After two years as a stay-at-home mom on Mother's Day |, she was determined to change her life and save herself

"Little Mouse" is a "post-85" who quit after the birth of her child in 2018 and became a stay-at-home mom. When she left work to return home to focus on childcare, she had the same idea as many people: stay-at-home mothers were just a family division of labor. But reality is not as harmonious as expected, she is lost between herself, her children and her family, and she is finally determined to make a change.

Little Mouse Photography

The shortcomings in growing up made her choose to pay a little more to her family

Little Mouse and his sister grew up in the contradictions of their parents. This is a "female outside, male inside" family combination, the mother has driven a tractor, done all kinds of physical work, clean and neat, never been attached to the "weak woman"; but the father is a lazy person, not only never went out to work, but also did not put his mind on housework and accompanying children, and even, he would forget to give an umbrella to his daughter who was in elementary school on a rainy day.

In her memory, the mother assumed almost all the financial responsibilities of the family, was busy with work every day, had little time to accompany the little mice, and had little communication between mother and daughter. In the growth of the little mouse and sister, the influence of the mother is almost invisible. My sister was rebellious and bored in middle school, taking a break from school for half a year at home, needing the company and psychological counseling of her family, but her busy mother could not stop working: "I don't go to work, who earns money to support the family"? In the end, the little mouse, as an older sister, chose to resign and spend half a year at home with her sister.

The little mouse knows that her mother is helpless, and in the face of her violent and irresponsible father, her able and traditional mother chooses to endure half her life "for the sake of the family" and has almost no life of her own. The constant outbreak of contradictions and conflicts in the family, the self-centered, stubborn father who bears the main responsibility, and the repeated failure of communication attempts have made the little mouse almost stop talking to his father since high school.

Little Mouse Photography

But as a daughter and sister, little mouse has a deep understanding of the regret caused by the lack of companionship to the child's growth. How should the financial responsibility of earning money to support the family and the responsibility of accompanying children be shared, and is there a way to have both? This is a difficult problem, when facing his own small family, the little mouse chose to become a full-time mother, decided to pay more for the family, hoping to give the child a better education.

After childbirth, life comes like a storm

The little mouse is not completely unprepared for the life of a stay-at-home mother. When she was pregnant, she took the initiative to consider many future problems, and "made three chapters of the law" with her husband, hoping that after giving birth, the two could jointly assume the responsibility of family economy and child care. But without exception, these promises were not fulfilled, and life after childbirth was like a storm, wrapped in mud and sand, leaving no time for the young mother to prepare. She has her own ideal presupposition of educating her children, but the reality is that the accumulated complicated chores have made her tired of coping, and life will not develop according to the ideal path.

The first is the issue of childcare. Caring for children seems to be a natural responsibility of the mother, and it is even more logical to become the "job" of a stay-at-home mother. Resigning and returning to her hometown to give birth, the mother-in-law and mother can not give effective support, and the little mouse almost bears all the responsibility of taking care of the child; but the husband who is far away in Beijing does not understand that in his view, the full-time mother should not only complete the job of taking care of the child, but also complete it with high quality and no mistakes.

Mothers caring for their children (Source Network)

Once, because the little mouse needed to confirm the time with the doctor, he postponed the vaccination of the child for a day, and the husband said: "This day is worse, if the child is infected on this day, what to do?" You are at home with children, this is your task, how can you not even complete the task? Such harsh responsibilities will last all day or even for several days, and the accumulation of such things has become the fuse for the outbreak of family conflicts.

The second is the distribution of the family economy. Many describe the life of a stay-at-home mom as a kind of "palm-up" day, with no independent financial resources making it difficult for women, and little mice used to be no exception. For a long time, her life expenses with her children depended on her husband's "intimate payments", and she herself did not have any free cash at her disposal. Once she went to buy two fires for three yuan, but the store could only pay on WeChat, so she had to call her husband to ask for money, and he said, "You shoot the QR code and send it to you, I will pay you." At that moment, countless heartaches surged into her heart, and she didn't know why life had become like this.

Women in depressed mood need support and understanding, not harsh criticism (Source Network)

All kinds of problems are backlogged, and the little mouse is alone with pressure and grievances, and falls into postpartum depression. It was a kind of pain like the sky had fallen, but no one understood. She said that in more than two years as a stay-at-home mother, she was depressed to the point that she had thought about jumping off the building more than once, and she had also thought about abandoning her children, and she had struggled countless times on the edge of despair in her heart, "but when she thought that if I left, it would be my parents and children who would be sad, and he would remarry and live a happy life. She was determined to come out of her pain and save herself.

