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Film and television and art works are often the epitome of various phenomena in people's lives.
As the famous Russian philosopher, literary critic and writer Nikolai Gavrinovich Chernyshevsky (Николай Гаврилович Чернышевский) once said: "Art comes from life above life." ”
In general, many film and television works can reflect the actual problems in real life.
In today's Chinese society, childbearing is a relatively serious problem: according to relevant data, China's population growth in 2021 will reach the lowest value after 1960, and in reality, people's enthusiasm for childbearing and even marriage has been greatly reduced.
Contrary to the traditional Chinese concept of "prosperity of people" and "flourishing" concept of fertility, most of today's resistance to childbearing stems from the cost of living, and there is even a saying that "poor people have children and harm others and harm themselves".
So are families in temporary economic difficulties really not "qualified" to have children? We may wish to learn from related film and television works.
In April 2019, the film "What a Home", directed by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki and co-produced by Lebanon, France and the United States, was released in China.
The film tells the tragic life of a 12-year-old Lebanese boy, Zain, who sues his parents for giving birth to him but failing to raise him well.
It is worth mentioning that zain rafia, the protagonist of this film, Zain Rafia, is not a special actor, but really a child who grew up in a Syrian refugee family, and it is after starring in this movie that Zain has the opportunity to go to Norway to receive a good education.
Similarly, in the Korean drama "Please Answer 1988", which has a Douban score of 9.7 points, the family conditions of the protagonist Cheng Deshan's family are also very embarrassing, but there are three children in the family who need to be raised at the same time.
But the temporary embarrassment of life was not affected much, but in this environment, they gained a lot of growth. It is also in the depiction of the life of such a family that many thought-provoking themes of the whole play are highlighted.
So, for such a family whose material conditions are not particularly good for the time being, can childbearing be an affordable thing?
From an economic point of view, as a parent, it is natural to try to give the best material standard of living for the children, so the quality of life is bound to decline after having children; for these families who are not rich, it will definitely be bitter.
However, parenting is not just based on the material level, but includes spiritual and moral shaping.
Fertility and survival
Just like the truth reflected in the film and television works above, when a child is born, the first problem, and arguably the biggest problem, is survival.
People will jokingly call the cost of raising children "milk powder money", which is enough to see that even the usually inconspicuous milk powder is a huge expense in the process of raising children.
The reason why the saying that "the poor have children harms others and themselves" is because children who grow up in economically conditioned families find it difficult to obtain sufficient material satisfaction.
Correspondingly, like Oscar Lewis's theory of a culture of scarcity, those who live in a life of material deprivation unconsciously develop a culture of scarcity.
Just like the view in our traditional Chinese culture - "People are poor and short-minded, and horses are thin and long-haired." ”
It is always difficult to be satisfied, then the demand for the outside world will be reduced, even if you have enough economic strength, you will still live very cautiously, not willing to spend money, and even appear to be very stingy.
In the social sciences, the different levels of culture have long been divided. Taiwanese scholar Li Yiyuan divided culture into three different levels: material culture, institutional culture (community culture), and spiritual culture.
For an individual growing up in the family, material culture will naturally affect his personal character, institutional culture will shape his personality characteristics, and spiritual culture is the most far-reaching and subtle.
We often say that "the children of the poor have long been in charge", which refers to the influence of the material and cultural level of the family on the children; and the so-called "scholarly door, after the official eunuchs" is the influence on the spiritual and cultural level of the children, so that the children in the family "have poetry and bookishness in their belly." ”
In our lives, the reason why some people think that "the poor have children is harmful to others and harm themselves" is because in our society, many social capitals, whether it is wealth, connections or social status, have been closely linked.
As long as it is impossible to provide a good material life, it almost means that there are no other resources to provide for children.
To be born and not to be raised is to harm others
In fact, the classical Confucian classics already tell us, "The Son does not teach, the Father is at fault." The teaching is not strict, and the teacher is lazy. ”
After the birth of a child, what parents should do is not only to ensure the healthy growth of the child materially, but to support the child spiritually, build a correct three views for the child, and help him gain a foothold in society.
There are many couples in families who mistakenly believe that as long as they have sufficient wealth to give their children a rich life, then their children will naturally be outstanding.
Some families believe that although the current economic conditions are not good, but at a certain age, they should have children, the survival of children, it is not a big deal to be their parents to save some, eat less, and save it.
As everyone knows, these ideas are one-sided: it is a "sin" to bring a living life into the world, but not to provide it with a good life, so that children can get frightened from an early age.
And before the children's values are formed, they cannot correctly measure the relationship between giving and receiving, so some children with poor family conditions will choose to steal and so on to meet their basic needs.
In fact, such misguided behavior is fundamentally due to the poor economic conditions of the original family, coupled with the parents' failure to pay attention to the education of their children in morality and quality, which has brought them to this step.
When in a family, parents are running all day for the livelihood of the family, I believe that the atmosphere of the whole family will be more solemn; when supporting the family is the first priority, the moral education and shaping of the three views of the child naturally cannot attract the attention of the parents.
So in our society, not all poor families are "not qualified" to have children, but before you have children, I hope you can be clear about one thing: since you are born, you must raise them well.
- The End -
Author | Tommy
Edit | Rain
The First Psychological Writing Group | A group of young people who like to look up at the stars
参考资料：Bruk, A., Scholl, S. G., & Bless, H. (2018). Beautiful mess effect: Self–other differences in evaluation of showing vulnerability. Journal of personality and social psychology, 115(2), 192-205