The parents of the second child after 95 can be father and mother
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics in January 2022,
The birth rate of Chinese population fell below 1% for two consecutive years.
Under the general trend of low fertility,
Young people who enter marriage and have children earlier,
Seems to have become an unusual group,
It was even labeled a joke of "early marriage at an early age".
However, in the study of Yu Jia, assistant professor at the Center for Social Studies at Peking University,
The proportion of unmarried groups in the country who do not want to marry does not exceed 5%,
There is still a general desire among young people to enter into marriage.
Image source "Bouquet of Love"
One found 4 young families after 90 and 95,
They were married and had children before the age of 25.
Together, we explore life choices about "early marriage and early childbearing".
How much does "early marriage and early childbearing" relate to the economic foundation of the family?
At what moment did they make this decision?
What are the advantages of early marriage and childbearing?
What are the different challenges?
By the time they reach a relatively mature age, do they regret it?
Edit | Qian Yuhao, editor of the | Chen Ziwen
Ke Dad and Ke Ma, after 95
Daughter 2 years old, son 9 months old
Coordinates: Beijing
In June 2021, after a heavy rain, the graduation ceremony of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University was being held on the campus lawn. After 95, Ke Dad wore a master's degree uniform and crowded in the crowd to listen to the leader's speech, but from time to time he would look into the distance and look for the figure of his wife Ke Ma and daughter Ke Ke.
It is rare to take a baby to the graduation ceremony. The couple was quickly "watched" by classmates and teachers, but dad pulled the tutor and wanted to take a group photo, but the daughter had never seen so many people, scared and crying, and did not want to eat the bread in her hand. But the father took the bread, naturally put it in his mouth, and picked up his daughter to soothe his emotions. Finally, the group photo was taken, and the daughter "blackened her face", they recalled: "It was too embarrassing. ”
Ke Dad and Ke Mom are in the same college, the senior year together, and they are studying together. In May 2019, they accidentally became pregnant, and before they graduated, the child came first.
The time is pushed forward for more than half a year, and the two often quarrel about future life plans.
Girls want to graduate early and apply for a doctorate, but boys feel that it is better to work early; boys leave behind to do film and television entrepreneurship for several years, and friends to do cultural creation, girls feel that a whim, too risky. One person can't hold back his graduation thesis and is grumpy; the other person is also bored because the other person doesn't understand.
Wedding photos taken at school
The arrival of the child urges the two young people to mature and make a decision.
The first is whether to have children or not, and the answer is yes. Mothers have long suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome, which is medically the most common cause of female infertility. They even thought that they could live their whole lives even without children. She went to check that all the indicators were normal, "there was a feeling of being hit by fate." ”
Then is to prepare for marriage, both have a relatively rich experience in love, after together, the progress is faster than other campus couples, when the undergraduate graduation, both parents have met, know the root is very satisfied, the child let the original graduation of the marriage plan a little ahead of schedule.
In the longer-term life planning, the two young people are more cautious, but the mother has successfully completed the thesis and doctoral application, and clarified the goal of becoming a teacher in the future. Knowing that she was pregnant, her father gave up the immature entrepreneurship in his hands, took a year off from school, took care of his wife, and made more thoughtful plans for the future.
Married and baby, the two have some savings, not "naked marriage", "we are economically independent relatively early, college major in journalism and communication, self-study to take pictures, design posters, edit videos, while learning while taking work outside to make money." "But after my father went to college, he didn't ask the family for money again."
But neither has graduated, and the future is not entirely certain. They unify their thinking of action: run a small home within the controllable range.
The two decided to continue the rental status first. But although my mother is a Beijinger, her parents are office workers in the ordinary system, there is only one suite in the family, she can't live, the distance is far, and it is not easy to buy a new house. Since 2017, the two have rented a house near the school, from a 60-square-meter cottage shared with others to an 80-square-meter apartment.
Renting for many years, Ke Ma never had a separate dressing table. The small sofas in the house are piled with toys, and the family of four often huddled on them to chat and play. She sighed: "There is very little room for myself, as a girl, it is more sad." ”
In terms of parenting, when giving birth to a child, in the event of an outbreak of the epidemic, the mood of the novice mother fluctuated greatly. But dad saw it in his eyes, put the breast milk in the refrigerator, got up at night to feed the children, so that his wife could sleep more. There are not many friends around them, and when they encounter difficulties, they learn online. In 2021, the two ushered in a second child, and only then did they ask for the help of their parenting sister-in-law.
Nowadays, ke dad and mother have returned to their work and school, and on weekdays, retired cocoa grandmother mainly brings babies, but compared with the nine-to-five office workers, the couple spends more time with their children.
