三月大男婴入托首日殒命 是谁的错
As he did most mornings of the 117 days of his life, the first thing Karl did that Monday morning in July was to give me a smile like sunlight. He lay in the bed for a while, between his dad and me, looking from one of us to the other, working himself up with gurgles of delight. That morning, which started the same as all his others, would be a little different, however: it was his mommy’s first day back at work.
他出生已经有117天了。7月的一个星期一的早上，和大多数早晨一样，卡尔(Karl)做的第一件事就是给我一个阳光般灿烂的微笑。他在床上躺了一会儿，夹在他爸爸和我之间，轮流看我们，咯咯笑个不停。那个早晨对卡尔来说本没有什么不同，但在一件事上却有那么一点差别：这是他的母亲第一天回去工作。
In comparison with the other new mothers I knew, I felt lucky to have three months’ paid maternity leave after Karl was born. Most of the parents in my community had only weeks before they had to leave their babies to go back to work. But nonetheless, even with three months under our belts and Karl’s neck strong enough to hold himself up, I was uncomfortable with the idea of leaving him. I wanted to be his caregiver longer, until he was a bit bigger. I could see how our time together in this early infancy was of so much value, how being with me every day made him more and more comfortable navigating his new environment. I noticed how he looked to me to learn things and make sense of his world. I could tell how safe and secure he felt. Though it was a hard and tiring time, every minute with Karl felt like an investment in his current and future well-being. Not to mention I was hopelessly tickled with him.
和我认识的其他新妈妈不同，我有幸在生下卡尔以后享受三个月的带薪产假。在我住的社区，大多数父母在有了孩子以后没过几周就要重返工作。不过，即便我们有足足三个月的时间，而卡尔的脖子已经足够强壮，可以支撑他坐直，但一想到要离开他，我仍然感到不安。我希望再照顾他一段时间，直到他再长大些。我明白在卡尔的婴儿期能够与他共处是多么地宝贵。因为与我每一天都在一起，卡尔开始能够自如地探索他的新环境。我注意到他会学着我去感知自己的世界。我看得出来他觉得很安全。尽管养育卡尔很辛苦，也很累，但是我感觉和他在一起的每一分钟都是对他现在和未来的健康成长的一笔投资。更不用说，他常常把我逗得乐不可支。
As the end of my leave drew near, I asked my company for more time off, without pay. I was told by the HR department that there was no system in place that allowed for extending maternity leaves. I went higher up the chain. Just two more months? There was nothing that could be done. The only option would be to quit.
随着我的产假接近尾声，我询问公司能否再休一段时间的假，无薪也没关系。人力资源部告诉我公司制度不允许延长产假。我向更高层反映了这个问题。再给两个月而已，行吗？可是不行。我唯一的选择就是辞职。
I contemplated it. By the time I paid for child care in New York City, I was barely making much take-home pay anyway. But what compounded the financial concern was that if I quit, I would lose our health insurance. Lee, my partner, works freelance and Karl was covered under my work insurance.
我考虑过辞职。当我开始在纽约使用付费托儿服务时，赚到的钱已经不值一提了。但是我们家经济问题的复杂之处在于，如果我辞职，就会丢掉全家的医疗保险。我的伴侣李(Lee)从事自由职业，卡尔得依靠我的工作得到保险。
We are luckier than many: We sat down and did the math and maybe Lee’s wages could cover rent and food for a few months, but certainly not that as well as the cost of health insurance for a family of three, not to mention the portion we would be on the hook for in the case of a medical emergency. On top of that, I was very concerned about losing my job. I don’t have a degree, and though I’ve managed to carve out a position at a publishing company, the memory of the year I spent unemployed, trying unsuccessfully to get my résumé past the algorithms of online applications, loomed large. If I did it again, it would be with a little child in tow.
我们比很多人都要幸运：我们坐下来计算了一番，也许李的报酬可以负担几个月的租金和食物，但是肯定不可能负担三口之家的医疗保险，更不用说遇到紧急状况会出现的债务。此外，我很担心会丢掉自己的工作。我没有学位，虽然在一家出版公司博得了一份工作，但是一想起我失业的那年，简历无法通过在线申请的算法，我就感到压力巨大。如果再次失业，这次我还带着一个小孩。
Lee’s quitting was out of the question. There was no way we could pay all our bills on my salary, which is lower than his.
