Today is 38 International Women's Day, Happy Women's Day to all women!
Today I want to talk to you about "having children".
At the time of the two sessions, the news reported many proposals related to promoting fertility, and my girlfriends and I have been paying attention to and discussing.
Girlfriends said that regarding the matter of having children, all walks of life are speaking out, and the most appropriate voice should be those of us ordinary, really raising babies and mothers.
I especially agree, so I want to talk to you today, our festival, and I hope to hear your voice.
The voice of every real mother should not only stay in the daily spit, but need to be heard more widely.
Image source: TV series "Kim Ji-young born in 1982"
First, intuitively, let's vote
1. Women who give birth "out of wedlock" enjoy all rights such as legal maternity leave and maternity insurance; children born "out of wedlock" enjoy the same rights as children born in marriage in terms of household registration, schooling, and other aspects.
A First instinct is in favor
B First instinct opposed
C Intuition cannot judge
2. Extend the "maternity leave" for men and force leave, and the scale of various proposals varies from "1 month off" to "6 months-1 year" shared with women.
3. Allow women over the age of 30, whether married or not, to enjoy the right to voluntarily retrieve and freeze eggs; build and improve the management of egg banks (eggs can be donated).
4. Appropriately set the threshold for abortion to reduce the number of abortions. Unless the health of the mother and child is threatened, "arbitrary abortion" is generally not permitted.
Is it a sudden feeling that you can't choose? I'm just like you.
The following are my discussions with my girlfriends, and I hope that you can also participate in this "cloud discussion".
The most "safe" marriage
The first question: "Marriage and babybirth" must be matched? My intuitive answer is: of course not.
Freedom to marry and have children seems to be the default premise.
But come to think of it, is this really the case?
There is an "unmarried single mother" around me, her mother, the child's grandmother is so angry that she almost broke off the mother-daughter relationship with her, leaving aside the pressure of public opinion, her son's kindergarten has also become a troublesome thing.
I am also a mother myself, in fact, to some extent I can understand this grandmother, for a long time, the social tendency to "marriage" and "have children" firmly bound together, may not only be because of "old-fashioned", but also because of "safety".
Marriage is in the form of a legal and social system, and this man and this woman, and even the two families behind them, are to have children together, raise children, and be responsible for them for life.
It has been said that couples are partners in the "life unlimited liability company".
Yes, it is true that someone in partnership is more secure than going it alone.
Of course, there are risks - "to get married, you have to live a good life together, raise children well" this kind of agreement, not all valid, otherwise there is no Marriage Law or anything.
When I think about "security," I begin to understand why the law provides for freedom of marriage, but there are still people who "have to get married."
Why is it that some people are obviously reluctant to have children, but they give birth to a second child under pressure, and the person who exerts pressure is often the closest person around them.
And even themselves.
Because people deeply believe that marriage and children can bring the greatest security to life.
If society's admonition to everyone is that "freedom" and "security" can only choose one, then no matter how to choose, there is no choice for happiness.
Can a woman not get married? Yes.
Can a woman not have children? Yes.
Can a woman not marry as long as she has children? Yes.
Will these options be unsafe? Possibly.
But marriage and having children can be just as insecure.
Even if all freedom is sacrificed, it cannot be exchanged for absolute security.
Therefore, for the proposal of "unmarital childbearing", at least from the perspective of social hardware, it gives the possibility of freedom, supports women's pursuit of freedom, and also supports women's access to security.
But we women ourselves need to always understand that all social institutions, including marriage, are only support systems, and women's freedom and security need to be pursued by themselves.
Fertility is instinct, parenting is responsibility, so that you have enough ability and confidence to take responsibility for every decision you make, which is the greatest "safety" for women.
To say "partnership", first say "division of labor"
There is also a lot of discussion about the topic of "maternity leave" for dads, or even "compulsory maternity leave".
My first reaction was to choose to support, let my father go home more to take care of his wife, and take the baby together, how good.
As a result, several of my girlfriends exploded in the group: Dad didn't bring a baby, was it really because Dad didn't take a holiday and Dad was busy at work?
When Dad is on vacation, when he is at home, isn't he also brushing his mobile phone, playing games, and Ge You's paralysis?
Of course, there are also a very small number of fathers who are "super daddies" and "fairy teammates", such fathers do not need to take more maternity leave, and the sharing has long been shared.
Thinking about it this way, I said very early on that women spend a full 10 months, physically and mentally, ready to become mothers.
And the moment the man easily picks up the doll, he naturally gets the title of "Daddy".
As long-time readers know, I have been a stay-at-home mom for three years, and at that time, I still spared no effort to "train" Mr. Li and let him participate in the matter of taking the baby.
Because of the experience, I know deeply that this is not just a simple matter of giving men maternity leave, but it requires the efforts of the whole society to change a mindset.
That is, for a long time, everyone tacitly agreed that men were responsible for earning money to support the family, and women were responsible for housework with their babies.
But the problem is that today, many women no longer agree with this division of labor.
