A girl, born in the countryside.
Her parents hitched a ride on the express train of the development of the times, went out to work, and left her to stay in her hometown to grow up.
Growing up to the flower season, after finishing secondary school, follow the footsteps of his father into the city to work.
Hard-working, hardworking, and feel that you can earn a good life with your hands.
Soon, reaching the marriageable age of his twenties, he married his fellow countrymen.
I haven't shaken God yet, I have a child.
You see, a girl's long twenty-odd years of life, with a small paragraph of text, is plainly narrated.
A girl who started her life as a mother.
My daughter, do you want to have the same childhood as me?
No, I want to grow up with her, I want us to be friends, I want us to talk about everything; I hope that she can have it that I haven't experienced.
As a mother, such expectations do not seem to be excessive.
Would it be different to add a "North Drift" adjective to the identity of the mother?
Without Beijing household registration, it is difficult to enter public kindergarten institutions, private kindergartens are scarce in degrees, and tuition fees are high; the original job of the "North Drift" mother does not have social security, let alone ensure that she can return to work after maternity leave; and in a society where gender equality awareness and social family support system have not yet been perfected, it is not easy for any mother to "balance" career and family.
As "North Drift" mothers who were once left-behind children, they may have a stronger desire to give their children enough company, but they receive more limited social support.
If the mothers of Bei drift want to accompany their young children, they do not even have the "qualifications" to consider: whether I want to give up my job; it is difficult to afford the cost of living with my grandparents in Beijing, and they can only become full-time mothers themselves. They also have an option, which is to separate the husband and wife, the husband to stay in the city to work, and the wife to return to her hometown alone with the children. To be with the children, if you do not drift north with your husband to be a full-time mother, the husband is still a child, and the mothers have to choose one.
If you take the courage to say, "Even if I am poor enough to drink the northwest wind, I want to be with my family", I will face all kinds of pressure after the choice. Higher cost of living and economic pressure, the heavy housework and emotional labor paid by mothers in the family, it is difficult to convert into monetary value and be recognized by society; this will not only make mothers feel that they do not work and do not earn money, but also make them feel that their choices increase the burden of their fathers, thus making them more underwhelmed, inferior, and guilty.
In the process of parenting, they will experience all the difficulties and challenges encountered by stay-at-home mothers, and when the children reach school age, they will once again face "choice".
Is it to send the child to a private migrant children's school in Beijing (but cannot take the high school entrance examination in Beijing), or to send the child back to his hometown to go to school and become a left-behind child, or to take the child back to accompany him to school, or to go back to his hometown or to another city with the whole family?
Either way, moms will have more to bear.
As middle-class gender equality advocates talk about career planning, economic independence, and freedom to stay out of wedlock and infertility (which we should strive for), these migrant women, who were once left-behind children, just want to grow up with their children, and they have to do their best.
These brave mothers, who themselves are witnesses, have experienced the harm of being left behind; they prefer to pay the "high" cost of living to make their children "migrant children", but also choose to be with their children, so that their children have the love of their parents in childhood; their plight is rarely seen, and they rarely receive systematic support except for some public welfare organizations that operate early childhood development projects for full-time mothers. And the future awaits them, the problem of children's further education, is a test that needs to be faced repeatedly.
Mobility and left-behind are two sides of the same social problem; only when the children of migrants can enjoy a fair, high-quality and appropriate education in the cities where they live, can they have the opportunity to grow up safely and healthily, and can they truly solve the problem of left-behind children from the root causes.
Promoting the development of the children of migrants is at stake for the future of all.
This issue is the second episode of the five-episode video series "Stay-at-Home Moms Drifting in the North" (this episode was filmed with the assistance of the vibrant community) launched by Tencent News and the New Citizen Program for the Spring Festival special program "Mobile Education", which is updated every single day. Welcome to Tencent News to search for "mobile education", follow and participate in topic interactions, and share your views and stories.
Pay attention to the difficulties in the education of the children of the floating population (according to the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the national floating population will be 384.67 million in 2021, an increase of 8.85 million people respectively over 2020), so that the educational difficulties of the children of the floating population will be seen by more people.
We hope that with the continuous improvement of policies, more migrant children can enjoy the right to education equally in cities, and will not be forced to separate because of education, so that more families of migrants can live a complete family life under their own efforts.