Shelley Seale, mother and author, shares her story of penning and parenting

as told by Butterfly co-founder, Bradi Nathan

I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the movie Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven’t, do so. As a mother, the movie may elicit overwhelming pain and sorrow. It may move you to tears or force you to take action. It’s the amazing story of a boy’s parentless journey through India. It is a tale of survival and strength as he travels through life, ending with a most unexpected turn of events.

Slumdog Millionaire is a fictional movie ending with a bizarre twist of fate. However, the non-fiction aspect lies in the fact that 25 million children currently live in India without parents.
And, if the directors and producers ever needed someone to back up this fact, Shelley Seale is their woman.

Shelley, mother and author, has most recently published a narrative non-fiction book called The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India. The book follows her journey into orphanages and through the streets and slums of India where millions of kids live without families. In an exclusive interview with Shelley, she shares her story of penning and parenting:

BN: How do you involve your daughter in your work?

SS: I first got involved with The Miracle Foundation, a nonprofit based in Austin Texas that funds and manages orphanages in India, in late 2004. At that time, my daughter Chandler was a 14-year-old junior high student. Like most typical teenagers, she paid little attention to my volunteer work with the organization, which consisted of writing and designing a new newsletter, grant writing and helping out at fundraising events. When I began sponsoring a child who lived at the foundation’s home in Orissa, she became more interested; but she wasn’t completely intrigued by the work being done until I began planning my first trip to India with Caroline Boudreaux, who started The Miracle Foundation.

When I returned from that trip, in March 2005, Chandler was pretty excited and enthralled by my photographs and the stories I told her. It was during that trip, getting to know the children and the stories behind how each of them had wound up in the orphanage, that I decided to begin writing a book about their lives. I had assumed they were all orphans in the true sense of the word – their parents had died – and was shocked by how many of them had been “orphaned” by poverty; their parents had left them at the Miracle Foundation home because they were too poor to feed them.

That fall of 2005, Chandler started at a new private high school that was very progressive, featuring a Global Citizen class and a spring “project week,” in which students were given a week off regular class schedules to complete a project of their own design. Some students made videos or art projects, others did community service. Between the school’s focus on social and political issues and living in Austin among a set of friends with broad viewpoints of the world, Chandler decided that her project week would be India – going on the volunteer trip and compiling a photo journal of the experience.

I had already been seriously considering taking her on my next trip, which I was planning for March 2006. At dinner in our safe and cozy house I looked at her, not really a child anymore at fifteen but still in need of a mother, a home. I thought about how it would feel to be unable to feed her, how either of us would bear it if I had to let her go because I lacked the bare necessities required to put a roof over her head and a meal in her stomach. Then I wondered how she would possibly survive if that were the case and she was five instead of fifteen, left by herself on the streets in India or in Austin, anywhere. I simply could not imagine it, but I knew many thousands of children were doing just that at the very moment. It was hard for me not to compare our lives to those of the children in the orphanage.

Chandler already had a broader sense of the world than I had at her age, and a compassionate nature. I yearned to foster that seed in her. I thought, what an incredible blessing it would be for a person to grow into adulthood without the blinders, without the sense that the small corner of the world she knew was the only one there was. I knew Chandler would be enriched by the experience, and I also knew it was a gift she would not take lightly. And so I returned to India exactly one year after my first trip, with Chandler in tow. It was such an amazing journey for both of us. The look on her face our first day with the children beat any day I had ever spent with her in my life, after the day she was born.

BN: What type of role model do you hope to be?

SS: I would hope to be a role model to Chandler for compassion and justice; for losing the sense of entitlement that seems so prevalent in our culture, and realizing that 80% of the world lives in vastly different circumstances where the same opportunities are not available. For being curious and open about the rest of the world and how other people live, think and feel. To not take for granted the things we are fortunate enough to have and realize that the human experience is a shared one.

Also, I hope I can be a role model for following your passions in life, for doing what you love and loving what you do. Creating a life and work that have meaning is the most rewarding thing I can think of, and the thing that keeps most people from doing that is fear; fear of not following the herd and living life the way everyone else lives it or someone else thinks you should live.

BN: There is so much poverty and plight in this nation… what drew you to India?

SS: This is one of the most frequent questions I’m asked: Why India? You’re right, there is much poverty and need in the U.S., and we must all be aware and active in the struggles against poverty, racism, sexism, social inequities and other challenges that create vast problems right here at home. I believe that, and I am also involved in a huge amount of work on behalf of foster children and children’s rights in the U.S.; I donate much money to these causes and volunteer hundreds of hours a year here at home. I truly believe it is all our obligation as citizens.