让李辞职是不可能的。我的工资比他低，不可能支付所有的费用。
So we did the best, most responsible-seeming thing we could think of. After a long search, many waiting lists, interviews and a great deal of angst, we settled on a day care near my workplace. With this day care, I could still go over at lunch and breastfeed Karl, and have a visit with him, so we would never be apart more than a few hours. And the day care was recommended by many moms I knew who had similar circumstances to mine. It felt like a loving, safe space for Karl.
于是，我们做了最好的、看似最负责的选择。经过漫长的搜索、等待、面试和巨大的痛苦之后，我们在我工作地附近找到了一家日间托儿所。这样，我就可以在午餐时去托儿所给卡尔喂奶，陪他一会儿，我们只需要分别几个小时就能见面。这家托儿所是与我有相同处境的熟人妈妈们推荐给我的。我感觉，那里对卡尔来说是一个充满关爱和安全的地方。
I justified it a million ways, as one justifies when one has run out of alternatives. He is an only child and maybe he would like to play with these other children. There are other babies who have been there since they were 6 weeks old, and Karl is 15 weeks. He is strong and has never been sick a day in his life!. It’s not like he’s going to die!
我用了无数种方式为这种选择辩护，就像一个人在没有选择时所作的那样。卡尔没有兄弟姐妹，也许他会想和其他孩子一起玩耍。那里还有一些从六周大就开始送托的孩子，而卡尔已经15周了。他身体很结实，从没生过一天的病！又不是说他会死掉！
But no matter how I tried to make myself feel better, it felt bad.
但不管我多么努力地想让自己好受些，感觉还是很糟糕。
That Monday morning, Lee entertained Karl while I rushed to shower and get his things ready. I put Karl in his baby carrier and his dad and I headed into the city on the subway. I felt propelled down the street, swept into the train, carried along by a system that gave me no choice but to submit to the inevitability of any working mother of an infant in America. For Karl’s part, he was curious and unconcerned, looking around, smiling. In the subway car, someone offered me a seat, and I loosened the straps of the carrier, struggling to get my curious baby to focus on nursing. With this extra bit of subway feeding time, he could arrive with a full stomach. And this extra few minutes of nursing each day would help keep my milk supply up, now that I would be pumping my milk to fill bottles. I pulled up a baby blanket to block the man next to me from seeing my exposed breast on his morning commute.
那个周一的早上，趁着李逗卡尔玩的功夫，我急匆匆地冲澡，给卡尔准备好要用的东西。我把他放在婴儿背带里，带着他和李一起坐地铁往市区里去。我感觉自己被推着走过街道，卷入车厢，被一个系统裹挟着。它让我别无选择，只能屈服于任何一个一边工作一边养育幼儿的美国妈妈都不可避免要做的妥协。卡尔则很好奇，他无忧无虑地四处张望着，微笑着。在地铁里，有人给我让了一个座位，我坐下来松了松背带，竭力让好奇的宝宝专心吃奶。有了这顿额外的奶，他到托儿所的时候就可以饱饱的。而且，既然我打算在上班时间把奶水吸出来保存，有了路上这几分钟的哺乳时间，就可以保持自己的奶水量。我扯起一张婴儿毯，免得坐在我旁边的那名男子在早上通勤时间看到我暴露着的胸部。
We arrived at the day care by 9:30. The day-care assistant came to Karl with arms outstretched and said, “Hola!” Karl studied her face and flashed a big smile. The day-care owner told a joke that was probably told to all new parents dropping their babies off on the first day: The worst thing that could happen was he would get hit by a fire truck — since once a toddler had hit a baby with a toy truck on his first day. I felt reassured. This was what everyone did, how everyone felt.
