Shenrancaijing original
Author | Wang Min
Edit | Towards the small garden
"Working men and women look down on full-time moms, and full-time moms look down on full-time dads." Some have described the invisible chain of contempt of the childbearing crowd as such.
Full-time dads have become the people at the bottom of the chain of contempt in the eyes of many people.
The recent hot drama "Our Marriage", which has aroused heated discussion, reflects such contradictions. A workplace gold collar does not understand his wife's efforts as a full-time mother, and another full-time mother is even more sarcastic to a full-time father in the same community, "In any era, men have to go out to earn money to support their families, and they are not ashamed to take children at home every day."
When you are not a full-time parent, the problem behind it is the division of labor and the distribution of energy. The topic has also sparked a discussion among workers. Originally, "Sprint career, or take care of children?" "It's the dilemma that many workers face.
For some women who want to work hard in the workplace, the full-time father who is willing to give up his dream of becoming a wife is the "ceiling on earth". But there are also people who don't understand the choice of stay-at-home dads.
What is the experience of the minority in this social role? Shen Ran chatted with several full-time fathers who had worked hard in the workplace for many years and now chose to return to the family.
They made this choice, without exception, in order to share it with their other half and run a good small family. After his wife's monthly income was 50,000+, but he couldn't take care of the work with the baby, Dakui gave up his job to support the rear; Tang Zhou, after learning that his wife had a slight postpartum depression tendency, gradually turned his job to a part-time job, became a full-time father, and let his wife become a strong woman in the workplace again.
But the full-time father has to face no less difficulties than the workplace, in addition to trivial family work, but also consider the outside world's vision, embarrassment in the mother group, economic initiative and so on.
After becoming a full-time father, in order to find a balance between taking the baby, housework and part-time work, the insomnia symptoms lasted for more than 400 days; Su Mi gave up starting a business, full-time with the baby for more than a year, personal savings have shrunk significantly, at most until the end of next year, the future is facing how to take the baby and make money into account the problem.
Like Lee Seung-hyun, a star who has been a full-time father for six years, they have a deep understanding of the difficulty of full-time living with a baby, "it takes a lot of time and energy, but the result looks like nothing has been done for a day", but they do not regret this choice. In their eyes, it is worth spending a lot of effort on the company of their children.
Naked resignation, abandonment of entrepreneurship, they choose to be full-time dads
On March 9, 2022, the 28-year-old Bei drift Quanxu resigned naked and officially became a full-time father.
"To record ordinary life with a camera, to cook a hundred dishes for the family..." Quan Xu has many beautiful ideas for becoming a full-time grandfather, but occasionally he doubts himself, "Is this choice correct?" ”
The novice full-time dad first entered the "battlefield" and was worried, not only Quan Xu. Before deciding to stay full-time, every family had a lot of entanglements and considerations.
The two core factors considered are whether the husband and wife can reach a consensus, recognize and understand the other half's efforts, and the other is the economic situation and whether the family's financial resources can support daily expenses.
If the mother is busy at work and has a high income, it seems logical that the other party returns to the family and spends more energy on caring for the children and taking care of the family.
The post-90s Dakui became a full-time father for this reason. In 2015, the Dakui family was still in Zhejiang, and his wife started a business in order to alleviate the financial pressure of the family, and founded a studio for online marketing promotion. After starting a business, the average monthly income soon exceeded 50,000.
But in 2017, after giving birth to the second child, to take care of the child and work, the work is very tired, the body is really overwhelmed. Although the parents were around at the time and could help with the eldest daughter of 3 years old, the wife still needed to spend a lot of energy on the second daughter who had just been born, and was busy from 7 a.m. to night. When the younger daughter is asleep, she can be busy with work, often staying up until one or two o'clock in the morning.
In contrast, Dakui's job not only travels frequently, but also earns less, earning only a few thousand a month. This situation lasted for about two years, and the wife finally said this advice: "Or you can go home and help me."
At that time, the two daughters were getting older and needed a more stable environment for growth, and it was best to return to their hometown of Sichuan to study. After Dakui weighed it repeatedly, he also returned to his family while the family moved back to Sichuan.
There are also some people who are full-time dads, not because of income problems, but completely distressed by the other half, understanding the hardships of full-time moms.
Source / Stills from "Working Moms And Parenting Dads"
After the birth of his son in August 2021, Quan Xu's wife rarely had the opportunity to go out, staying up late at night to feed and not sleeping well, and he was very worried about his wife's state. But I have to cross the city from Yanjiao to Beijing every day to work, generally leaving for work at 6 a.m., and leaving work at 7 p.m. is early, and there are often traffic jams on the road for several hours. In order to take care of his wife and children, Jeon Wook chose to be a stay-at-home dad for a while.
