Li Min, a mother of three children in the post-85 workplace
"A couple can have three children",
As of January 2022,
The three-child policy has been implemented in China for nearly half a year.
Most of the post-80s and post-90s,
Growing up, it was strange to families with many children,
Why did they make the decision to have three children?
Especially when women in the workplace,
After choosing to become a mother of three,
How to maintain a decent working life?
Do you want to change jobs? Please please not ask for a childcare sister-in-law?
How much does it cost to raise three children every year?
One with two working three-child mothers -
Li Min after 85, Deng Cheng after 75,
Many interviews, in-depth discussion of their lives and choices.
Written by Chen Weiqin, responsible editor Chen Ziwen
A family of five in Guangzhou, father and brother Niu and three children, the camera behind the camera is the mother Li Min
After 75, Deng Cheng lives in Changsha, she is engaged in agriculture, and she is already the management of the company. Of the three children, the eldest is 20 years old, but the second and third treasures are only 6 and 5 years old.
Li Min, a post-85 generation, lives in Guangzhou and is a corporate treasurer. Dabao, Erbao and Sanbao are 8 years old, 7 years old and 2 years old respectively. The only time she can be interviewed is between 8:20 a.m. and 8:50 a.m., when most office workers just wake up, but she has finished sending her three children to school and buying groceries at the wet market.
In late 2015, Li Min's second child was born, when her first child had just turned 1. Fortunately, as soon as the new year began in spring, the state promulgated a two-child policy.
Despite this, when she unexpectedly conceived her third child in 2019, she hesitated. At that time, there was already a boy and a girl in the family, who were relatively close in age and had the same progress in growth, and did not need her to worry too much; and one more newborn meant that the whole family had to go through the road they had traveled before.
To be born or not to be born, it is a choice. She first calculated the actual situation at home.
The most important thing is the housing problem. The family house currently has no loans, a total of four rooms, one for the brother and sister, one for the husband and wife, and a study, and the child can sleep in a large room with the two of them after birth, and there is a place to live when he grows up.
The second is income and expenditure. Her husband's annual income is 400,000, and her annual income at that time was about 150,000 (down 70% after the recent job change), if the children are in public schools, the income and expenditure can be balanced, and there is no need to rely on parents to help.
Third, who will take care of the children? Her work does not require work, her husband Niu Brother has performed well in taking the baby, the mother-in-law is in good health, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is harmonious, and the mother-in-law can become an assistant with children. Li Min feels that after giving birth to a child, she needs to ask for a 3-month sister-in-law at most, after which she can resume independently with a baby.
Despite not being "ready for everything", she decided to give birth to the baby.
On the seventh day of the Chinese New Year in 2020, the family gathered in front of the window of the baby observation room, and the younger sister Yuanyuan asked her brother Duoduo, which one is our sister?
At this moment, their family officially became a family of five.
Stills from Home on the Ramp
Since the release of the three-child policy, Jin Yong'ai, an associate professor of demography at Chinese Min University, has received three calls from the media in one day.
What the public is most concerned about or wants to complain about the most is why this policy is promulgated at the moment?
Jin Yong'ai explained: "Everyone will say that now that the pressure is so great, who will have three children, right?" But the actual situation is that some people are willing to have three children, I will give an example, for example, after the 70s, their willingness to have children is higher than that of today's young people. ”
Deng Cheng, who was born in 75 years, is such a mother. She was born in a family with many children, her brothers and sisters still live in the same big yard, today to eat at your house, tomorrow to play cards at my house, her parents' education from childhood is "many people are powerful".
The three children of the Deng Cheng family after 75 have a large age difference
After marriage, Deng Cheng hoped that his children could also enjoy a harmonious big family. In 2001, the eldest daughter was born, and considering the impact on the unit and her own physical fitness, she was delayed in getting pregnant again.
For the next 10 years, out of the desire for a child, she actively sought treatment, experienced the despair of fetal arrest, and the hope of re-pregnancy. In 2016, she finally welcomed her second child. After that, the third child was also born smoothly.
When Li Min was a second mother, she experienced a workplace setback.
At that time, she was a new media editor, in charge of the Mother and Baby Channel, and the leader was sympathetic to her to take care of her two children independently, so she was allowed to go back once a week for a weekly meeting, and the rest of the weekdays could catch up at home.
Although she strictly follows the weekly KPI, she was still "interviewed" with the adjustment of the department structure at the end of the year and the new official took office, and the new person in charge hoped that she could resume her work and adapt to the new rhythm of the department. ”
Today, Li Min, who has become the mother of the three treasures, works as a treasurer in a private enterprise, with a monthly salary of 4,000 yuan and does not sit in shifts.
