I, who went to the United States to study, got pregnant unexpectedly in my sophomore year, and the child here was subsidized by 75% of the nursery school

Interviews with real people

2024-05-10 20:35Published in Jiangxi

This is the 3,579th real story we have told

My dad graduated from Peking University, but my studies have always been very ordinary, the so-called ordinary, that is, my grades are basically in the lower middle of the class, and it is basically impossible to be admitted to Peking University like my dad. My English is especially bad, and the principal of the primary school once said to my parents: "If you don't learn English seriously, you will be eliminated from society in the future!" ”

In elementary school and middle school, I was bullied on campus, and then I went to a girls' high school in the United States, and was successfully admitted to college, and my grades in college have improved significantly, and I have become a good student in the eyes of my classmates.

Maybe my parents protected me too well, because of my stupid kindness, I was hurt a lot during college, I got pregnant out of wedlock, and I almost committed suicide due to depression.

The good thing is that my family loves me very, very much, they have always encouraged me, supported me and helped me out of this difficult situation. While having a daughter, I graduated with a double major and went on to graduate school and successfully found a job.

My daughter is now 7 years old and she is a very sweet girl, and because of her, I try to be grounded and reliable!

(My daughter and I are at Penn State)

I am Botun Xiaoli, born in the 90s, from Taiyuan, Shanxi, and now I live and work in the United States as a commercial sustainable emergency management consultant.

Parents are typical fathers and strict mothers when it comes to education. My dad graduated from Peking University, and he always felt that children should have the same choice as adults, and he was more willing to ask me what I thought and respected my wishes.

My mother, like all mothers in the world, hopes that her children will have many specialties, so I have learned swimming, Chinese painting, tennis, piano, etc. since I was a child, and these specialties need to be persisted in for a long time.

I started swimming when I was three years old, and I was probably one of the few children who didn't complain about difficulties in the first lesson, so my mother was very proud of me at the time. It is the training and persistence of these specialties that have allowed me to develop a tenacious character, not admitting defeat, and not giving up.

My parents have a lot of friends, and I have been brought by them since I was a child, and I have met many of their friends' children, and I often travel around the country with these uncles, aunts and their children, and I have many trusted friends.

(Traveling in Xinjiang)

When I was a child, during the Chinese New Year, our family would also bake a prosperous fire together, wishing each other blessings, hoping that the next year would be more prosperous.

Having a happy family of origin allows me to have unlimited nourishment and heal my negative emotions when I encounter major life changes.

Growing up, my family environment was warm and happy, but I experienced many times of school violence at school. When I was in elementary school, my class leader probably didn't have a respectful and obedient attitude towards my teacher, so she and my classmates smashed one of my favorite star bottles, and had a group of girls surround me, intimidate me, and even insult me.

When I was in junior high school, I didn't know why he kept targeting me. He always insulted me, called me a plague or something, and threatened to beat me.

During that time, I would always be nervous when I went to school.

I told my parents about this, and my parents also reported it to the teacher and the school, but it didn't work, because he didn't hurt me physically, and the teacher and the school only verbally criticized the education and communicated with his parents, but it had little effect.

Even now, years later, I still have a shadow in my heart when I think about it, so I later devoted myself to advocating against bullying in schools.

(5th grade, at Potala Palace Square)

My grades in elementary and junior high school have always been average, and my English is especially bad. The principal of the elementary school said to my parents: "If you don't learn English seriously, you will be eliminated from society in the future!" "He wouldn't have imagined that in a few years, I would be living in an English-speaking country, and English and Chinese would be as natural and fluent as Chinese.

My parents thought that my school environment was not good and I was under a lot of pressure to study, so they let me go to an international school in Beijing. This school is an IB curriculum and is taught in English.

During my year at an international school, I adapted well and got out on top grades. My parents thought I was capable of learning in English and sent me to a girls' high school in the United States to continue my studies.

