Week 10 Context Presentation: The Effects of Reuniting a Child with a Parent after Separation

“The Leavers” by Lisa Ko is a story about a boy, Deming, and the story of his life after he is adopted. Deming was adopted and raised by a white couple in New York where he is given the name Daniel. He is adopted as a result of his mother, Polly, not returning home from work one day. Polly was an undocumented worker from China. The story follows Daniel’s life growing up and how he deals with his identity crisis after a transracial adoption. As the story continues, the second half of the story focuses on Polly. We learn about the hardships she faced being a Chinese immigrant and an undocumented worker. When Daniel is older, he reunites with his mother over a phone call. As Daniel reunites with his mother Polly, what are the effects that he may experience after a long separation?

Feelings of anger are brought to mind when children are reunited with parents after a long separation. Often children may not understand the situation and thought process behind the familial separation. Especially after a long separation, a sense of moving on can both be found in the child and parent, but that is not the case for everyone. A huge issue with parental separation is the trauma that children have for a long time. Often children can be ripped away from their parents if the parent is undocumented. This trauma often leads to separation anxiety, post- traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and more throughout the child’s life (Wan 2018). After reuniting with their parents, a sense of blame and wonder can engulf the child. The child can often blame the parent for the life that they could have had with each other.

Although Daniel struggled with finding his identity throughout his life, reuniting with his mother allowed a sense of moving on. They both seemed to noticed that the other had moved onto better with the way their lives turned out. This is not the case for every parent and child. Parental separation can lead to many issues in the child’s life and reuniting can lead to many of these issues resurfacing.

 

Ko, Lisa. The Leavers. Chapel Hill, 2017.

Wan, William. The Trauma of Separation Lingers Long after Children Are Reunited with Parents. 21 June 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-trauma-of-separation-lingers-long-after-children-are-reunited-with-parents/2018/06/20/cf693440-74c6-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html.

 

11 thoughts on “Week 10 Context Presentation: The Effects of Reuniting a Child with a Parent after Separation

  1. I really think that this post was something very emotional and serious to think about, especially because we know that parent separations do actually happen and it is important to note the side affects of kids who get separated from their parents. When you said that the child often blames the parent for the life that they lived, that sometimes it could be the other way around, with the child blaming themselves for the sacrifices their parents made for them to be deported. Discussing these topics are hard, but it helps us to get a better understanding! great post.

    • martin.3793 I do agree these conversations can be very hard and also do agree that the child can sometimes blame themselves for what takes place when parents are deported, because in reality typically the parent is wanting a better life for their child. It is a very hard subject and a very emotional one also.

    • I very much agree with your point of view, because the children most likely feel that their parents were deported because of their own reasons. In this sense, children are likely to blame themselves and become autistic. And the children cannot adapt to another environment at once. This is an issue that needs to be paid attention to so that the children will not suffer psychological hardship.

  2. Reading through your context presentation, I couldn’t help but think about how even reuniting with distant family members can be impactful on children and adults alike. Speaking for myself, I recently reunited with my aunt on my maternal side, a woman who I had not seen in roughly twelve years. I had little to no recollection of her ever being in my life yet we immediately reconnected and had an amazing time together after spending most of my life as strangers. I find it interesting how reuniting with people who have almost never been in your life can be so impactful to each individual and how that reconnection can strengthen the bond between individuals.

  3. I really like the content of your presentation, specifically the points you brought up about the effects this separation can cause. We saw a little bit of everything you mentioned throughout the text, and this is definitely intentional by Ko to put us in both the parent and child’s perspective. I think the points you brought up are important to note because they also help us identify some of the effects that we may not have seen in the text, as you said .

  4. I think you provided a great and very serious analysis of the stress and trauma that children who have experienced parental separation go through and how reuniting with the parent(s) can affect the complicated emotions of the child. As you pointed out, Deming’s reuniting with his mother over the phone was not the picture-perfect sort of reuniting moment that one would maybe imagine in a movie but more of a vague and strained moment. Despite the strange feelings present during the reuniting moment, that point in the book felt like a sigh of relief for Deming. Deming seemed very content with and skilled at the ability to shrug off his past life and not grapple with his missing mother after such a long time. However, as a reader, I had the distinct feeling that these fronts that Deming put up were very surface level and that he still very much longed for a connection to his previous life and to have questions about his mother answered – things that the reuniting moment with his mother seemed to bring closure to. Of course, every child that experiences something like this deals with it differently and the large and complex emotional toll that such an event takes on a child is impossible to calculate or predict.

  5. I think your content is very interesting. Ko just wants us to pay attention to this issue. Because immigrant children cannot live with their parents. These children need to spend a lot of time to adapt to another society and living environment. Some of them have gone from the Asian community to the wealthy white community, which is also very suitable for them.

  6. I like your content very much, the impact of this separation from parents is usually not noticed, immigrant children can’t live with their parents, it can take a lot of time for them to adjust to the new living environment, sometimes this separation can have a big impact on the children

  7. This was good insight into the compact of the story by KO. The impact separation can have on children I believe is insane. They have to be removed and placed into a completely new and scary situation with all new people. They also have the cultural shock if they come from a different country or religion into a family that practices or preached different views, meaning that child becomes detached with their original cultural ideas.

  8. I really liked how you brought up this topic and focused on the effects of a child reuniting with their parent after separation. I’m not close with anyone who is adopted so I don’t know too much about how they would feel about being reunited with their biological parents. But after reading your post I’m reminded of what is happening with Mexican immigrants and how their children are being torn apart from the safety and security of their families. I sympathize with the children because like you mentioned, it can be very traumatic.

  9. I love your content and like it very much. I do not know how it feels or affects when children get separated from parents and reunite. So your content helps me in understanding the effects and things like that. These kinds of topics are touching and emotionally reacting. Thank you for your post!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *