'I Will Never Not Cry': Woman Finds Mom's Heartbreaking Diary Entries On China's One-Child Policy

The world was shocked when?China imposed its one-child policy on its citizens back in 1980. The police restricted couples in the country from having more than one child in an aggressive drive to curb the multiplying population in the country.?

Woman Stumbles Upon Mom's Diary Entries From China's One-Child Policy Era

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The policy was not only an order that was to be simply followed by the citizens, but it also came with punishments like fines for the violators and often forced people to consider abortions. The policy finally came to an official end in January 2016 when a two-child policy was launched which was soon followed by a three-child policy in 2021.

The imposition of the policy surely came with a load of trauma for the people of the country, who had to give up their newborn children in order to avoid violator status. A Chinese woman, Chenchen Zhang, recently found her mother’s heartbreaking diary entries from the time.?

She shared glimpses of the diary entries written in Chinese with the public on Twitter and wrote, “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.”

The Mother Documented The Details Of The Traumatic Departure In The Diary

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The diary documented the hurt from three decades ago, when the woman had to give up her child. She writes that before sending her daughter to her mother, she could breastfeed "one more time—the last time in her life." The daughter, who was one and a half years old at the time, cried too as her sister departed from the family.

Zhang revealed, "My sister did come back to us when she was around 5 or 6 yo. But I know this hurts forever." She also shared pictures of another page from the diary, which is soaked in her mother’s tears from thirty years ago. She noted in another tweet that "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."