After graduating, Dad set up a film and television studio with his friends, although busy, but the rhythm is in his own hands. But mom's pace of reading Ph.D. is slower than her classmates, but she guarantees that she will be at school two days a week, and the rest of the time can be remote at home, but mom also operates maternal and infant self-media, and there is also income in business.
In the third year of marriage, considering the future schooling of the two children, the two borrowed money to buy a 90-square-meter house with the help of their parents. The monthly mortgage is paid off, and the rest of the money is carefully calculated to live a life.
The pressure of the family forced Ke Dad and Ke Ma to not relax, they have not had a separate weekend for a long time, but when they think about the future, when the two children are 18 years old, they are only about 45 years old, at that time, they can really have more time to enjoy their lives, they are also looking forward to it.
Picture source "Postpartum Conditioning Institute"
Li Lin and Mr. Fang, post-95
Daughter 2 years old, second child awaiting delivery
Coordinates: Korla, Xinjiang
The 23-year-old Li Lin plucked up the courage to send out the news of his marriage and pregnancy in the girlfriend group, and the two young people who worked and studied for a doctorate in a first-tier city immediately sent a panicked reaction.
"Didn't work a few days and went back to get married?" Isn't your company in Shanghai very valued? "It's so scary to imagine that your belly has become so big and your figure has gone so far." She was a little frustrated not getting encouragement from friends about getting married and having a baby.
In the eyes of friends, Li Lin is like Lila in "My Genius Girlfriend", the smartest girl in the crowd. She has been a class leader since she was a child, was admitted to a famous school in Xiamen at university, studied science, and was good at writing articles, and was active in many clubs. On the eve of graduation, I got an offer from a new energy company in Shanghai.
When she decided to get married, Li Lin lived in a rental house near the Shanghai company and had already paid half a year's rent.
Li Lin in college
Two years later, when he recalled this, Li Lin was in the small city of Korla in Xinjiang. Her parents are oil industry practitioners who settled here, and Li Lin spent primary and secondary school here.
Our interview with her was interrupted twice in the afternoon because of my daughter's crying, "I thought about escaping her sight and handing it over to the babysitter, but failed, and every day I was 'fighting wits and courage'." At 12 o'clock in the evening, Li Lin coaxed her daughter to sleep before opening the phone, and her surroundings finally returned to calm.
Li Lin and her husband have been in love for ten years since middle school. Less than a week after the marriage, she found out she was pregnant. Back in Xinjiang, it is because both parents are there, which is convenient for taking care of the children.
Li Lin summed up his choice of "early marriage and early childbearing": "First do what I 'should do', and then do what I want to do." ”
Saying "should" is related to the environment in which you grew up. Both Li Lin and Mr. Li's parents are people who live in a step-by-step and traditional way. Throughout the middle school, they secretly fell in love, and Li Lin remembered that her parents set a "curfew" for her, "you must go home before 11 o'clock, there is no need to discuss." ”
"We are all only children, and in the eyes of our parents, we have not been separated for ten years together, that is, to conceive the next generation together." They had the house and the car ready, everything was arranged properly and we seemed to have no reason to run away. ”
Another reason for marriage, Li Lin felt that he might not meet someone more suitable than Mr. Li. In the ten years together, they hardly had a fight.
After giving birth to her daughter, the in-laws gave the couple a sum of money, and Li Lin could choose the best postpartum repair plan, and also invited the best sister-in-law to come to the house. After recovering, Li Linhe took the baby on vacation, she is very happy to share her daughter's growth in the circle of friends, and will also find a variety of parenting books to patiently study the education methods of the next generation.
But many late nights, when the child fell asleep, Li Lin wrote about her confusion on social media as if she had changed her person. For example, she found that in the past two years, "self-worth" has completely disappeared, and children are the center of everything.
"Every day when I get up, I look at the baby, and my parents and in-laws look up and don't look down, occasionally quarrel and talk, most of them are also around the children, they are too doting on the baby, I don't want this, the food can't be eaten well."
Li Lin and her daughter are on vacation
A few times, Li Lin wanted to dress up and go out, but found that only the community was wandering, the city was too small, there were no friends, and the chat in the girlfriend group was becoming less visible to the naked eye. A few days ago, when it was almost dark, she went downstairs to buy something, looked at the sunset outside, and had a very trance feeling, she thought: Xinjiang is jet lag, this is probably when everyone in Shanghai is working overtime.