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Get up at 7 o'clock every day, send two older children to kindergarten at 7:45, return home at 8:15 to take care of the youngest sweet, take advantage of the sweet nap 2-3 hours to complete 80% of the work at noon (usually used to do the most important tasks of the day, such as making a payroll), and the rest of the workload is fragmented - when you are idle, go to 30 minutes.
Most of the time, she actually can't sit idle.
The children at home are in the stage of rapid growth, the two washing machines with their own drying function at home will be washed every day with two large buckets of clothes, and the children's particularly dirty clothes also need extra hand washing;
Dabao is picky and thin, so she tries to go to the market every day to buy dishes that children like to eat;
In response to unexpected situations that occur every week, such as changing identity cards and paying fines, she will push a stroller and take her children to the civic center to queue;
On weekends, the family goes out as a group to visit the surrounding farms, hot springs or zoos.
Every year during the flu season, the family becomes the hardest hit area, and the three children will cross infection, take turns to be recruited, and each time they have to toss and turn for about half a month to fully ease up.
The couple participated in the piano competition of their eldest son and eldest daughter and cheered them on
She delayed asking for a childcare sister-in-law, and the first consideration was that the cost would exceed the budget.
At present, the annual expenditure of three children is between 200,000 and 300,000, most of which is mainly their tuition, interest classes, summer camps, etc., and if you add the cost of childcare (about 10,000 to 10,000 per month between 10,000 and 15,000), their family savings may not be sufficient.
The second reason is that "as a mother, missing any growth of the child, he/she will feel so sorry the first time he/she crawls, stands, and talks." "Yesterday I was giving Sweetie a bath, and my sister was coming too." They leaned over my lap and said, 'Mom, I love you,' and I felt tired. ”
Li Min followed the legendary "trouble 2 terrible 3 horrible 4" step by step, shuttling back and forth between collapse and happiness, and felt that his combat effectiveness was getting stronger and stronger.
Deng Cheng chose a different life - in the early stages of parenting, their family hired two aunts, one mainly responsible for housework, and one responsible for taking the youngest child.
"The bigger reason for choosing an au pair is that my husband and I (post-65s), unlike the post-90s couples, on the one hand, we have limited energy and need to work full-time; in addition, the parents are older and have no energy to help continue to take care of their children."
Age is one thing, but at the same time, family income has a big impact on parenting choices.
Deng Cheng also travels 2-3 times a month. In the early years, household income came from the first pot of gold earned at the stage of high development of the real economy, providing stable savings for families.
Families with relatively abundant economies like Deng Cheng's family have more choices in the details of their children's investment. At present, the annual expenditure of their three children is about 800,000, mainly including: the eldest daughter's study abroad fee, aunt's salary, domestic travel, two treasures and three treasures interest classes and so on.
The able working mother in the movie "Find You" actively looks for a suitable childcare sister-in-law
Even so, in the matter of parenting, there will be problems with just asking the aunt. Because the local training system is not very sound, coupled with the high personal instability of the aunt, often encounter such unexpected situations: it is difficult to find a satisfactory nanny, always work for a while and then leave.
At this time, help from other family members is very important.
Deng Cheng has her unique advantage, she was born in a three-child family with two younger sisters below. Because all three families live in the same yard and the children are in the same kindergarten or elementary school, the sister often helps her pick up the children, and she is too late to go home, and the children eat dinner at the sister's house.
"I'm especially glad I have siblings." Deng Cheng has a unique understanding of the choice of three children in a three-child family, and she believes that people who grow up in a multi-child family from an early age will naturally appreciate the benefits of having more children, which will greatly affect her personal fertility choices later.
"To put it simply, I enjoy the good of multi-child families, and I want my children to be from multi-child families."
Li Min mentioned that the post-90s mothers around them are especially afraid of fertility problems on the psychological level when they are interviewed for work.
When it comes to women of the right age, almost every interviewer will ask about marriage and childbearing, and even worse, whether you plan to have a second or third child. Most people will choose to say against their will that I don't think about having children for a while, or that I will never have a second child.
Xiao Min, a post-85 mother engaged in the education industry, said that when she interviewed, she would deliberately blur the identity of her three-child mother, "People hear that you have three children in your family, they don't want to see your resume, they will give you a qualitative attitude in their hearts, 'You are not here to work at all, that is, let the company pay you the money, let the company give you a pension'. ”
"Jin Zhiying in '82", when Zhiying was urged to have a child, she worried that after becoming a mother, she would change a lot, but her father did not seem to be affected.
Deng Cheng's agricultural enterprise originally had few female employees, and the research institute next door did not have a female employee.
In the management, Deng Cheng certainly understands this mentality: agricultural work is mostly related to farmers and rice fields, ten years as a day, if you always take leave because of pregnancy or children, this project has you or not. Moreover, their work is stable, they will not easily dismiss personnel, and they will become more cautious in selecting new employees.
As an agricultural practitioner, Deng Cheng is accustomed to "hard work". Shimoda, walking from village to village, walking is at least a week.
