I, am not the perfect mom

If becoming a mother is a path to lifelong practice, then becoming a single mother is undoubtedly a more rugged mountain road.

Wen | Zhou Songbai

In China, single-parent families are a large and secretive group. According to the "Survey Report on the Living Conditions and Needs of Single Mothers in Ten Cities" released by Vipshop Charity and the China Marriage and Family Research Association and the China Women's Development Foundation in 2019, there are 28 million single-parent families in the country, of which 70% of single-parent families are children living with mothers. Behind this figure are nearly 20 million listed mothers, many of whom are single mothers caught in economic, legal, workplace and even moral difficulties.

What kind of support can society provide for these single-parent families? Can they cross the invisible barriers and find a better tomorrow for themselves and their children? Philanthropic projects provide us with a perspective.

Pictured: Screenshot of the micro-documentary "Same Mom, Different Mom" of the Only Love Mom Project

"Go out of your way to understand moms"

As a lawyer, Li Qihua recalled that she had experienced legal consultation in the public welfare project "Only Love Mother" over the years: "Happy families are roughly the same, while unhappy families have their own misfortunes. ”

More than a decade ago, in order to feed his son, Mr. Li gave up his well-paid financial job to become a full-time mother. After her son entered kindergarten, she chose to return to the workplace but was repeatedly frustrated. "Don't say (work suspension) for three years, even if you don't work for three months, you may face a career disconnect." In order to seek a better future, Mr. Li made up his mind to embark on the track of the judicial examination. After two defeats, she reluctantly but resolutely sent her son back to her hometown, devoted herself to preparation, and finally passed the third exam and took the first step to transform into a lawyer.

It is precisely because of this experience that Mr. Li pays special attention to the difficult mother in his legal work. More than a year ago, Mr. Li saw the Guangzhou Lawyers Association recruiting public interest lawyers, so he chose to join the "Only Love Mother" project.

"Only Love Mother" is an online public welfare support platform initiated by The Guangdong Vipshop Charity Foundation, which provides psychological counseling, legal aid, public welfare insurance, career development, policy information, literacy courses and other fields for single-parent families and groups facing marriage and family difficulties.

In the public welfare project, Mr. Li has the most contact with single mothers: some mothers have suffered domestic violence, some mothers face difficult internal family relations, and some mothers are trapped in child support disputes. Among them, unemployed stay-at-home mothers are one of the most helpless groups, social prejudices, job search obstructions and forced self-space make them falter in life.

Lawyer Li believes that "doing everything possible to understand mothers" is a kind of ability, which is as important as legal literacy. Because of the same experience, Mr. Li can resonate with his mothers more. Some mothers poured out the hardships of parenting to her, so that she also remembered the scene when her son was born, "I heard others say that it would be a little harder, I didn't expect it to be so hard, I fed milk every two hours, and I basically couldn't sleep." ”

Post-90s boy Huang Henggan is a hotline operator of "Only Love Mother". In the usual half-hour or so of the phone call, Huang Henggan should quickly clarify the needs of the recipient, and then find the right colleague to provide consulting services. According to the "only love mother" survey, considering the child's "image" and mood, about half of the single mothers are unwilling to ask for help publicly, "many mothers, until the last step, will not make this call." Huang Henggan said.

Huang Henggan studied law in college, and after graduation, he first entered the media industry, but he felt that "that is not what he really wants." By chance, Huang Henggan found the recruitment notice of "Only Love Mother", he threw out his resume with the idea of returning to his major, and in less than two weeks, he successfully became a professional operator.

Pictured: The working environment of the "Only Love Mom" hotline consultation

Huang Henggan receives daily calls for help from all over the country. He admits that women have an advantage over men in this job, but his confidence comes from a kind of introspection, which is to "appropriately deny themselves." He is accustomed to acknowledging his ignorance, and only in this way can he not question people's adversity and thus be able to better understand each other. This is also a big rule of the "only love mother" staff: try to understand, do not judge too quickly.

In the year of entering the industry, thousands of people dialed Huang Henggan's small plane. Single mothers focus on custody, alimony, and divorce proceedings, with occasional calls from single fathers. Huang Henggan can feel the most "anxiety", "helplessness" emotions and "trying to change the status quo" mood, some helpers cry on the phone, and some can calmly and restrained to explain the whole picture, and what help they need.

As a mother, how far can I go?

With the accumulation of work experience, Huang Henggan gradually found that many helpers actually knew clearly what they were going to do next when they called, and many people were mentally prepared to raise their children alone, he figuratively compared the process to from 0 to 1, while legal aid services were from 1 to 3, or even from 1 to 10. In fact, many helpers have taken the step from 0 to 1 and from scratch on their own.

Huang Henggan views the demands of the seekers this way: "Legal aid and psychological counseling may occur at the same time, or they may not be at the same time. "The fact that they are usually able to call and choose legal advice or legal aid shows that mothers have an urgent need to solve legal problems." However, psychological counseling will occur in the pre-middle and post-case stages, and the hotline counselor will conduct a follow-up visit to the mother's psychological state, provide them with counseling services as needed, or connect relevant resources.

Lawyer Li is now on an early shift in the "Only Love Mom" project, and she usually arrives at 8:30 a.m. A regular legal aid call is about 30 minutes, and during these 30 minutes, Lawyer Li needs to quickly restore the whole picture of the matter, find out the key contradictions faced by mothers, grasp the pain points, and give reasonable suggestions.