Girls' high schools in the United States are very strictly managed. The school only allowed us to speak English, otherwise we would be fined and punished for plowing and farming.

Life in high school was very busy, I joined the school's tennis team and started a micro-film club with my good friends. I've met all sorts of amazing girls from all over the world, and to this day, we're still in good connection. After graduating from high school, I chose Penn State to continue my studies in mathematics and economics.

(In 2018, I graduated from university)

During my college years, I studied very seriously and hard, and I can say that my studies were very good in the class. I am also becoming more and more cheerful and willing to communicate with many classmates.

I study well and am willing to socialize with others, so many of my classmates want me to help them in their studies. When people ask me for help, I usually do my best to help.

But it was this stupid kindness that plunged my future life into the abyss of misery and almost came to the end of my life.

Maybe it was because I was bullied by boys at school and went to a girls' high school, so I was a little uncomfortable dealing with boys, and I generally stayed away from them. But I didn't have the courage or the way to refuse their pleas, so I was entangled by a boy, and even worse, I was inexplicably pregnant with a child.

It was the summer of my sophomore year, and I was stupid when I learned that I was pregnant. Overwhelmed and apprehensive, I told my parents about it.

My parents were angry and distressed, but they didn't scold me, and soon contacted the man's parents to meet and discuss the solution, and the final agreed result was marriage.

(In 2017, the baby was born)

But I didn't want to marry him, and it turned out that this person really had a problem and couldn't marry. Because my family has faith, I decided to leave the children to raise them on my own. My parents respected my choices and decisions, and gave me great love and support!

Isn't there a saying, "If it's right to change direction, it's timely to start at all times." ”

But this person didn't let me go, and kept slandering my character at school and among my classmates, and said that I was having affairs with other people, and so on.

There is also a female classmate of mine, her mother and my mother are colleagues, and when she returned to China, she publicized the fact that I had a child, especially in my mother's unit, and said that I never took children, and threw the child to others and other rumors, which had a serious impact on the spirit of me and my family.

It was the darkest period of my life, and I wanted to take my own life.

(Tea ceremony performance at the university's Spring Festival party)

Fortunately, my family has always been there for me, encouraging and supporting me, and most of my classmates are also very good. Because of having a child, I couldn't attend classes for the first month, and a kind classmate chose the same course as me and helped me record the teacher's lessons so that I could study at home without delaying the exam.

The rest of the time, I have been continuing to finish my studies, finding a balance between taking care of my children, club activities, completing my coursework, and applying for graduate school.

I am especially grateful to my alma mater, Penn State University, for the financial support given by a student like me who has no income, is pregnant, has a child, and has to study:

If my child wants to go to nursery, the school will subsidize me by 75%, so that I may only need to pay more than $100 a month for my child to go to the school's nursery (here the child can be sent to the nursery in two months).

I actively went to see a psychiatrist, constantly adjusted my emotional state, exercised, studied, and did not allow myself to be idle and cranky.

One of the things that happened made me really realize how important my life is to my children and family.

(Volunteer at the New York City Marathon)

In the first half of her senior year, my daughter was half a year old, and although I often went to the psychiatrist, she was still in a very depressed state and depressed.

A friend talked to me about a female classmate in the mathematics department who had contracted cervical cancer because of a careless relationship. When her boyfriend learned that his girlfriend was suffering from cancer, he not only did not visit and comfort him, but immediately cleared the relationship and never visited the female classmate again. Before she graduated from college, she died, and her family and loved ones were sad and angry, but there was nothing they could do about that man.

This incident hit me so hard that I can't imagine what my family would do if I did something stupid.

I can't be so selfish, always living in remorse, low self-esteem and pain. I want to adjust my state in time to reassure my relatives and let my daughter have something to rely on.

After that, I picked myself up, studied hard, and was admitted to graduate school at New York University.

So, my daughter and I moved to New York. Unfortunately, tuition and accommodation in New York are expensive, so I had to send her to a government-funded kindergarten.