About a year after the birth of his son, Tang Zhou learned that his wife had mild postpartum depression symptoms. "She is usually very strong, and she used to be a strong woman in the workplace", Tang Zhou has never associated his wife with the word depression. Until his wife realized that the state was not right, suspected that it was postpartum depression, and took the initiative to talk to Tang Zhou once, Tang Zhou slowly changed from understanding his wife and undertaking housework to becoming a full-time father and letting his lover return to the workplace.
There are also some dads who choose to stay full-time, not only to support their other half, but also because in their eyes, raising a baby is more important than a personal career.
The cup that lives in a second-tier city in the eastern coastal area has been in the design industry for ten years and earns 300,000 or 400,000 yuan per year. In 2019, when his daughter was young, he decisively chose to return to the family. Because my wife, who had been a full-time mother for more than six years at the time, happened to encounter an opportunity to start a restaurant business, "she has the heart to return to the workplace, and I must support."
In the eyes of the cup, returning to the family is also an opportunity to grasp the initiative of the baby. Elders have helped to take care of children, but they and the elders have difficulty in reaching a consensus on the concept of raising children. "Investment in children's education is more worthwhile than short-term work income, and if you want two husband and wife to raise their own children, then only one party can give up."
Therefore, the cup dissolved the studio, went home to take up the heavy responsibility of taking the baby, and turned some of the previous work into part-time work. "With a baby is the most important, but my wife has just started her business, and her income is not stable, so I can get a part of the income on a part-time job."
Su Mi, who is in Wuhan, also returned to her family after giving up entrepreneurship and let her wife return to work. At the end of 2019, during his wife's maternity leave, Su Mi quit the activity planning startup he had previously opened with a friend, planning to find another entrepreneurial opportunity, but just happened to encounter the epidemic, and in the four months of home isolation, the daily life of getting along with his daughter day and night made him feel that parenting is also a very valuable thing.
"Happy wife, happy life", in Su Mi's mind, the happiness of the role of mother is crucial to the harmony of the whole family. When she saw that the deposit in the account was expected to be able to support the family's expenses in the next 3-5 years, Su Mi made up her mind, and she first took the baby at home full-time and let her wife return to the position of primary school teacher.
The "minority" who broke into the mom group
The difficulty of making a decision is really "a small witch" compared to the life you face after becoming a stay-at-home dad.
"After becoming a full-time dad in 2019, I lost sleep for more than 400 days," mug said, adding that having to take care of children, complete part-time work, chores, and pressure from elders piled up to "overwhelm me."
The trouble with cups, many stay-at-home dads have. After becoming the main force of a family with a baby, the busyness and fatigue of the baby is the first hurdle that the stay-at-home father has to overcome. When they embarked on this road, they also deeply realized the difficulty of mothers.
The school started in September 2020, the wife returned to school to work, and Su Mi really began to take the baby alone. "Every morning from 8 o'clock to 22 o'clock in the evening, as long as my daughter is awake, I can't be idle." He recalled that especially before his daughter was one year old, she would always wake up at night, and he would have to feed and change his diapers, and it was difficult to get a good night's sleep.
When her daughter was one year old, she learned that her height and weight were still a little far from the standard line, and Su Mi had been thinking about how to let the child eat well and supplement nutrition. Food supplements should be learned every four or five days, and three meals a day should be at least two or three days to ensure that they do not repeat the same. Now, the daughter is more than two years old, in addition to eating well, Su Mi began to consider what way to guide and educate the child more appropriately.
Stay-at-home dads can only complete a day's work after the sleep-through work is completed. Su Mi was able to get a little free time after her daughter fell asleep at 10 p.m.
Tang Zhou has been full-time for nearly four years, and after experiencing this stage of Su Mi, he finally stayed up until his child went to kindergarten and could rest during his children's schooling. His daily state is that after sending his son to school, he will buy back the dishes of the day, do housework in the morning, prepare healthy meals for his lover in the afternoon, make nutritious meals for his son, and then go to school to pick up his son from school.
He joked that taking his son home from kindergarten was his "way off work." On the way home, he will pass by a nearby wetland park, and he usually takes the child to play for about 1 hour before returning home.
The cup did not become easier because the child was in elementary school. He has put a lot of effort into guiding his daughter to form good study habits.
On the eve of the first grade, my daughter learned some bridging courses, but because of her advanced learning, she had a deep fear of mathematics, and was very resistant to math problems, as long as she saw it, she would cry.
After reading a lot of psychology books, The Cup understood that her daughter may be "learned helpless" and began to work hard to adjust the child's mentality. If the homework assigned by the teacher is too difficult and not suitable for the daughter, the cup will take the initiative to go to the teacher to communicate to reduce the difficulty, and help the daughter find confidence in a continuous encouragement way.
Source / pexels
Nurturing is itself a very deep knowledge. In addition, stay-at-home dads, as a "minority", still have to face many challenges.
First of all, returning to the family means that the personal income is reduced and the initiative in the family economy is reduced. Stay-at-home dads have psychological thresholds for getting living expenses from their significant others.
