Luo Gang’s wife, Zhang Anhui, gave birth to a boy. The couple lost their 11-year-old girl last year. “We were in a bad way after the earthquake. . . . Now, we are better,” Luo said. “A new life has been created to take the place of the one that was taken away.” A year after the tragedy in Sichuan, couples who lost an only child are rebuilding their families for emotional and economic reasons.
By Barbara Demick May 3, 2009
Reporting from Mianzhu, China -- Ten months and 25 days after he buried his only child, Luo Gang became a father again at a makeshift hospital cobbled out of aluminum trailers.For weeks after his 11-year-old daughter was killed in last May's massive earthquake here in Sichuan province, his wife cried so uncontrollably that her family feared she might be having a breakdown.
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"If you don't have another baby, my sister will be grieving her whole life," Luo said his brother-in-law advised him.Luo said he was shocked by the tactlessness of the suggestion."We were in a bad way after the earthquake. My wife couldn't stop crying," recalled Luo, a 35-year-old welder, his eyes sunken deep with fatigue after a long night waiting for his wife to give birth to their son. He spoke outside the hospital room where his perfect little baby, born a few hours before, lay wrapped in bunting in a metal bassinet next to his mother, both sleeping contentedly.
"Now, we are better. A new life has been created to take the place of the one that was taken away."
FOR THE RECORD:An earlier version of this article credited the photograph of the Luo family in a hospital room to Barbara Demick. Leo Chen was the photographer.
To say that survivors of the May 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 70,000 people, are recovering would be premature, given that many are still living in tents and searching for the remains of their loved ones.But thousands of couples in their 30s and 40s, most of whom lost their only children, have decided they cannot afford to wait.The result is a bittersweet baby boom, the joy of each birth tempered by the rawness of the recent loss."Chinese people are very practical," said a maternity nurse at the Mianzhu City Hospital. The nurse, who did not wish to be quoted by name, said that eight of the 70 mothers in the maternity ward had lost children in the earthquake.Nobody likes to use the term "replacement baby," which sounds callous, but many of the newborns in Sichuan wouldn't exist if not for the deaths of their siblings in the earthquake, given China's one-child policy.In Mianzhu, 50 women who lost children in the quake have given birth and 400 are pregnant, said Song Tao, director of family planning for the town.Family planning officials, who enforce the limits on family size, are encouraging couples who lost their only child to have another. The government is paying for fertility counseling, operations to reverse vasectomies and tubal ligations, as well as removals of intrauterine devices, the most common form of birth control in China.The motives are not purely humanitarian. The government needs to quell resentment over its unpopular limits on family size. Sichuan has long been a battleground over the policy, with the government strictly enforcing the one-child limit. (In many other parts of China, farmers can have a second child if the first is a girl, but not in Sichuan.)Among Sichuan's predominantly rural population, most people have no retirement plans other than the long-ingrained Chinese tradition that children care for their elders."The earthquake very much highlights the vulnerability of the one-child policy," said Gu Baochang, a professor of demographics at People's University in Beijing."These people are not covered by any social security program. They rely completely on their children for elderly support. And it's not just money. Once they are old, without children they have no place in society."It might sound calculating, but the death of a child is an economic as well as emotional catastrophe for many Chinese couples.
By Barbara Demick May 3, 2009
Reporting from Mianzhu, China -- Ten months and 25 days after he buried his only child, Luo Gang became a father again at a makeshift hospital cobbled out of aluminum trailers.For weeks after his 11-year-old daughter was killed in last May's massive earthquake here in Sichuan province, his wife cried so uncontrollably that her family feared she might be having a breakdown.
China's school tragedy
China quake toll
China quake survivors still wait for word
China mountainside holds untold number of quake dead
"If you don't have another baby, my sister will be grieving her whole life," Luo said his brother-in-law advised him.Luo said he was shocked by the tactlessness of the suggestion."We were in a bad way after the earthquake. My wife couldn't stop crying," recalled Luo, a 35-year-old welder, his eyes sunken deep with fatigue after a long night waiting for his wife to give birth to their son. He spoke outside the hospital room where his perfect little baby, born a few hours before, lay wrapped in bunting in a metal bassinet next to his mother, both sleeping contentedly.
"Now, we are better. A new life has been created to take the place of the one that was taken away."
FOR THE RECORD:An earlier version of this article credited the photograph of the Luo family in a hospital room to Barbara Demick. Leo Chen was the photographer.
To say that survivors of the May 12 earthquake, which killed an estimated 70,000 people, are recovering would be premature, given that many are still living in tents and searching for the remains of their loved ones.But thousands of couples in their 30s and 40s, most of whom lost their only children, have decided they cannot afford to wait.The result is a bittersweet baby boom, the joy of each birth tempered by the rawness of the recent loss."Chinese people are very practical," said a maternity nurse at the Mianzhu City Hospital. The nurse, who did not wish to be quoted by name, said that eight of the 70 mothers in the maternity ward had lost children in the earthquake.Nobody likes to use the term "replacement baby," which sounds callous, but many of the newborns in Sichuan wouldn't exist if not for the deaths of their siblings in the earthquake, given China's one-child policy.In Mianzhu, 50 women who lost children in the quake have given birth and 400 are pregnant, said Song Tao, director of family planning for the town.Family planning officials, who enforce the limits on family size, are encouraging couples who lost their only child to have another. The government is paying for fertility counseling, operations to reverse vasectomies and tubal ligations, as well as removals of intrauterine devices, the most common form of birth control in China.The motives are not purely humanitarian. The government needs to quell resentment over its unpopular limits on family size. Sichuan has long been a battleground over the policy, with the government strictly enforcing the one-child limit. (In many other parts of China, farmers can have a second child if the first is a girl, but not in Sichuan.)Among Sichuan's predominantly rural population, most people have no retirement plans other than the long-ingrained Chinese tradition that children care for their elders."The earthquake very much highlights the vulnerability of the one-child policy," said Gu Baochang, a professor of demographics at People's University in Beijing."These people are not covered by any social security program. They rely completely on their children for elderly support. And it's not just money. Once they are old, without children they have no place in society."It might sound calculating, but the death of a child is an economic as well as emotional catastrophe for many Chinese couples.
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