As far as India…I suppose in a way I was drawn there after I got involved with The Miracle Foundation in Austin. Caroline invited me to go, and I didn’t hesitate. I had entertained notions in the past of volunteering at a Russian or Romanian orphanage, or teaching English to children in rural Japan. At the time they had all seemed far-flung and impractical ideas, but really I’d never done it because I had no real personal connection to any of those places, or the people and organizations who worked in them.

Once I got involved and then traveled to India and the orphanages myself, and began researching the issues for my book, the vast differences between children’s issues and lives in the two countries were glaring. Extreme poverty in India is not the same as poverty in the United States. And there are very little, if any, safety nets for the children who fall through the cracks. Although we have vast problems as well, millions of children in the U.S. aren’t threatened by malaria and tuberculosis, denied their entire educations or trafficked – sold into factories or domestic labor if they’re lucky, to brothels if they’re not.

The stories I have related in this book do not belong to me. They were given to me as a gift, often because I was the only person who had ever asked.

BN: What are some of your proudest moments as a mother?

SS: I would have to say that some of my very proudest moments have been surrounding Chandler’s involvement with the orphanage. She never once complained about the heat, the dirt, the food, the place we stayed…you have to know that this was not Mumbai, this was a tiny, poverty-stricken, rural village. She didn’t want to come home and cried when we left – as we drove away from the orphanage on our last night, at the hotel, on the airplane.

One of my most proud moments, though, was after we arrived home. She looked at all the stuff in her room, and then came to me and said, “I feel like I have too much stuff. I just want to give half of it away.”

BN: What do you hope the readers “take away” from your book?

SS: Two things. First of all, that even though the topic is serious and the stories often heartbreaking, it is NOT a depressing book or subject! These kids, and their stories, are incredible and awe-inspiring, hopeful and inspirational. In my journeys over the last three years into the orphanages, slums, clinics and streets of India I have become immersed in dozens of children’s lives. Their hope and resilience amazed me time and time again; the ability of their spirits to overcome crippling challenges inspired me. Even in the most deprived circumstances they are still kids – they laugh and play, they develop strong bonds and relationships to create family where none exists; and most of all they have an enormous amount of love to give. The issues are tough, what has happened to a lot of these kids makes you want to cry – but the bottom line of their stories is a very strong, hopeful voice.

Second, just to get involved and do something; to realize that just a little bit can move mountains. Too often, I think the natural inclination of most of us in the face of some of the large problems in the world is to become overwhelmed and throw up our hands in despair. They seem insurmountable. But the truth is, the smallest actions can make the biggest difference in JUST ONE PERSON’S LIFE, and if you can affect one person’s life, it is the world to THAT person. Most of us could never sell all our belongings and go work in the trenches in India, but that doesn’t mean we should think, then, that we can’t do anything at all. Amazing things can be done that aren’t difficult at all. A reader doesn’t even have to come away from my book and do something about India – I think the key is to discover what YOU are passionate about, what you have genuine feelings and caring about – and then do something about THAT issue. But just do SOMETHING.

BN: Where do you think your travels will take you next?

SS: Well, I am currently planning another trip to India this fall. I will, of course, be volunteering in the Miracle Foundation orphanages in Orissa, and also visiting many other children’s homes and friends I have gotten to know and love over the past five years of my work there. I just received a letter from my Indian “papa” this week, with pictures of the kids, and I miss them so much!

BN: How has your daughter been affected by your work?

SS: She tells me she’s proud of me all the time! If she was my biggest fan, that would be most important to me. I think, and hope, that the way she’s been affected is by seeing me working on something that’s bigger than us, that’s outside us, and helping to raise awareness for these kids. And, of course, it has caused her to be one of the hugest Indophiles I have ever known!

BN: What are some of the challenges you face in being a mother, writer and advocate at the same time?

SS: On a small-scale, day to day basis I’d have to say the thing that probably is the biggest challenge of all working mothers, and that is juggling the things that must be done and having enough time for it all.

Specifically, in my line of work and the issues I write and advocate about, I would say that being a mother has caused things that I have witnessed to affect me in a very profound way. I have looked into the absolutely haunted, vacant eyes of street children or HIV-positive kids and seen the eyes of my own daughter staring back at me. I think it’s perhaps even more soul-rending to see children suffering when you are a mother yourself.

BN: Do you have any advice for women who want to engage their children in efforts to raise awareness about important issues?