我们在9点半到了日托中心。托儿所的助手一边伸出手臂向卡尔走过来，一边用西班牙语招呼，“欧啦！”卡尔仔细看了看她的脸，亮出灿烂的微笑。托儿所的老板讲了一个可能对所有第一天入托的小孩家长都讲过的笑话：最糟的情况也不过是他被消防车撞到，因为曾经有一个小孩在入托第一天用辆玩具消防车碰到了一个婴儿。我感到安心了一点。所有人都是这么做的，大家感受都一样。
I returned to the day care at 12:15 to nurse Karl. I was so excited to see him, I ran the two blocks there from the office. As I took the stairs by twos to the second floor, I noticed that the door to the day care was propped open. It seemed odd to me — that they would leave the door open, with so many toddlers inside. I walked around the corner, expecting to pick up my son, feel his chubby rolls, see his face light up at the sight of his mommy.
12点15分的时候，我回到托儿所，打算给卡尔喂奶。我从办公室跑了两个街区过来，迫不及待地想见到他。大踏步迈上楼梯，来到二层，我注意到日托中心的门是开的。这在我看来有些怪异，里面有那么多小孩，他们怎么会把门开着。我走过墙角，期待抱起自己的儿子，摸摸他圆滚滚的手臂，看他在见到妈妈时满心欢喜的样子。
Instead, I saw my son unconscious, splayed out on a soft changing table. His lips and the area around his mouth were blue, and the day-care owner was performing CPR on him, incorrectly.
但我看到的却是，儿子毫无知觉地躺在一个软尿布台上，四肢松弛。他的嘴唇和唇周乌青，托儿所老板正在给他做心肺复苏，动作还是错误的。
Our sweet son died two and a half hours after the first time I had left him.
我亲爱的儿子在我第一次离开他的两个半小时后就死了。
Would Karl have died if he had been with me that morning? The medical examiner finished her report last week and the conclusion is: undetermined.
如果那个上午他是和我在一起，还会死吗？法医上周出具了尸检报告，结论是：无法确定。
What is determined is that at 11:50 a.m. the day-care assistant saw my baby kicking his legs and brought it to the attention of the day-care owner. The day-care owner dismissed the assistant, telling her not to go over to check him. “Babies kick their legs in their sleep all the time,” she said. Twenty minutes later, my baby was dead. If the day-care assistant had gone over and picked him up, checked on him, would Karl be alive? I don’t know. The day-care owner had also put Karl down to sleep on his side, which is a known unsafe sleep position. Had he been put down on his back to sleep, would he be alive? I don’t know.
能确定的是，上午11点50分，托儿所的助手看到宝宝在蹬腿，并向老板汇报了。但老板把助手打发走了，告诉她不需要过去查看孩子的情况。“婴儿一向都会在睡觉的时候踢腿，”她说。20分钟后，我的孩子就死了。如果助手过去把他抱起来，看看他是怎么了，卡尔会现在还活着吗？我不知道。托儿所老板还让卡尔侧睡。这是一个众所周知的不安全的睡姿。如果是平躺着睡觉，他会现在还活着吗？我还是不知道。
I will have to live with questioning this for the rest of my life.
我的余生都不得不忍受这些问题的煎熬。
What I do know is that had I been with my 3-month-old son, I would have gone over and checked on him at that moment. What I also know is that my son would have been safely on his back to sleep, if not sleeping on me, as he loved to do on all our days home together.
我知道的是，如果当时在3个月大的儿子身边，我会走过去，看看他怎么了。我还知道，在家的时候儿子总是喜欢睡在我身上，如果不是在我身上，他也是安全地平躺着睡的。
Regardless of the answers I will never have, the question I now ask is: Should parents have to play this roulette with their weeks-old infant? To do all they can possibly do to ensure that their baby is safe, only to be relying on a child-care worker’s competence or attentiveness or mood that day?
不管我永远都无从得知的答案是什么，我现在想问的是：家长必须用几个月大的孩子来打这种赌吗？想要尽一切可能确保孩子的安全，不料却要依赖托儿所工作人员的能力、专注程度或当天的心情？
This article isn’t about day-care safety. This isn’t an indictment of the company I work for; I had one of the better parental leave policies of anyone I know. What this article is about is that my infant died in the care of a stranger, when he should have been with me. Our culture demanded it.
本文说的不是托儿所的安全问题，也不是对我所在公司的声讨。在认识的人当中，我享受的产假政策是比较好的。本文要说的是，在孩子本应和我在一起时，我却让陌生人照看他，而孩子就在这期间殒命。这是我们的文化造成的。
A mother should never have no choice but to leave her infant with a stranger at 3 months old if that decision doesn’t feel right to her. Or at 6 weeks old. Or 3 weeks old. I would have stayed home with Karl longer, but there just didn’t seem to be a way. And I knew well enough that a million other mothers in America before me had faced the same choice and had done the same, even earlier than I had, though it tortured them emotionally, or physically, to do so.