Image source: TV series "Home on the Ramp"
Women also want to work and pursue their own social values, in addition to "mom", we also want to be "ourselves".
This is a requirement that many women have not spoken about before marriage or even after having children - so a large part of the "partner" husbands of modern women still tacitly acquiesce to the "division of labor" of more than a hundred years ago.
Therefore, in addition to giving men maternity leave, I sincerely hope that when interviewing in the workplace, I can also ask men how to balance career and family.
Employers can use men's due diligence for the family as a certain degree of employment reference.
I hope that employers can provide more employment possibilities for married and childbearing middle-aged women.
Of course, while calling for social change, I also want to tell my sisters that it is not our fault to pursue the workplace.
When you find yourself torn between "mom" and "clerk" identities, remember to hold a family meeting and talk about the division of labor.
If a family's thinking mode defaults to the mother's main force with a baby, it means that we need to follow the previous family division of labor model, but now it is obviously not.
So, don't feel guilty, but be brave enough to start this conversation, change the division of labor, and we can find the bright light of the way out.
For procreation, more for women
Proposals such as opening up egg freezing and restricting abortion are even more eye-catching than "having children out of wedlock" and giving men "maternity leave.".
Image source: Sina Weibo
To be honest, I really don't know how to choose after reading it.
I can understand the goodwill behind these proposals.
Open frozen eggs does seem to provide more freedom for women.
I do have several excellent single women around me, and their biggest anxiety is not that they can't find someone to marry, but that they feel that they are missing the best age for childbearing.
"What if I meet Mr right in the future, but I can't give birth to it?" This is the exact words of one of my girlfriends.
If you can let every woman who is willing to freeze eggs freeze, when the physiological conditions are the best, freeze her own best quality eggs, and wait until the conditions are ripe and want to regenerate, this seems to bring great liberation to women.
At first glance, it looks very beautiful, but if you really want to open this door, there are still some concerns when you think about it.
First of all, freezing eggs is expensive. Referring to the current cost of assisted reproduction (which is often referred to as IVF), it is about tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, which is not a small amount of money.
Secondly, using hormones to promote ovulation and then take eggs is substantially harmful to the woman's body.
Eggs are not sperm, and if needed, a squeeze is always available.
Women can generally only produce one mature egg in a menstrual cycle, but hundreds of thousands of eggs are taken at a time, and one is certainly not safe, right, so we need to let women produce dozens, dozens of eggs at a time.
What to do? Taking medicine, taking hormones, taking medicines every day, and injecting every day, and these hormones themselves may overstimulate women, resulting in irreversible harm.
Wait until the hormone is effective, and you really produce enough eggs at a time, how to take them out? Stick a needle into the ovaries, yes, it will hurt.
Even if it all went very, very well, got a very healthy dozen, dozens of eggs, and successfully froze them.
No one can guarantee that by the day a woman really wants to have a baby, these frozen eggs will really be able to inseminate successfully.
Restricting abortion is actually the same reason, the starting point is to protect women - after all, abortion, induction, abortion, hurt women.
However, if a woman needs to have an abortion, induce a birth or miscarry because of an "unwanted pregnancy", an unintended pregnancy that causes harm, abortion, induction and miscarriage is only a means of ending the injury.
To truly protect women, we need the whole society to work together to reduce the possibility of "unwanted pregnancy", especially to raise the awareness and responsibility of men in this regard.
As women, as mothers, we sincerely welcome all proposals and suggestions that can start from women's needs, help women, share the pressure of childbearing, and promote women's living conditions.
All the good ways that can really promote fertility must be good ways to really help women.
Talking about this, go back to the first four questions put in the opening paragraph, the answer given by our first intuition, has it changed at this moment?
Do we really have the answer?
Every time we are tired with the baby to the brink of collapse, have you clearly and firmly told the husband next to us: I am going to collapse now, please do this, let me go to rest...
If we don't try again and again to express our needs to our husbands, and insist on trying again, asking for help, and communicating again the next time in the case that he can't do well and can't do it this time, then the "pig teammate" will never become a "god daddy".
As a woman who has actually borne the pressure of childbearing for thousands of years, under the topic of how to effectively reduce women's reproductive pressure and promote the willingness of the whole society to have children;
What exactly do we want, what exactly can help us and support us?
If we don't think, don't speak up, don't communicate, don't change, then what can wait is "someone else's plan."
No matter how good "other people's plan" is, it cannot "perfectly adapt" to our lives.
Women can not be wives, not mothers, but in the end they must be themselves, they must make their voices heard.
Today's article is an open topic, and I especially want to hear your thoughts.
Some people may feel that they are all married and have children, and it has nothing to do with me. But I always feel that in the face of a thing, you can form your own point of view, have your own attitude, the process of thinking, and make yourself more clear about "what you want".
What's more, this matter is more closely related to us women, even if you choose not to have a baby, we have the opportunity to become someone else's grandmother/grandmother. I hope that through the efforts of our generation, we can have a better environment for our children.