She was determined to change her life and save herself

Extracting oneself from a mess and changing the state of life requires great determination and courage. After more than two years of being alone with her baby, Little Mouse realized her predicament: no job meant no income, no way to support her children even if she divorced, and in her current state, no one supported her divorce, including her own parents.

The shift in mentality accumulates from an extended process into a decisive moment, and she re-examines her life, from treating stay-at-home mothers as a family division of labor, to seeing that she has made many sacrifices for the family: "I suddenly felt that I should not sacrifice myself to a family, although I regard children as important, but I can't lose everything I want because of children." 」 There are many women who dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to their motherhood, but this young mom decided to make some different choices and see more of herself. She wrote herself: "I made up my mind to change my life and wrote — 2020, the turning year — in my notebook." As for whether to turn to divorce or a happy life, I don't know, I just know that I can't continue like this."

Little Mouse Photography

Sorting out the mentality also requires a neat cut with the past life. "I don't think my current family is good, so I'll be sure." Whoever persuaded me not to do it, I was so determined, at that time I was still quite determined, and I admired myself." Setting herself the line of "divorce," she set out to change her life financially and family. She took the child while learning to speculate in stocks, preparing for the practice exam, in order to have an independent income, she can let herself make choices without worries in the future. In the days when she studied with her baby, she was often too tired to stand up straight and stand up, but she still persevered in the incomprehension and complaints of her family, and finally had her own part-time income. She knew that this was her bottom line.

Instead of limiting her life entirely to her family, she expanded her social interactions. She came into contact with magnolia blossoms, starting from taking her children to participate in the parent-child class organized by Mulan, she gradually participated in Mulan's literary and artistic team rehearsal performances, ukulele study groups, photography groups and other activities, and became connected with more sisters and received support from the sisters.

Little Mouse and Mulan's sisters take a spring trip together

From "I" to "we," she taught her husband to take on family responsibilities

After having a career of his own, the little mouse also began to adjust his family relationship. She was no longer obsessed with giving her children a "perfect" education, but tried to give the child to her grandmother for a while, give herself a breathing time, and ended the off-site state with her husband, and finally achieved a family of three reunion.

The little mouse believes that the husband used to think about the problem from the perspective of himself rather than the family, he can see "me", but he can't see "we", under the influence of the original family, he lacks trust in people and avoids solving problems. But the process of forming a new family of your own needs to be adapted, and even an adult needs to learn and grow in order to take on new family responsibilities.

Therefore, she insisted on fighting for the economic autonomy of the family for herself, and jointly built a "family sharing fund" with her husband, actively participated in more family decisions, let the facts prove that her rational decisions were correct, and as a result, her husband began to consult with her, and she won an equal position in the family for herself; at the same time, she taught her husband to solve problems instead of blaming his family; she established a fixed father with a baby time, and in the process of educating the child, she also "educated" her husband to learn to raise children and teach him to assume family responsibilities.

And the change in her husband is also obvious: he begins to use the off-work hours to take care of the children; the bowl stack is stacked high, he will take the initiative to brush; on the weekend when the family of three goes out to play, he will run on the playground with her on his back; the child is sick and cries in the middle of the night, and he takes the initiative to take care of the child. He said "I started to spend my time on the family".

"If you want your child to be excellent, it's not about asking your child, but asking yourself to be good, and then subtly influencing your child," said Little Mouse, a motto she set for herself when she turned her life around. "Self" and "motherhood" are not completely opposite choices, and there is no contradiction between being a good woman and being a good mother.

The plight of stay-at-home mothers is a concentrated reflection of the pervasive dilemmas women face in the family. Care is a family responsibility, there is never a natural gender distinction, less harsh on some "perfect mothers", more emphasis on the equal assumption of family responsibilities by both sexes, is an important step in turning disputes into progress.

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Copywriter: Mu Yi

Edit: Mu Yi

Founded on January 15, 2010, Beijing Mulan Community Activity Center is a non-profit social service public welfare organization with the purpose of paying attention to and serving migrant women who come to Beijing to work.

Mulan Community Activity Center establishes activity centers in communities where migrant workers live, uses activity centers as a platform, introduces external social resources, provides cultural and educational and spiritual services for migrant women and their children, and increases the contact and interaction between migrant women by expanding the social interaction of migrant women, so as to expand the cultural living space of migrant women, improve their independence and gender equality awareness, so as to better adapt to and integrate into urban life.