"I confess that I don't want to take my life for the sake of my children."
This seemingly "selfish" confession set a fire on a Chinese father living in Finland.
Click on the account of the blogger named "Second Child Joe Daddy in Finland" and you will almost think that this is not much different from other parent-child bloggers living abroad.
He shares the daily life of Northern Europe, compares the very different habits of Life in China and abroad, and publishes Finland's stunning natural scenery, with only a few videos revealing the family's unusual past:
It turned out that this "Joe Daddy" was the bully father who resigned five years ago to take his baby around the world.
At that time, he and his wife embarked on a journey with their son "Baggio", who was only four years old at the time, which caused a hot discussion on the Internet for a time.
In the blink of an eye, five years later, is this family still on the road?
What does the little boy look like now?
Is the life they choose a product of "money and leisure", or is it another kind of education and life exploration?
When we approached this special family with these questions, we contacted Joe's mother and found that the answer was ready to come out.
Five years ago, an article titled "Sorry, Mom and Dad Can't Give You an 8 Million School District House!" The article went viral overnight.
I have to say that the words "8 million" and "school district room" are still eye-catching enough even today.
But as the mom of a four-year-old boy, Joe's mom was clearly not thinking of sensationalism when she wrote this article.
The year she graduated from Wuhan University, she and Qiao Dad, who was still her boyfriend at the time, both went to Guangdong.
Ten years of hard work, they have gained good jobs and good salaries in foreign companies, one in the marketing department and one in the sales department.
At the same time, they had a lively and cute child, and the family settled in Xiamen.
Such a state is undoubtedly worth enviing in the eyes of others, but there is always a voice in the heart of the couple calling:
"Is this really the life we want?"
Joe's father once said that he has always been more interested in advertising and photography, but since college, he has chosen a computer major that is more in line with his family's expectations;
Qiao Ma's major is one of the best mapping in the world, but in the same way, she does not like what she has learned.
Along the way, the couple has not deviated from the past, and has always settled their lives and careers properly.
However, at the age of thirty, they suddenly found that their past lives seemed to have been pushed forward by the voices of the outside world.
What makes them even more anxious is that their own child Baggio seems to be on this road of competition with no end in sight.
From early childhood classes to bilingual kindergartens to famous primary schools, if nothing else, this is the daily routine that Baggio is about to face.
About life, about value, about the future, all kinds of confusion and anxiety surround the couple.
So they made an unexpected and reasonable decision:
Quit your job and take your kids on a trip around the world.
Their initial intention was not grand, but they took advantage of the fact that the child was not in elementary school and the parents of both sides were still healthy, and did something that they had thought about for a long time but had not been able to do.
In June 2017, a family of three set off.
During their more than four-month trip, they traveled to more than a dozen different countries and regions.
They take their son to witness the blue, fog-free sky and visit the king's castle in fairy tales;
Experience the ancient and mysterious Mayan civilization together;
Let's take a look at how the "real" Santa Claus gives gifts to good kids.
They have been to the bustling metropolis of New York, and they have also been to the religious holy place of Jerusalem, experiencing the daily life of ordinary poor people, and have also tried the "paper drunk gold fans" in Las Vegas.
When the four-month trip came to an end and the whole family returned to China to rest, the "Eight Million" essay released by Qiao Mama became the source of countless hot topics.
But despite the controversy, they did not abandon their original plan.
Over the past five years, they have traveled to 34 different countries, transitioned in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and settled in Finland.
The young boy Baggio has become a Finnish schoolboy and even has a newborn sister.
Once, the couple didn't want their lives to be what they "should" be in the mundane sense, but at the time everyone thought that after going around the world in a big circle, they would still return to where they were.
What I didn't expect was that they really realized the "blown bull" one by one.
For most people, "circumnavigating the world" is a beautiful dream that cannot be expected, but when this dream really becomes daily life, Joe's mother's experience tells us that everything is not as perfect as imagined.
As adults, couples still need to do their best to adapt to different environments, not to mention their young sons.
The good and bad of circumnavigating the world can almost be seen in Baggio's experience.
One of the most distressing is that Baggio suffered a school bullying in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Because the residence is far from the school, Baggio, like many students, needs to ride the school bus to school, and bullying happens on the school bus.
Qiao's mother found her son looking intimidated several times, but when she asked about it, she would be perfunctory by her son, "Nothing, I just want to sleep on the school bus, and the people in the car make trouble and don't let me sleep."
It wasn't until one night, when Baggio slapped her, that Joe's mother realized the seriousness of the problem.
Baggio said "I don't want to be hit by them again" and waved "like this."
Qiao's mother couldn't care about the fiery pain on her face, and she was shocked to learn the ins and outs of her son.
It turned out that for nearly half a year, Baggio had been experiencing violence by another boy on the school bus.
