Letters from Taiwan

A Sad Tale of Bad Parenting

This news today is a follow up from a few months ago:

A case in which an extra-marital affair was exposed by biology class material was won by the husband, with the cheating wife ordered to pay NT$3.2 million (US$109,000) in compensation, the Taipei District Court said in a ruling on Friday. The incident arose last March when the husband, surnamed Wang (王), and his then 14-year- old son, who has growth hormone deficiency, had been reviewing a chapter on genetics in his son’s biology textbook. Wang’s son realized that it was impossible for Wang — who has type AB blood — to be his biological father, because he has type O blood. Wang took his son for a DNA test and discovered that his son and daughter, who was 21 years old at the time, were not his biological children. Wang filed for divorce and disowned his son and daughter last year, with Wu having to pay NT$1 million to Wang.

I get that Wang is upset that he was cuckolded but why then disown children you raised for a total of 21 years?  Especially when ….

According to the ruling, Wang had been in a high-level position at his company when he learned of his son’s disease, and he quit his job so he could care for his child. Wang knew that his son would suffer discrimination due to his condition and accompanied his son to his school functions, as well as often taking him out in public.

eh? You go to those lengths to care for a child which means you obviously have a strong bond with the child, as I imagine the child has with you, and then you disown them?  But it gets sadder still …

“This happened after I was wed to Wu for barely two years, destroying my family and causing its members to suffer the shame of social scrutiny,” Wang said in a court testimony, adding that Wu should be held responsible.

Maybe I just can’t relate to a culture in which you view yourself as object only validated and affirmed through other people’s eyes but Wang’s claim that it caused the members of his family to suffer the shame of social scrutiny is brutal egotism and selfishness on his part.  What does he care about ‘the family’ now that he has disowned it?  What he means is that it caused him shame as he tormented himself by imagining other people to be judging him.  Perhaps part of that ‘shame’ came from the counter accusations his former wife Wu threw at him:

Meanwhile, Wu denied Wang’s charges and said that Wang had an affair with his secretary, was addicted to majhong and had not contributed financially to the family.“I shouldered the entire cost of the children’s living expenses and tuition fees,” she said. Wu also alleged that Wang had borrowed NT$500,000 from a colleague and that she had to repay the colleague, adding that her monthly wages amounted to only NT$40,000. She asked the judge to decrease the damages.

Sounds a bit like ‘If I go down I’m taking you with me”. These accusations were apparently quickly refuted by the ‘daughter’:

However, after the judge summoned the daughter and son for testimony, the daughter said that all expenses — gas, electricity, rent and cram school fees — had been paid out of Wang’s pocket. He often had to borrow money from relatives, she said, adding that after selling the house for NT$5 million six years ago to repay all the debts, the family had been living off what was left from the sale of the house.

One thing that strikes me about this case as extremely sad is how the children will have suffered.  Once loving parents have now be rent asunder and children have been disowned, for the crime of existing with a slightly different genetic heritage.  Also, they have to endure headlines like the one in this article that labels them as ‘illegitimate’.  I hate that word.  Governments are illegitimate, not children.  How can a living breathing person be described as having legitimacy? What the hell does that even mean? How callous is that?.