"This Hurts Forever": Woman Shares Her Mother's Heartbreaking Tale Under China's One-Child Policy

China implemented a one-child policy to control population growth in the 1980s. The rule limited couples to having just one child and for years, the government claimed it was a major contributor to the nation's economic prosperity. If parents were discovered to have had more than one child, civil servants, government employees and university staff, could lose their jobs. The policy also meant that the second children could not be recorded in China's national household system if parents did not pay a fine, making them legally non-existent and preventing them from accessing social services like health care and education. Although the policy was revoked in July 2021, horrors of the same still exist in minds of many.

Recently, a woman took to Twitter to share a heartbreaking story of her mother when she was forced to send her two-month-old daughter to her relative because of the policy.

Dr Chenchen Zhang, an assistant professor of International Relations at Durham University in the UK, said in a tweet, "this diary entry was written by my mom, 34 years ago, on the day when she sent her 2-month-old daughter (my sister) away to my grandma's bc of one-child policy. I never fully understood the scale of heartbreak until I became a mom myself. I will never not cry reading it."

this diary entry was written by my mom, 34 years ago, on the day when she sent her 2-month-old daughter (my sister) away to my grandma's bc of one child policy.
I never fully understood the scale of heartbreak until I became a mom myself. I will never not cry reading it. pic.twitter.com/OS3dY2tl6X

— Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ (@chenchenzh) March 28, 2023

Sharing the snippets from her diary, the woman added that her mother breastfed the second child "one more time - the last time in her life" before they were separated. "I (then one year and a half) sensed the atmosphere and cried together with her," she said. 

Dr Chenchen said that her sister came back to them when she was around five or six years old. "But I know this hurts forever," she added.

"The second page is stained with tears from 30+ yrs ago. my family's is just one among many (millions of) other, and worse, heartbreaking stories. If there will be (I hope) a museum to commemorate the traumas of OCP, that's where my mom's diary could be kept," she concluded.

Since being shared, her post has amassed over three lakh likes and three thousand comments.

A user commented, "The tragedy of such policies is further enhanced by the sheer fact that the demographic shift ensures lower birth rates. Generations were traumatized by "no more babies now" and now generations are to be traumatized by "make babies now"."

"Just sharing because there is pain all over the world and we all need to know about it or we ourselves will never change for the better," commented another person.

"Can't even imagine this," added a third person.

"Some people in India have no idea of the heartbreaking tragedies due to China's one child policy & feel India should have done the same. Many are also still ignorant that India does not have a "population explosion" anymore & fertility is at replacement rate only," remarked another person.

Sharing her own story, one user tweeted, "I was the third child of my family. Luckily, I wasn't sent away, but the fine impoverished my family. Every family in China has a story of violence and abuse as a result of the CCP's inhumane one-child policy, whose traumatic impact is still acutely felt today."