Stay-at-home Mother: Weal or Woe to the Family?

Home>>Life

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 03, 2003

Stay-at-home Mother: Weal or Woe to the Family?

At 24, Gao gave up her hard-won job as an editor with a leading Harbin-based newspaper to be a stay-at-home mother with her newborn daughter.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

At 24, Gao gave up her hard-won job as an editor with a leading Harbin-based newspaper to be a stay-at-home mother with her newborn daughter.

Today, the well-being of her 18-month-old is all that matters to the graduate of the elite Harbin Polytechnical University, one of the best institutions of higher learning in northeast China.

"As time goes by, I communicate less and less with my old friends and colleagues, as I'm the only one devoted to child-rearing while everyone else is busy seeking career development or further education," she said.

For Gao herself, the decision to be a full-time mother was made reluctantly.

"Neither myself nor my husband is from Harbin, and our parents are not healthy enough to come all the way to help us bring up the baby," she explained.

Customarily in China, children stay with their grandparents when their parents are away at work.

Gao said they did not want to hire a baby-sitter, fearing that a poorly educated caregiver would hinder the baby's early-stage intellectual development.

"But to be full-time mother is a very tiring job -- very soon I gave up all my hobbies," she said.

Though many nurseries accept babies above 18 months old, Gao said she does not want her daughter to "suffer" from a completely new life all too suddenly.

"I'd rather wait for another year or two, until she's fully prepared for a new environment."

Despite her own losses in career development, Gao said she is happy to see her baby girl grow up to be healthy and happy.

As Chinese parents pay more attention to family planning and the well-being of their only child, a number of white-collar females in major cities have become stay-at-home mothers so that they can devote themselves to child rearing.

An educational institution in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou has found that 59 out of all the 243 young mothers it surveyed are or once were full-time mothers, and all of them had received college education, the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News reported recently.

Some say this suggests the revival of some traditional values, which is a blessing to their families and society.

"A child acquires most of its basic skills during the first three years of his or her life," said Wang Donghua, associate professor with the East China Jiaotong University, "A mother's role at this stage is irreplaceable."

What's more, a stay-at-home mother relieves the burdens of her husband by shouldering most of the household chores, and helps ease the pressure on the job market, he held.

But Cai Wenxue, a professor with the Harbin Engineering University, said stay-at-home mothers do not bring bliss to their family or society.

"It's too risky for them to give up their career development opportunities and isolate themselves from society," said Cai, who refutes the trend as a "social degradation" and a waste of human resources.

"In modern society, parents only need to provide their children with a safe, healthy and loving environment and teach them some basics such as how to become an upright person and how to get along with others," he explained. "No matter how much time a mother spends with her child, home education can never replace school education."

Prof. Cai found in his study that children with stay-at-home mothers tend to be more dependent in schoolwork, with their devoted mothers always standing by during their study sessions at home.

Besides, these children are always under high pressure and tend to feel guilty when they fail to live up to their mothers' expectations.

For the mothers, life as a housewife could gradually estrange them from their working husbands, which could break the harmony of the family in the long run, Cai said.

He advised young mothers to take up part-time jobs or less competitive positions to still be able to spend time with their children at home.

Even advocates of stay-at-home mothers agree that total isolation from society should not last too long.

"A stay-at-home mother should start working again when the child is three years old," said Wang Donghua, a professor at East China Jiaotong University. "In a fast-paced society, you simply lag behind if you stay where you are while everyone else is moving ahead."

Luckily, a number of companies, particularly providers of baby-care products and child rearing consulting services, offer job opportunities exclusively to young mothers, who can share their motherhood weal and woe with their colleagues and clients even at work.

Questions?Comments? Click here

Which Country, China or Japan, Does Russian Oil Pipeline Lead to? ( 3 Messages)

Chinese Fast Food Chains Battle Foreign Competitors ( 4 Messages)

Chinese Commemorate Dead Soviet Pilots ( 3 Messages)

China-ASEAN Economic Cooperation Upgraded ( 2 Messages)

Japan Strives to be Major World Power: Analysis ( 7 Messages)