On the afternoon of January 15, the "Future Memory - 2021 Beijing News Annual Reading Ceremony" was held in Beijing. At the event site, An Chao, assistant researcher of the China Academy of Education and Social Development of Beijing Normal University, and Shi Yunqing, associate researcher of the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, had a dialogue around the theme of "female scholars, working mothers and children who are pulling up".
Parenting is an unavoidable problem in today's society. Who should raise children in everyday life? What are the parenting strategies for families today? Can society give families enough child-rearing support, and how should families as individuals seek support? An Chao is not only the guest of honor who was selected for the 2021 Beijing News annual reading recommendation book "Working Mothers Don't Leave Work", but also the author of the book "Pulling Big Children: A Cultural Genealogy of Folk Parenting", as well as a mother. After becoming a mother, An Chao has a deeper understanding of parenting. In her view, the intergenerational mutual assistance of young parents by grandparents to help young parents raise children tends to pay more attention to the instrumental value, but she feels the cultural value and emotional value of traditional parenting methods in her own life experience.
"We lack a social imagination about parenting." Shi Yunqing very much agrees with the view expounded by An Chao in the book "Pulling The Big Child", "We must explore the modern value of traditional parenting", she pointed out that to some extent, we must reshape the value of traditional parenting. From a personal point of view, she believes that in intergenerational cooperative parenting, we need to see the price that grandparents pay for this: for the growth of children, grandparents are separated from the familiar environment and separated from the world in which they live. Therefore, she will pay more attention to the social structure behind this. Here, Shi Yunqing raised her question: In the process of parenting, why do we need our grandparents to invest? Why are our parenting goals being stacked on top of each other? Obviously, this is the double dilemma faced by modern families.
"Working Moms Don't Leave Work", by (American) Allie Russell Hawkheld, Translator: Shawso wei et al., Edition: Life, Reading, New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore July 2021
What are our strategies for parenting? Shi Yunqing believes that there are only three options: a super mother strategy, an outsourcing strategy, and an intergenerational cooperation strategy. Here, Shi Hopes that while parenting is becoming increasingly private, there are more public options. How to return to a certain degree of public connectivity while retaining a certain degree of personalization is now a conundrum. Therefore, Shi Yunqing believes that there may be another direction for public support - to rediscover society and discover community.
In the process of parenting, An Chao has been reflecting. In her view, child-rearing is different from economic production and material production, involving human reproduction, which is not only a difference in the mode of production, but also a difference in input. Like many parents, An Chao used to spend a lot of money to send their children to interest classes and subject training classes, but in many cases it may be to liberate their labor. An Chao realized that for the matter of parenting, the market is actually a limited responsibility, and the mother is an infinite responsibility, only by giving the mother a sacred concept, relying on the mother's selfless dedication, it is difficult to support independently, at this time, what is needed is the cooperation of individual families with the state, society and the market.
"The Big Kid", by An Chao, Edition: Social Sciences Academic Press, July 2021
Taking the parental leave mentioned in "Working Mothers Don't Leave Work" as an example, An Chao pointed out that parental leave should not only be for women, but should be jointly participated by parents. "I will encourage myself, encourage my children, encourage the elderly to 'run away from home'", An Chao noted that group raising children, urban and rural joint parenting is becoming a new way, and she herself is a practitioner of holding a group of children, "take the children out, with friends or the same children in the community, women of the same age, play with their children." You will find that when the children play together, they somehow liberate the mother's labor force, which is the way to raise a baby in a group. ”
Author 丨He An'an
Editor 丨 Zhang Jin
Proofreading 丨 Lucy