For several years, she did not even use the annual leave, and the child's parents will try to let the father participate, "The identity of the father of the third child will not affect him, and the leader thinks that he is a responsible person." ”
In the Japanese drama "Sales Minister Natsuko Yoshira", the heroine returns to the workplace after giving birth to a baby
Fortunately, in the past decade, she has felt that women's rights and interests in the workplace have gradually improved. Five years ago, the leaders of her company approved that female employees in the unit would be rewarded with 20,000 yuan for having two children. After that, the unit issued a reward regulation for the birth of three children.
"Our company is the place with the most female workers in the entire industry. At present, it is stable at about 10 positions, and many of them are in charge of important positions. ”
A few years ago, one of her assistants became pregnant, because it was IVF, in order to ensure the success of the pregnancy, the company gave her 10 months to stay at home and keep the baby safely, "although the work caused some impact, but also paid her 10 months' salary as usual, the thought of being able to help a woman to become a mother happily, is still very fulfilling." ”
In later jobs, her assistant made more efforts to exceed the task, and some people paid a high salary to dig her up. This also made Deng Cheng more determined in his decisions and choices.
In the movie "Find You", lawyer Li Jie tells his efforts to find a balance between "family" and "work"
As working mothers, especially three-child mothers, it seems that they are always on the road to balancing family and work.
They want more help, such as more flexible office hours/locations, longer men's maternity leave (and substantial social incentives), and more affordable public education.
But at the same time, I feel that it is too difficult to achieve. For example, although the official advocates that men have longer maternity leave, most companies still hope that "male employees actively choose not to take maternity leave", and even this has become a test on the road to promotion for fathers.
Although it is difficult, many mothers mention that when dealing with parent-child relationships, the three children have unique advantages. "Three-child mothers feel that the task of parenting is easier than that of second-child mothers."
A second-child mother who does finance said that her family's dabao will have a jealous mentality towards erbao, thinking that the birth of erbao has robbed her of her resources. The performance of two children at home is to grab each other's toys, if the parents are partial to either party, the other party will be particularly aggrieved, and it is determined that the parents are biased.
Similar situations rarely occur in families with three children. There is a magical "Golden Triangle" theory circulating in the circle of three-child mothers.
Li Min feels that the three children have formed a stable golden triangle, on the one hand, it is not necessary for parents to come forward to solve the quarrel and avoid eccentricity; on the other hand, because the number of people is always 2:1, it is easier to draw conclusions.
Li Min's three children, recently at home water distribution baby (a popular toy among children), there is an uneven number, the brother and sister discussed it, and actively chose to leave the extra to the younger sister.
If there is a question of "want or not", parents usually do not intervene, the three of them climbed into the "children's house" next to the sofa to hold a discussion meeting, and when they saw three people smiling and hugging together, the parents understood: the conclusion has come out.
Whether it is Li Min or Deng Cheng, in the process of raising three children, they all found that the total energy of the husband and wife was just like this, and they had to disperse to the three children, so they had to give up the so-called "elite parenting".
The most basic, such as the current popular "children do not eat salt until the age of 3" recipe rule among young parents, they do not implement. Li Min's sweet family learned to nibble on chicken legs next to their mothers before they were 1 year old; Deng Cheng stipulated that the children, everyone eating the same dish, can not eat, but absolutely will not "add food" at night.
Children's clothes will not be too expensive to buy, and many older brothers and sisters will only wear clothes that they can't wear a few times, and they will be left to younger siblings.
In terms of extracurricular interest classes, Li Min let the children know what they liked, and then everyone went to the same interest class together, which also facilitated her every pick-up.
"Three-child families, there is no way to pay attention to so much detail, we are used to letting the children make their own decisions, after the decision can not regret." 」
After abandoning elite parenting, the children's collective consciousness is instead stimulated.
Deng Cheng feels that the children's empathy ability is stronger, especially the second and third treasures that are still relatively young, and when they go out, they will habitually look after children younger than themselves, share their toys, and consider things from the collective. The three children will have a more uniform code of conduct, and each will accommodate each other. "They'll think about how much the three of us want to eat and what we're going to buy, not just what I want myself."
The three children walk hand in hand, and the precious family time is captured by Li Min with her mobile phone at all times
Li Min talked about an episode that had happened two days ago, when she had a Parent-Child Time with her son on a Sunday afternoon.
He asked, "Mom, what are my shortcomings?" ”
"You're careless, sometimes you fight, and you have to correct it."
He asked, "Then am I not terrible?" ”
"But you also have a lot of advantages, you are brave, helpful, and you love mom and dad."
……
Li Min said that this is her state of life. There are many disadvantages and many advantages in raising three children in the family, but the disadvantages are like stars, and the advantages are the sun.
When the sun comes out, the stars are gone.
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