如果自己觉得不妥，母亲永远都不应该别无选择地把3个月大的孩子留给陌生人照顾。6周大的孩子也一样。3周大的孩子还是一样。我想要多在家里待一段时间，照顾卡尔，但当时觉得根本没办法这么做。我清楚地知道，在我之前，美国有成千上万的母亲面临同样的问题，并作出了同样的选择，甚至比我还早，尽管这么做让她们在情绪和身体上备受折磨。
Of course, had I conceived in my wildest nightmare that leaving Karl might mean losing him, I would have sacrificed anything. I would have quit my job. I would have carried him around on my back collecting recycling cans and bottles. Endured any economic hardship. List all the wildest alternatives, you’re not coming up with anything that isn’t on my list of “if onlies.” But the sad truth is, even though I am possibly one of the world’s most imaginatively anxious mothers, I never thought of the possibility that my baby would die that morning. And no wonder, because unexplained infant death is rare, and parental leave in the vast majority of cases is not an issue of life and death. But I am now asking: Why, why does a parent in this country have to sacrifice her job, her ability to provide her child with proper health care —- or for many worse off than me, enough food to eat — to buy just a few more months to nurture a child past the point of vulnerability?
当然，如果从最荒诞的噩梦里得知离开卡尔可能意味着失去他，我愿意牺牲一切。我会辞职。我会把他背在背上捡瓶瓶罐罐去回收利用。熬过一切经济困难。即便列出所有荒诞至极的选择，也不会出现我这个“要是”清单上所没有的。但悲哀的事实是，尽管或许是全世界最容易因胡思乱想而焦虑的母亲之一，我却从来没想到过那天早上我的孩子可能会离开人世。这也不足为奇，因为原因不明的婴儿死亡事件鲜有发生，而且绝大部分情况下，产假都不会关系到生死。但我现在却要问：为什么，为什么我们国家的母亲不得不牺牲工作，牺牲为孩子提供恰当的照顾——或者对很多情况比我差的人来说则是为孩子提供足够的食物——的能力，才能换来多出可怜巴巴的那么几个月的时间来养育孩子，度过他们易受伤害的那个时间点？
I wasn’t just up against the end of my parental leave. I was up against an entire culture that places very little value on caring for infants and small children. Parental leave reduces infant death, gives us healthier, more well-adjusted adults and helps women stay in the workforce. If we truly valued the 47 percent of the work force who are women, and the value of our families, things would look different. Mothers could go back to work after taking time off to recover physically from birth and bond with their young children. Health care could be available to bridge that return to work so that our children could get their wellness checkups and vaccinations.
当时，我对抗的不只是产假结束，而是几乎不怎么重视照顾婴幼儿的整体文化。产假减少了婴儿的死亡，让社会上的成年人更健康、更能适应环境，且有助于让女性留在职场。假如我们真心重视占劳动力大军47%的女性，真心重视家庭，事情就应当看上去有所不同。母亲生完孩子后应该可以休假恢复身体，和小宝宝建立感情，然后再回去上班。应有医疗保健服务来弥合妈妈回去工作后的影响，这样就有人给我们的孩子检查身体，接种疫苗。
Yes, it’s possible that even in a different system, Karl still might not have lived a day longer, but had he had been with me, where I wanted him, I wouldn’t be sitting here, living with the nearly incapacitating anguish of a question that has no answer.
诚然，即便在另一个不同的制度里，卡尔或许依然不会多活一天。但如果他是和我在一起，是在我想让他待的地方，我此刻就不会坐在这里，承受着一个没有答案的问题带来的痛苦。这种痛苦让我几乎无法自理。
There are plenty of good examples of how to create a national parental leave system that works. Our children can’t afford lobbyists. It’s up to us parents to demand more.
关于如何在全国范围内制定一个行之有效的产假制度，好的范例有很多。我们的孩子请不起说客。因此当由我们做父母的提出更多诉求。
