My ayi doesn't love my kids–and that's a good thing

Recently, one of my friends left Beijing taking her husband and two children with her. The youngest was raised with two mothers—my friend and my friend’s ayi. This bi-maternal relationship is no doubt nothing new to you, and while it’s often an enviable situation, it’s also fraught with “issues.”

After the birth of her second son in Beijing, my friend was lucky enough to find an ayi who was somewhat relaxed about raising babies "the Chinese way." I’ve heard of battles greater than Waterloo between moms and ayis on the “best” way to raise a baby, so my friend was relatively lucky. The baby was raised bilingual. He was toilet trained the Chinese way and sleep-educated the Western way. It was the best of both worlds. The baby thrived. He had a big brother, a loving dad and two devoted moms. It was a happy picture, except that one mom was semi-permanent.

When the family said goodbye to their ayi, it was the most heart-wrenching, distressing, emotional trainwreck on this side of reality TV. I saw Ayi just the other day and she still has dark circles under her eyes and a hole in her heart. She haunts internet cafés for a glimpse of the toddler by email, and clutches a dog-eared photo of his face. Back home, the toddler was initially a nightmare but is adjusting slowly, while still pining for Mama Ayi. Re-establishing completely Western routines has also been a problem.

When we hired our ayi three years ago, I kept things professional. To be honest, she is neither the most maternal nor the most sentimental of women, and my kids were old enough to skip the baby-bonding time. Our ayi is good to them—firm and occasionally even fun. But there is no real love there.

This actually makes me happy and somewhat relieved. I'm not sure that developing a deep attachment is the right thing. It’s going to rip my heart in two to leave Beijing eventually but at least I won’t have an extra three broken hearts to deal with.

Tania McCartney