(I love photography)

The kindergarten is full of black children, black teachers, and there are very few children, only four or five children. This disparity in the educational environment makes people feel the gap between the poor and the rich.

Luckily, before I graduated from graduate school, I was recommended by my internship to work as an emergency management consultant at MIT as a business sustainable emergency management consultant.

Here, I met a lot of enthusiastic colleagues who let me know that there are people in this world who are just as stupid as I am, who have beautiful fantasies about the world, and who want to make the world a better place.

These lovely colleagues made me understand what real life should be like, to face life calmly, anxiety does not solve the problem, and improving one's strength is the last word.

And because I work at MIT, my daughter can go to MIT kindergarten. I think it's a blessing that she can grow up with a very smart group of kids.

I grew cheerful and confident again. I tell them about China, my living environment and my story of growing up, and they tell their story.

(My daughter is now grown up and often participates in chess tournaments)

In the process of chatting with colleagues, I found that the status of women in China is actually higher than that of women in developed countries, because after we get married, women do not need to change their surnames.

But in the United States, women must change their surnames when they get married, and even if they don't change when they get married, if your husband is a celebrity, they will force you to change it.

Many working women in the United States are lawyers or doctors, and when they get married, they need to change their surnames and all their licenses must be changed. I also have to replace all my credit cards, bank accounts, and documents, which is a lot of work. A colleague told me that she spent hundreds of dollars to hire someone to do this.

The most incredible thing is that this surname has to follow you all the time. What does that mean? That is, no matter how many times you get married, your husband's surname will always follow you, and every time you get married, your surname will be added by one more.

There was once a female teacher who had three surnames, and it was very difficult to read. At the time, I wondered how I could have such a strange surname. Later, someone told me, "Hah, because she's been married three times!" ”

Oh, my God! Doesn't it mean that developed countries are very privacy-conscious and democratic? If you look at someone else's surname, you will know how many times they have been married, and it is only for women! This is incomprehensible! So I really feel that as a modern Chinese girl, I am quite happy.

(Celebrate the New Year, teach children calligraphy)

I am very grateful to MIT, it gave me a stable job, I met a lot of wise people, taught me a lot of things, and my daughter grew up there very well, but I decided to quit anyway.

What everyone should do is not predestined at birth, but what they can do in this life is determined by their own cognition.

MIT is a slow working environment and I'm still young, so I want to be able to grow faster, keep updating my skills, be competitive enough to take on new challenges.

In addition to work, I also work hard to run my own self-media account, hoping to let my experience inspire more friends who are at a low point in their lives.

As long as we can endure pain and walk through darkness, then the burden will become a gift, and the suffering will light our way.

Over the years, I have grown from a young woman who has experienced numerous challenges and lows to a resilient, wise mother and professional.

Although this journey was full of thorns, it taught me that no matter what difficulties I faced, as long as I have the courage to persevere and work tirelessly, there are no obstacles that cannot be overcome.

(Graduate school graduates!) ）

Growing up, the support and love of my family was a force I couldn't ignore. Their companionship and encouragement were key to my ability to stand up in the face of adversity.

Now, as a mother, I hope to pass on this love and courage to my daughter and teach her to never lose hope and enthusiasm in the face of life's challenges.

Life is a long and complicated journey, full of unknowns and variables. But it is these challenges and difficulties that shape our personality and teach us to cherish, be grateful and love.

I believe that as long as we continue to move forward and remain optimistic, life will eventually unfold in the most beautiful way in front of us.

[Dictation: Botun Xiao Li]

[Editor: Xiaoyue Lin Xi]

We can't experience different lives, but we can feel different life trajectories here, every photo here is a bit of life, every story is a real life, if you also like it, please click to follow!

(*This article is based on the oral statements of the parties, and the authenticity is the responsibility of the oral narrator.) Friendly reminder from this account: Please identify the relevant risks by yourself, and do not blindly follow the trend to make impulsive decisions. ）

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Personal opinion, for reference only