In Chinese tradition, men are expected to be breadwinners, while women rear family`s children. Even through women may also earn a certain part of the family income, their career was been seen as secondary. But now the tradition has been changed.
There are only a small percentage of the young families still live along traditional lines – women as homemaker and man as breadwinner. However, here is another phenomenon: women has equal opportunity to education and work without question, but they may suffer more stress to balance the family and career.
According to a survey in the International Big Data Industry Summit in 2015, 62% of the women surveyed said they shared the role of breadwinner. In addition, 8% of them said herself was the only breadwinner. Consequently, more and more Chinese mothers choose to go out to work after having a baby, leaving the kids at home raising by grandparents or babysitter.
In research that posted 5000 questionnaires to Chinese married couples, 62% of respondent said they would not consider being a full-time mother. Two-thirds of men said they don’t want their wife to become a full-time mother. The life pressure factor is the main cause. The need to spend time with children is the main reason why women choose to be a full-time mother. More than 90% of people think that it`s difficult for stay-at-home mothers to return to work.
“My mother and mother-in-law come to my home in turn to help me look after my son. When I get back to work next year, I would rather my son be taken care by family members,” said MaLi, a young mother of a 3-month old baby. After graduated from Art department of ShanXi University, MaLi married with her boyfriend and found a job in the Bureau of Transportation in her hometown. She has 3 months of maternity leave and one- year parental leave, so she have will have plenty time to accompany her little son.
In comparison, QuYi choose to find a babysitter to look after her newborn baby. As a newborn`s mother (she just gave birth to a daughter for 17 days before being interviewed), QuYi is under more pressure from her baby and career. Working on a state-owned enterprise, she has only 4 months of parental leave. What`s more, she probably will get back to company and deal with her work during the parental leave.
“We hope our parents can enjoy the joy of children, but they also should have their own later lives,” said QuYi. She and her husband try not to disturb their parents, and undertake the responsibility by themselves. In a survey by National health development planning commission, 70% young presents said they still ask their parents to take care of the kids. But QuYi found that some grandparents may raise the babies grudgingly. “I know my parents will agree if I ask for help, but I won`t share our responsibility with them. It`s so tired and restless to look after a baby, let alone to the elder,” she said.
Xu Yiwei, a 24 years old mother of a two year-old child, is one of the girls who get pregnant when they haven`t get ready. Now, she lives with her husband in California, as a first-year graduate school student in Stanford University.
“I never thought to have a baby of 22! My daughter was an accident, though I can`t say a mistake,” said Xu Yiwei. She had planed to go to graduate school abroad, but the baby disturbed the plans. She had to stay at home waiting for the baby`s birth. When her daughter was half a year old, Xu Yiwei and her husband decided to study abroad, while her daughter stayed in Shanghai with her grandparents.
Xu Yiwei once dreamed to be an outstanding civil engineer and then open her own company abroad. But now, her dream has changed partly. She plans to achieve a PHD and then come back home to open a company or be a college teacher. Even though there will be almost five years Xu Yiwei and her husband can`t accompany their daughter, they are not willing to be absent from the kid`s growth. So they often communicate with their daughter via video connections.
Xu Yiwei loves to travel in spare time, and she has get used to buying a gift for her daughter when come to a new place. There is a photo of these gifts posted in her SNS, writing, “Tutu, wait for the day I can give you the whole world.” Her dream was mainly about personal fulfillment when being a girl, while now giving her child a better living condition has been part of her dream as well.
Xu Yiwei is not the only one to get pregnant while at school. OuYang Yifei promised to her tutor that she wouldn`t have a baby before finishing school when she got married last year. As a doctoral student in Nanjing Normal University, the dissertation should have been the most important priority. However, several months later, she found herself pregnant .Now she has to balance the dissertation work and the coming baby.
OuYang Yifei now plans to finish the first drift of her dissertation before July-two months before the baby`s due date. She is excited to be a mother, though anxiety and physical discomfort sometime trouble her. “I was very anxious when got ill, as I am afraid taking medicine may not good for children,” she said. But she still tries to keep a positive attitude, “I think the two worst thing to a woman is compunction and complaint. Rather than complaining and regretting, I would like to face and solve it,” she said.
The Chinese Family Parenting Research Report by Ogilvy China in 2012 showed that significant generational changed in parenting practices. Mothers born after 1985 have some feathers, such as concerning more about education, loving to take photos of their baby, and asking for advice online. The women, when asked to imagine the future they want for their children, almost mentioned one “with more freedom”. MaLi said she wouldn`d force her son to make after-school study on spare time, and hoped that she and her husband had the ability to satisfy his needs. As for Xu Yiwei, she thought her parents had set a good example for her. “I am still very playful though I have been a mom for more than a year. Thanks to my family`s support, I can do what I want even some people may think I`m crazy.”
OuYang Yifei shared a story of her friend, who is a primary school teacher. One day she found her 7 year olds son`s recitation homework including remembering the “Socialist Value Outlook”. Though she knew homework like that was of little good to a child, and might even restrict a young imagination, she felt helpless. ”If I face similar circumstance, I will also be puzzld,” said OuYang, “I will try to give my kid a relax family environment, and I really hope the school education can adapt to child nature as well.”
To these young mothers, the kids are more like an impetus for themselves to grow to maturity quickly. Let`s take a glance at the SNS of the four young mothers.
MaLi are never tired of showing her son`s photos and videos. QuYi complained that it was really the hardest thing to bear the “sitting the month”, which ruled a newborn`s mother can`t bath within one month. In Chinese tradition, a newborn`s mother has to abide by several strict provisions, which avoid bath because it may lead to a cold.
Xu Yiwei writes the new year wishes: ”I want to go to Israel…Hope my daughter don`t be so clingy to me…I can get back into shape as soon as possible…” OuYangYiFei just worries whether her doctoral dissertation can be finished on time.
To be a mother from a girl, they believe a good mother can also be a happy, dependant girl.