"Self-esteem is very frustrated", Tang Zhou said, his wife returned to the workplace for nearly four years, the income rose from more than 200,000 yuan a year to more than 500,000 now, and Tang Zhou's income after switching to part-time work, the income from more than 200,000 yuan before, to less than 100,000 a year now, completely can not cover family expenses. "My wife will often comfort me, afraid that I will be uncomfortable, and will take the initiative to give me expenses."
But Su Mi had a hard time accepting the act of getting living expenses from her partner. In the more than two years without work, he has been supported by his previous savings. "But the wife will take the initiative to bear part of the expenses such as food and clothing for the children."
Dakui, who has no source of income, gets a bank card from his wife. He chose to use this method to avoid directly receiving living expenses from his other half.
The matter of two people can be discussed and solved, but the eyes and discussions that the outside world does not understand still need to be faced by full-time fathers with a strong heart.
Some elders can respect the decision of the younger two, but some will be suspicious. Tang Zhou was at home full-time, and the initial problems he encountered mainly came from both parents, Tang Zhou said, "My parents could not accept it, so they had to go back to their hometown, and the eyes of my lover's parents looked at me also changed, and I could only leave it to her to solve in this regard, and try to appear in front of my father-in-law and mother-in-law as little as possible." ”
"Why is it that Dad is at home with the baby and Mom is out to work?" The cup had heard such talk, and he chose to ignore it as much as possible.
In addition, when they break into the baby group with their mothers as the main force, they will inevitably encounter some embarrassing scenes. When Mug and her daughter ask friends to go to a nearby park to play, they always find that almost no father has brought the baby out. Mothers can quickly mingle together, talk about skin care, talk about makeup, talk about dressing, but they can't plug their mouths at all, they can only be silently embarrassed.
Su Mi also feels the same way, and she rarely sees her full-time father in the community. The daughter, who is over two years old, already has social needs and needs to make friends. To this end, Su Mi began to expand her social circle, such as asking her old classmates to explore new places to play with her children.
Full time with a baby, regrets?
"Dad with a baby, may be strange at first, but from some point of view, there are also some advantages." 」 Several full-time dads who were in contact with Deep Burn expressed similar views.
Sometimes, a father whose mind is not so delicate will give his child more space to explore. Tang Zhou gave an example, "In the wetland park, I will let my children play by the water's edge and just keep an eye on it myself." When a child wants to climb a tree, I will shout cheers under the tree, but some mothers or elderly people in the company will be particularly nervous about safety and fear of soiled clothes. Other children will always look at my children with envy. ”
But when the trivialities of life pile up, stay-at-home dads also have an emotional backlog. When I saw the star Lee Seung-hyun talk about being a full-time dad, there was a time when I felt broken and helpless, and many dads would feel the same way.
"Dads may be more emotional, and it is difficult to release emotions by talking to moms." Su Mi said, "You can only suffocate it first, and then slowly digest it yourself", even if it is a short time of 5 minutes of solitude every day, it is particularly precious.
As for the future, some stay-at-home dads plan to do it for a long time, taking care of the family as the most important job.
Source / Stills from "Little Min's House"
Dakui plans to continue to stay at home full-time. The efficiency of Dakui's wife's studio this year is not as good as in previous years, and the family income will decrease, but the hometown is a fourth-tier small city, it is really difficult to find a cooperative job, he plans to shoot videos to do part-time work, but the account has not improved. Fortunately, there are still previous deposits that can be sustained.
The cup intends to work part-time in the next three years. His wife's restaurant business lasted only a little over a year before it failed, and she had not yet found a new career direction, and after he switched to part-time work, his family income dropped by 30% to 50%. "At least in the child's primary school stage, I want to continue to accompany my child and do not plan to officially return to the workplace," he said, "It was difficult to cultivate a tacit understanding with the child, and now suddenly the mother is mainly with the child, and the child is also difficult to adapt."
Tang Zhou did not plan to return to the workplace again. He said the ideal state for himself and his wife was that both of them would return to their families and earn money from part-time jobs to support their families.
But there are also stay-at-home dads who take this option as the best solution for the family division of labor in the short term.
"When the child gets bigger, my state will definitely change slowly." Quan Xu has already planned to end his life in the north before this year's National Day, but he is not sure where to go and when he will be a full-time father.
Su Mi expects her savings to last until the end of next year at most. When his daughter goes to kindergarten next year, he will look for a new career direction. He has been filming videos recording his daily life, hoping to rely on the identity of mother and baby bloggers to obtain financial resources, but at least now he still has a meager income, if he waits for next year or no improvement, he will have to return to the old bank to continue to start a business.
The stereotype of "male outside, female inside" is being broken. Whether it is a full-time dad or a full-time mom, it's a particularly hard job. "The most important thing about the happiness of a small family is the support and understanding of teammates." Tang Zhou said.
*The caption is from "Our Marriage". At the request of the interviewees, Quan Xu, Su Mi, Cup, Tang Zhou, and Da Kui are pseudonyms in the text.