In the large number of cases she has handled, custody issues are a common pain point. When it comes to divorce, the mother's desire to raise the child will be more urgent. Lawyer Li once met a mother, the father has gambling, loan problems, this mother decided to divorce, although her financial conditions are not satisfactory, but she still struggled to win the custody of the child.

For many years in the industry, Lawyer Li has seen too many family clutches and joys, two people were once campus couples with very good feelings, entered into marriage after graduation, and divorced many years later, the mother won the custody of the child, the father gave as much maintenance as possible, and the beautiful fate eventually died. Lawyer Li understands that these things cannot be explained through legal language, and life is full of many complexities.

Some mothers encounter unexpected difficulties and even develop self-doubt. Zhong Ying, who is also a public interest lawyer of "Only Love Mother", once encountered a case, single mother Xiaofen (pseudonym) did not win custody when divorced, the child was entrusted by her grandmother, Xiaofen could not suppress her thoughts about her children, and still hoped to fight for the opportunity to meet with her children regularly. However, due to previous grievances, Grandma has been preventing her from meeting the child.

In the mother's account, the child is actually very happy to see her, and sometimes she will "secretly" come to see her after school, taking the child to walk silently on the road teeth, such a short reunion makes her feel both sad and happy.

Pictured: Screenshot of a video interview with a single-parent girl

In a video posted by "Only Love Mother" on Station B, a 24-year-old single-parent girl once described her growth this way: "It feels like being caught between two families, bearing each other's accusations." Xiao Fen understands that her children are facing a similar situation. When Xiaofen contacted Lawyer Zhong through the "Only Love Mother" public welfare hotline, she said: She is very eager to meet with her child regularly, but she is worried that doing so will be detrimental to her child's growth, and she does not know whether she should insist.

In the face of the mother's confusion, Lawyer Zhong encouraged the other party to continue to visit - "because if you don't go to see the child, the child will feel that you have really given up on him completely." With the encouragement of Lawyer Zhong, the mother began to try to obtain the child's visitation rights through legal channels.

"I'll be happy that they (the helpers) solve the problem, but the key to their ability to get out of the situation is on their own." Lawyer Zhong said.

The power of public welfare: find each other and be yourself

American writer Jill Smöckler wrote in his best-selling book "I Am Not a Perfect Mother", "In this world, there are thousands of mothers who have the same experiences and the same feelings as us. Finding each other is what we need to do. ”

"Only Loving Mothers" has been passing on the concept to many mothers: whether poor, rich, married or not, every mother can live happily, confidently and with dignity. In addition to professional counseling, "Only Love Mom" also provides a community for mothers to communicate, and such a community also attracts single mother Yaqin (pseudonym), whose original intention is to meet some friends of the same age and find common topics.

Born in the late 1970s, Yaqin is a teacher who has been teaching at university for nearly 20 years and has a 6-year-old daughter. At the end of 2020, Yaqin stumbled upon the "Only Love Mother" public welfare service, and following this clue, she found and joined the "Only Love Mother" community.

For Yaqin, the psychological support received comes not only from professional understanding, but also from the mutual help of everyone in the community. In the community, Yaqin found a sense of "coexistence", "feeling that there is a group behind you who is paying attention to you, many people in the same situation who are experiencing the same things themselves, and everyone is happy to help each other," she says.

In the process of gradual contact and understanding, Yaqin joined the mutual aid groups with different themes, including parent-child relationship, psychological counseling and legal counseling. In the group, everyone encourages each other, and some people share parenting scriptures, talk about life, ideals, and even share new relationships.

From the world's point of view, Yaqin's career has been considered successful, but she has also been worried about her inability to play the role of mother, and the status of single parent has brought her more pressure. In the "Only Love Mom" community, Yaqin found that most single mothers, even single fathers, have such pressure. She realized that this may not be her own problem, but a process that countless individuals will go through, and she is more at ease. "Mothers do not need to be superhuman beings, but let children and themselves be nourished in the process of interactive growth, and each can be grateful for each other's efforts and the beauty of life." 」

For her daughter, Yaqin expects that in the future, whether it is good times or bad times, she can maintain an optimistic, independent and positive state. If one day the daughter is going to enter the role of mother, she will tell the daughter: we are first a person, a woman, and then a mother, and before we become a mother, we must first become ourselves.

Pictured: Lawyer Zhong and her peers

Lawyer Zhong has a similar understanding of women's identity. She talked about a critically acclaimed Italian TV series, "My Genius Girlfriend", which unfolded with the fate and growth of two girls. One of the protagonists, Elena, changes her fate by reading and becomes a respected intellectual, while her close playmate Lila stays in Naples to teach her children, circling marriage and family all day.

"For women like Lila, who have been busy in their hometowns all their lives, maybe [we] feel when we're young that we can't live like them." But as she grew older, she felt more and more that Lila was as worthy of respect as Elena. Because when a woman has made various trade-offs, she still listens to her own heart and chooses the life she wants, whether she enters the marriage or not, whether she walks out of the marriage or not, it is a respectable thing.

Lawyer Zhong hopes that more women can face and solve difficulties in a timely manner: "I think public welfare legal aid still needs to be vigorously publicized, so that more people can understand that there are such channels." "Who can guarantee that they will be safe for the rest of their lives? It is more important to have the confidence and method to solve the problem. On the road of self-reliance and self-reliance, may every mother in distress harvest a warm and bright future.

(Topic)