{"id":2651,"date":"2011-02-21T14:18:02","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T22:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janaremy.com\/?p=2651"},"modified":"2011-02-21T14:18:02","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T22:18:02","slug":"travelers-tales-divorced-with-two-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2011\/02\/21\/travelers-tales-divorced-with-two-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Traveler’s Tales: “Divorced with two children”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another post in the series of Traveler’s Tales<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

A Guest Post by Jeanne<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When my sons were small, I used to tell people I was divorced with two children. Full stop. End of story.<\/p>\n

Of course, people who knew us wondered how I got one Asian child and one pale-skinned red head with only one husband. When I mentioned that Older Son was adopted, that usually satisfied their curiosity.<\/p>\n

But then if I happened to mention my years in Japan, and the fact that my ex-husband was Japanese, the cat was usually well out of the bag, and many people would ask me directly at this point … and I didn’t blame them.<\/p>\n

Our family story is complicated, but perhaps not much more than most: I married a Japanese man when I was studying in Hawaii (an M.A. in Japanese language from the U of Hawaii). After a few years in Berkeley to get a second master’s in journalism, my husband and I went to Japan, where we adopted the boy I call Older Son. He is now 26 and well on his way to success in all aspects of his life. (Note my maternal pride.)<\/p>\n

Fast forward five years, to a divorce (my idea) and my return to the states with Older Son in tow. We settled in Chico, CA, for a year, where I taught journalism and public speaking and Older Son attended a daycare where–for most of his time there–he was the only child who wasn’t white. There were scarcely any kids who weren’t BLOND. I knew this wasn’t going to work for us long-term.<\/p>\n

During this time, I met the tall, blond research scientist who was to become the father of Younger Son. This pregnancy was an accident, but I call it a “happy accident”–I had never been pregnant before and I welcomed the pregnancy and sailed through it happily despite my situation as a (by then) unemployed single mother living on my savings from the Tokyo years.<\/p>\n

We returned to Seattle, close to my birthplace of Tacoma and the town where I grew up, Hoquiam, WA. And I raised my sons alone. No, it wasn’t easy. But I was an older mother (30 when I adopted Older Son, 35 when I gave birth to Younger Son), and I would do it again.<\/p>\n

Next time I’ll elaborate on my life as a single working mother, especially after my diagnosis with breast cancer when my sons were 13 and 8.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here’s my blog:\u00a0http:\/\/assertivecancerpatient.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another post in the series of Traveler’s Tales A Guest Post by Jeanne When my sons were small, I used to tell people I was divorced with two children. Full stop. End of story. Of course, people who knew us wondered how I got one Asian child and one pale-skinned red head with only one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travelers-tales","category-women"],"yoast_head":"\nTraveler's Tales: "Divorced with two children" - PilgrimSteps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.janaremy.com\/pilgrimsteps\/2011\/02\/21\/travelers-tales-divorced-with-two-children\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Traveler's Tales: "Divorced with two children" - PilgrimSteps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Another post in the series of Traveler’s Tales A Guest Post by Jeanne When my sons were small, I used to tell people I was divorced with two children. 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