SS: Well, it really depends on a child’s age. With really young children, say under ten years old, it’s best to do it on a very small scale and in a simple, relatable way. For example, when my daughter was small we used to go to the giving tree or angel tree at the mall and select a girl who was Chandler’s age to buy gifts for. Chandler got to pick out the presents and she was really excited that she got to do the shopping, and they were going to a little girl who otherwise wouldn’t be getting anything for the holidays.

For adolescents and teenagers, the last thing that ever works is lecturing! I remember as a kid getting the whole “there are starving children in Cambodia” speech – and nothing about it ever really registered with me. I think kids relate to something another kid their age might be going through in another part of the world. Maybe sponsoring a child that is their age, and letting your son or daughter exchange letters with another kid halfway around the world is really educational and enlightening. Travel is always one of the best ways, if you can make it happen. And you don’t have to go to India! As we discussed before, there is plenty of need in our own backyard – try volunteering with your child building a Habitat for Humanity house one weekend, or serve at the local homeless shelter on Thanksgiving day. Making it personal and real is the key.

BN: Does your daughter want to continue on a similar path as you?

SS:Chandler is 19 now and is in her first year of college, at an art school in Portland. She doesn’t have any interest in becoming a writer, but she definitely has the creative bug. She is an excellent photographer, in fact won a state-wide high school photography competition with a black and white film photo she took and developed herself, of a tree in Central Park, New York. She loves all the textile arts as well and is very interested in painting and sculpting. She would love to get into photography professionally and has also talked about maybe becoming an art teacher or an art therapist with children. I think those are all great ideas – if she follows her passions she can’t go wrong!

BN: Who has inspired you on your journey?

SS: So many people! From a very early age, my grandparents and parents always inspired me. I have the most wonderful, close, loving family who has always supported me unconditionally. It’s an amazing gift, which is why it breaks my heart to see other children go through life without that.

On the journey of this book and India, there were a lot of people along the way who inspired me and have become my heroes. Caroline Boudreaux was the first one – this woman gave up a very successful television-advertising career after meeting a group of orphans, by chance, on one evening – and dedicated the rest of her life to supporting them and ensuring their fundamental rights. Dr. Manjeet Pardesi, her Director of Operations in India, has a similar story – he left behind a successful accounting business in Delhi to open and run an orphanage and home for unwed mothers hundreds of miles away.

Outside of the social workers and professionals, there were so many people who awed me with the lives they laid bare to me. One woman in particular in Vijayawada in Central India, named Durgamma. This woman lives in a slum village that has been completely devastated by AIDS, which has wiped out a large portion of the middle generation there. What it has left behind are dozens of families in which grandparents are raising their grandchildren, after their own children have died of AIDS. This type of household is so prevalent there that the women have developed “Granny Clubs” to support each other. Durgamma is trying her best to raise her two young grandsons – one of whom is HIV-positive. She is a stooped, elderly woman who can barely walk, and yet she may be one of the strongest women I have ever met.

BN: What are you most passionate about?

SS: Children’s rights and India. As a country- its whole essence of being. It is an astonishing place full of history, grand architecture, magnificent natural beauty and some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. Although my book took me often to the dark side of India, during my journeys and research the beautiful India constantly showed itself, even in the most difficult places. It is an extraordinarily wonderful place and I encourage anyone who has the chance to visit.

Outside of that, writing and reading – I can’t get enough of either. And travel. The more places I go, the more I want to go. Exploring the world will never leave my blood.

BN: You also contribute to dozens of publications and website. Where might we read your work?

SS: I have been a regular contributor to The Examiner, Travel Intelligence, Mothers Fighting for Others, Andrew Harper Traveler Magazine, Travel Roads and others. My work on this topic has also been published in American Chronicle, Intrepid Travel, InfoChange India, Go World Travel Magazine and Europe News, among others. If you go to my website at www.shelleyseale.com you can see my portfolio of articles and places I am published. To read more about The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, or the topic of children’s rights and vulnerable children in India, you can visit http://weightofsilence.wordpress.com.

BN: If you could ask our “Butterflies” to do one thing, what would it be?

SS: Give these children a voice by reading their stories. And, as I said before, find something that is “your thing” and take action to make a difference in someone’s life. Remember, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

BN: If you had one wish what would it be?

SS: That there was never a reason for me to have written this book in the first place – that as I sit here and complete this interview, there aren’t currently 25 million children living in orphanages or on the streets in India. All lives, no matter where they are lived, have equal value. All children are born with fundamental rights – to food, clean water, medical care, education, and a home. It’s up to us to ensure those rights – as well as that most basic of rights – a childhood. Once it’s gone, that childhood can never be regained. Let’s not wait until it is too late.

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