When it comes to the decision to quit his job in Shanghai, Li Lin still has no conclusive conclusion, and the current idea is to "realize personal value through the needle." She persuaded her parents that she hoped to return to work in first-tier cities after giving birth to her second child, "The child cannot be separated from the mother, but in my future life, I can't only have the child." ”
A pair of children of Jiang Xin Xiaowu
Jiang Xin & Xiao Wu, post-90s
Daughter 5 years old and son 3 years old
Coordinates: Nantong, Jiangsu
When Xiao Wu was 29 years old, he suffered from food poisoning and was taken to the hospital by ambulance while lying on a stretcher. He was numb and convulsive, and his hard breathing broke through his psychological defenses step by step, but he tried to keep himself awake, and a voice inside him told him: You have to live, your wife and children are waiting for you.
The doctor finally pulled Xiao Wu back from the ghost door, and after his consciousness was slightly restored, he saw his wife Jiang Xin sitting at the head of the bed. In the past twenty years, their lives have been as uneventful as water, thinking that everything is in control.
Jiang Xin is from Nantong, and Xiao Wu is from Taizhou next door. They went to university in the province, and after graduation, they obeyed their parents' expectations and were admitted to the civil service in the system close to home.
The two met in the workplace, Xiao Wu was attracted by Jiang Xin's sweet appearance, and Jiang Xin felt that Xiao Wu zi was very good-looking. "As the business comes and goes, the conversations that others seem to be unremarkable are very moving here." Usually work is not busy, they have more time to date and get along.
The small city is not big, and the love affair is quickly known by parents, "the right time met the right person, the cost of buying a house and a car in Nantong is not high, less than a year after getting married, two children have been born." ”
Married at the age of 24 and having a baby at the age of 25, the couple felt: "It may be very early than the classmates who work in the big city, but for the circle around them, it is very common to get married early and have children." ”
Jiang Xin's two litters recovered quickly, "five or six months basically returned to normal, hair also fell out, but now they have grown back." Postpartum recovery, such as pelvic floor muscles and rectus abdominis repair, is relatively easier. ”
She also felt fortunate that when they gave birth, her mother-in-law was in her early 50s, had just retired, and had sufficient mental energy. Usually, not only is he responsible for taking his grandchildren, but he will also treat Jiang Xin as a child and make good food in different ways.
The sense of control over life also comes from the ease within the small town system.
Jiang Xin and Xiao Wu are not very enterprising people, the income is far less than that of students working in first-tier cities, after experiencing that life and death test, they are more "Buddhist", the couple laughed and said that they were "poor enough to only be stable". But students living in big cities will in turn envy them that "work and life are completely separated."
Working for six years, Jiang Xin has been doing things at the grassroots level, the relationship between colleagues is simple, there is time and energy, and more responsibility for taking care of the family, "In my place, the happiness of the family will have a greater sense of achievement."
Compared with working mothers in first-tier cities, Jiang Xin does not need extra social or overtime, at 5:30 p.m., the sun has not yet set, she rides a motorcycle, ten minutes back to the familiar community, "open the door, see two live bouncing babies, and a simple but attentive dinner, full of blood resurrection." ”
Xiao Wu always remembers that on the morning when he was rescued from food poisoning, his wife brought hot white porridge from home, and the family sat around the bed, and you ate it one bite at a time.
"That is the delicacy of the world, it is a clear sense of happiness, even if there are any difficulties in the future, but the family is a blessing in itself." 」
I can meet with my daughter
Can be met, post-90s
Daughter 3 years old
Coordinates: Chengdu, Sichuan
In July 2021, after the "cooling off period", the 27-year-old Ke Yu officially went through divorce procedures with her ex-husband Onion, ending a ten-year relationship and a four-year marriage. The ex-husband is a first love that can be met, they break up peacefully, and "neither side has cheated and other principled mistakes".
Ke Yu said: "When I was ignorant, I tried to use early marriage and childbearing to make up for my regrets in the process of growing up, and I was grateful to him, but if I did it again, I would not make such a choice." ”
Ke Yu was introverted and sensitive from childhood, her parents began to quarrel since she was 3 years old, and in the first and second grades of primary school, she was sent back to her hometown in Dujiangyan to live with her grandparents, "Grandma will complain about my mother, and she doesn't like me very much." ”
At the age of 10, his parents divorced. In her memory, she had no real attachment to her parents, and she wanted to leave this home and have her own home.
Throughout her adolescence, she was also silent at school, always subconsciously avoiding the crowd and nestled in her seat with her head bowed. The onions of the same grade are completely different, handsome in appearance and love to express. Ke Yu was attracted by his abundant energy and wanted to be that kind of person. In middle school, the two began to fall in love early and went to class together.
Onion's parents took good care of Keyu, and she felt the warmth she had never felt before: "The conditions at home are not very good, but they will give me as much as they want." ”
In 2017, just after the legal age of marriage, they were licensed. Two young people who were still "children" themselves soon ushered in the birth of their daughters.