Joe's father and mother were both angry and self-condemning:
Originally wanted to give children a better childhood, only to take the initiative to bid farewell to the "inner volume" of the educational environment to the international, who knows that children have been bullied for a long time, as parents, they also failed to find out at the first time.
Since the so-called "school bus" is only a means of transportation spontaneously organized by some international student families, the school has not come forward.
The follow-up to the "school bus violence" incident was that Joe's parents and parents negotiated with other parents of the bullied students, and instead picked up Andeur by themselves.
Perhaps, even the most beautiful dream will encounter unexpected setbacks when it is implemented to chai rice oil and salt, day after day.
But Joe's parents were not intimidated by this. As practitioners of the concept of "international education", they are more concerned about what children can get from past experiences.
When the couple took the baby on a trip, more than one person questioned, "Can he remember that the child is so young and goes to so many places?"
In Joe's view, many effects occur slowly, and the process is sometimes really more important than the result.
Looking back in 2022, she found that The now nine-year-old Baggio did gain a lot from the journey.
His rich travel experience has taught him to see the world in a connected way, and he has also had endless curiosity.
"Is Mexico City the most populous city in the world?"
"Which is hotter, Mexican chili peppers, or Sichuan chili peppers?"
"Was China very powerful during the Song Dynasty?" Which was the most powerful country in Europe at that time?"
Those landscapes that have been seen, stories that have been heard, and roads that have been traveled have subtly planted the seeds of exploration for children.
At the same time, although the whole family drifted abroad, Baggio's identity with Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation became increasingly strong.
Since the age of five, Baggio has learned to speak Chinese and write Chinese characters. The controversy over children's "forgetting their roots" has long since dissipated.
Most importantly, traveling and living around the world has made children and even Joe's parents have super adaptability.
From China to Thailand to study, and then from Thailand to Finland;
From employees of foreign companies to their own businesses, from laymen in design photography to self-taught talents...
Baggio became the child whose mother said that "it can grow wildly wherever it is thrown", and the couple has not honed themselves into better selves in hundreds of days and nights.
Perhaps, the expectations that Qiao Mama once wrote about her son are also a portrayal of their own lives:
Mom and Dad don't want to just teach you how to study so hard and how to have a so-called inspirational life.
We want to teach you how to fall calmly and with dignity when you fall;
When hurt, how to obtain inner peace, how to tenaciously heal themselves;
When conflict and disagreement, how to tolerate, back down and persevere.
For five years, the controversy over the choice of Joe and His Wife has not stopped.
Someone said, "You don't know the superiority of the school district, and sooner or later you will regret it."
Some people say, "Don't mislead ordinary people, you think of practical difficulties too simply!"
Others say, "Isn't it rich?" Traveling the world is something that only rich people can do."
But few people know that the four-month so-called "multi-million dollar" trip did not cost more than 300,000 yuan, and they also faced various life tests in a foreign country because they were worried about their upcoming savings.
It's just that they never regret what has happened.
Settling in Finland is not the end of their lives, and their family is still on the road.
As Joe's mother said in an interview: "We will go all the way, Finland is only temporary."
Perhaps, in the near future, we will follow this family to witness the education and life of more countries.
In fact, it is not poverty that traps most people, but thinking.
The writer Mader wrote this passage in "Allow Yourself to Waste Time":
Reading a book expects it to make me profound; Eating, swimming, expecting it to make me lose weight; Send a WeChat message expecting it to be replied to; Expecting kindness to others and being treated well; Write a story about a mood expecting to be comforted by attention; Attend an event and look forward to a fulfilling and enriching experience.
If these predetermined expectations are realized, I breathe a sigh of relief, and if they are not realized, I will feel sorry for myself.
But when I was a child, I was the same person, spending an afternoon watching ants move, waiting for the stones to blossom...
When I was a child, I didn't expect results, and when I was a child, I didn't discount my laughter.
Too many people see their lives and the growth of their children as a highly material exchange, and they rarely see the true desire in their hearts.
In life, five years is not a long time, but it is enough to prove the direction that a person really wants to pursue.
Joe's father and mother did not ask everyone to live into a mold, they just wanted to convey to the public:
Only you can decide what life will be like.
In fact, the choice of life and matter is not too strongly related, we do not have to roar to the goal, walk slowly, enjoy the scenery along the way, is also a kind of consummation.
As Joe's mother wrote:
What lives for others is called deduction.
What you live for yourself is called life!
May we all have the courage and freedom to set out at any time, and find our own treasures in the trivial life.
The picture of this article is from the public account "Baggio loves to eat sugar"
The content of this article is published with the permission of Qiao Ma
Author/Interview: Ju Xiaoxiao
Proofreading: Autumn and Autumn
Editor-in-Chief: Sleep goes
Producer: Wheat cooked in the studio
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