago.

So later I went to the HR director, Jessica's, office to talk to her. My manager, Han, happened to be there, so that was good. So I told them "I'm concerned about what if there are problems when I go tomorrow and I can't get it done" and we talked about it and they offered suggestions and help, and Jessica called Anna in and told her to call the tax place and get a better idea of what exactly I need to do. I really felt a lot better after this conversation, because Jessica and Han acknowledged that this really is a lot of trouble for me, and really I should have been told about it earlier (but that HR didn't know either because it's a new policy).

Then I was not mad any more, because I felt like they understood my situation and how it's not right to suddenly spring this task on me 1 day before the deadline. See, that's really all I wanted- for them to acknowledge that this is an inconvenience for me and try to help make it easier if they're able.

Anyway, the next day I went to the tax office and submitted the form, and it all went well. And when I got to work, Han asked me how it went. Very nice of him to ask and show he cared.

So, in the end it worked out.

And I'm left thinking about what if I didn't stand up for myself. What if I didn't go talk to Jessica and communicate (politely!) about how stressful it is for me to suddenly be told I have to do these things. I think about things that have happened over all the years I've worked in China- things that HR screwed up and left me to deal with, and I just did what they said and didn't stand up for myself and didn't escalate to their manager. And so I felt like nobody cared, and life just moved on without anyone acknowledging it, and so I'm still mad.

That's what happens when you "submit" and "turn the other cheek" and "trust God to meet your needs."

But instead I communicated about how I felt, and people listened and helped me, and I feel better now. The problem is resolved- and I don't mean the tax form thing, because I would have resolved that anyway. I mean the problem of HR suddenly dumping a new inconvenient task on me just because I'm an immigrant, and acting like it's fine to treat me that way.

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Related:

This Is the Stuff That Happens to Us Immigrants 

"Seek First God's Kingdom" Doesn't Work If You Have Autism

Blogaround

1. The Lion King Sequels Are Okay...I Guess (posted June 23) "... this was the first one that really did something different, a really fourth-wall-breaky story."

2. The Scandal of Pastor John Ortberg and Menlo Church (posted July 2) "I grew up in an evangelical community where the adults around me visibly shuddered when transgender identities or people came up, and then turned around and defended confessed pedophiles within the church."

3. Opinion: How Defunding the NYPD Can Help End Subway Homelessness (posted June 24) "Listening to homeless New Yorkers would make it clear that involving the NYPD in homeless outreach destroys trust and drives people further from the help they are asking for."

Taking My Kid To Church: "We are so happy to know Jesus, we want to share that with other people!"

A group of kids in Sunday School, near a poster that says "God is love." Image source.

"Taking My Kid To Church" is a blog series about how I plan to handle my child's contact with church/ Christian culture.

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So what if my kid goes to a Sunday School class, and the lesson is about evangelism, and the teachers say, "We are just so happy about knowing Jesus, we can't help telling people about him! When you're really excited about something, it makes you want to tell people, right? Well that's how we feel about Jesus!"

As an ex-evangelical, I cringe so hard at this. But, hang on a second, if we just take it at face value, there's not actually anything wrong with that statement. Yes, certainly, it is possible that someone might be very excited about believing in Jesus, and therefore they want to tell people about him. Sure, of course that could happen, and it's totally reasonable and fine.

And furthermore, we might acknowledge several different possibilities concerning one's beliefs about Jesus and emotional response:

1. You are very happy about believing in Jesus, and so you just want to tell everyone.
2. You are very happy about believing in Jesus, but you don't necessarily want to tell everyone. Maybe because you're shy, or because it seems too personal to talk about, or because you know your friends have different beliefs and you don't want to come across as disrespecting their beliefs.
3. You believe in Jesus but aren't sure if it makes you happy or not. It's not exactly clear that it's a good thing you'd want to recommend to your friends.
4. You don't believe in Jesus.

(And there are other possible combinations of beliefs and emotions too! I'm just listing these here because they're the ones that came to mind for me.)

Any of these options are totally fine! It's totally understandable that someone might have those beliefs and that emotional response. Great!

So yes, taking the hypothetical Sunday School teacher's statement at face value, there's nothing wrong with it. Indeed, it is certainly possible that someone is excited about Jesus and therefore wants to talk to everyone about him, and that's fine. Sure.

Here's the thing, though. I grew up in the church, and I know that when people say things like that, what they actually mean is "Christians are supposed to do evangelism, and here's one way to guilt them into doing it. You're supposed to love Jesus so much you just can't help talking about him. And if that's not the case, well you're not a good Christian, and you should feel bad."

It's about policing people's emotions. If you internalize this teaching, you can't be honest with yourself about what you actually feel. You can't know yourself and identify your emotions/desires/motivations and handle them in a healthy way. The most you can do is "I feel like... I'm ... not ... excited about knowing Jesus OH NO REPENT REPENT REPENT God help me oh the depths of my sin, how could I be so ungrateful after everything that Jesus has done for me, ah truly the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked."

Whereas I now believe a healthy way to handle one's emotions would look more like this: "I feel like... I'm ... not ... excited about knowing Jesus. Hmm okay, why would that be? Perhaps because I feel like XYZ? But why do I feel XYZ? Hmm, maybe because A is important to me and B is not... well is A actually important to me, or do I just do it because it's easy but it's really not what I want to be doing in the long term..." and so on. The feeling itself- "I'm not excited about knowing Jesus" - is not a good or bad thing. Now, it may be the case that you wish you felt differently, and so it might be helpful if you explored your reasons for feeling that way (maybe related to your own desires and priorities) and evaluate if they make sense or not.

I want to teach Square Root that whatever feelings you feel are okay. Now that doesn't mean if you feel like you want to do something, it's okay to do it. No. We have to manage our emotions and handle them in a healthy way. For example, feeling mad about something is fine, but it's not healthy to keep thinking about it all day and making yourself feel more and more mad- probably it's better to focus on something else that's more positive.

And feeling driven to tell people about Jesus because you love him so much is fine, but it's also fine if you don't feel that way. And if that's the Sunday School lesson Square Root hears (whether or not that's what the teachers intended...) then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But I'm going to make it very clear to him that if anybody says you "should" feel some certain way, and they try to make you feel bad for not having certain emotions, well they're wrong. And if I give him that as a foundation, he might not hear the "you should feel bad if you're not excited about knowing Jesus" message in church. Or if he does hear it, he'll know it's obviously not true.

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Related:
Christians Are Supposed To Feel Bad Over Not Reading the Bible Enough (and Here Are the Receipts)