Ke Yu gradually realized that when a family is together, warmth is not enough, and the collision of life concepts is everywhere. Starting from the debate about which kindergarten the child goes to, under the challenge of reality, the two are more and more divergent. Today, the daughter is mainly carried by her ex-husband's parents.
Ke Yu felt that from childhood to adulthood, no one taught her how to live, how to become a wife or mother. This marriage, for her, was like a step-forward experiment, "gradually finding herself" . The only thing she owes is her young daughter, who wants to work hard in the past few years and accumulate some foundations, "When she goes to primary school, I have this strength, and I will take her to my side." ”
The names in this article are pseudonyms.
Image source "Dressed up for a reason to be in love"
Yu Jia, an assistant professor at Peking University's Center for Social Studies, remembers that a few years ago, the National Bureau of Statistics released data on China's single population in 2015, and when some media outlets went, the headline was "There are 200 million unmarried young people in China."
In her view, some false reports of gimmicks do not help everyone to objectively understand the current concept of marriage and childbearing of the younger generation.
In September 2021, based on the latest data from the China Household Tracking Survey, Yu Jia and his team released a research report entitled "Bonding and Fertility of Chinese Youth: Trends and Socio-Economic Differences". The report shows that young people on the mainland still have a general desire to enter marriage when it comes to family formation.
Choosing marriage and childbearing, followed by housing prices, education, women's personal value realization, and so on, makes people panic and anxiety... On the other hand, in this drifting big world, good marriage and family also constitute a small world, and the outside is turbulent, but the small world is warm inside.
In any case, everyone is making their own choices. Perhaps it is more worth thinking about than when to get married, how many years to have a baby, what kind of attitude to enter into marriage, and whether you can take responsibility for the choice of procreation.
The following is an interview with Yu Jia.
Q: One
A: Yu Jia
Q: What is the average age and trend of young people's first marriage and childbearing in recent years?
A: Nationally, the age of first marriage in 2019 is 28.0 years for men and 26.4 years for women. The average urban age of first marriage and childbearing is about 1-2 years older than the national average.
In a longitudinal comparison, the average age of first childbearing for women was 24.3 years in 2006 and 26.9 years for women in 2016, which has been delayed by about 2.6 years in the last 10 years.
Overall, the postponement of marriage and childbearing is associated with the expansion of higher education, the increase in the proportion of premarital cohabitation, the increasing demands on the economic base of marriage, and the rise of individualism.
Q: How has the traditional concept of marriage and childbearing affected contemporary young people?
A: The impact is still relatively deep, which is determined by culture and history, and it is difficult to change dramatically in a short period of time. For example, young people still pay more attention to family happiness, hope that their children will have a career, and identify with filial piety to their parents.
But on the other hand, some of the young people's concepts of marriage and childbearing have changed, such as the division of labor mode of young people on the "male and female protagonists" and the concept of "women with children are complete" have also declined a lot.
Source:"Male copywriter, take parental leave"
Q: You once proposed a phenomenon: in first- and second-tier cities and third- and fourth-tier cities, the younger groups of young people who enter marriage and childbearing earlier are just the opposite.
A: For third- and fourth-tier cities, young people have less economic pressure and lower parenting costs, and most people enter marriage relatively early after completing their studies, if they know the right person and get along for a period of time. Some groups living in third- and fourth-tier cities with better conditions and higher education levels may be more picky and cautious in the choice of spouses, and they are more likely to marry later.
But in first- and second-tier cities, the model may be the opposite. Here housing prices are high, the cost of living and childcare is also high, and young people with average education level and family background may enter marriage late. Young people with better education and better family backgrounds may consider entering marriage if they find the right partner and the economy is not the biggest problem.
For example, recent studies have found that since the sharp rise in shanghai housing prices in 2008, highly educated men with Shanghai hukou will enter marriage earlier than non-locals.
Q: Compared with the parents of the post-80s, the post-95s parenting seems to tend to be lightweight and not chicken, what do you think is the reason behind it?
A: On the one hand, it may be that the children of the post-90s and post-95s are still relatively young, and they do not intuitively feel the competitive pressure of education.
On the other hand, many people after the 70s and 80s rely on education to achieve upward mobility, from rural to urban, from small cities to large cities. They intuitively appreciate the importance of education, so they pay more attention to or worry about their children's education. The growth environment of the post-90s and post-95s is better and more stable.
In addition, the post-90s and post-95s grew up in the Internet age, exposed to more information, and the constraints of their parents and social systems have become smaller, and they pay more attention to their own opinions and present more assertive parenting methods.