Just when I thought I had learnt to navigate the craziness of China, I had a baby, and here we were back on square one.
The stakes seemed to change once we became parents in China. Not only were we navigating the mire of first time parenting – but we were doing it in a country that thought the way we did everything was mad. And they don’t mind telling you so!
It started the very first day we brought Zipporah home from the hospital. Shaky, only 5 days post-op, we nervously strapped our daughter into her car chair and drove exceedingly slowly to our front gate. Once there, Kyle proceeded to help the baby and I from the car and into our apartment on the 28th floor, navigating various restricted access doors and elevators. It was a glorious autumn day in October and the sun was shining, with only a gentle breeze. Our daughter was wrapped snugly and huddled close to mama. All seemed well with the world until we were assaulted in the lift by a group of nattering old ladies who thought Zipporah should be wearing a hat, and oh she’s only 5 days old – what on earth are mother and child doing outside?!
We proceeded to take Zipporah, usually fast asleep on our shoulders/in her pram, out for daily walks for the rest of Autumn, willing her to savour the 3 weeks of glorious weather Beijing gets per year before the chills of winter set in. And every day we got the same response – “she shouldn’t be outside, Chinese babies and mothers stay indoors the entire first month!” They also don’t bath for the first 2 weeks, so what makes you think I would follow either of these stupid theories. We got quite the reputation and people would mutter around us whenever we got into the lift; Kyle relayed to me that what they were saying about us was a much less polite version of “stupid, irresponsible foreign parents”. You would think this wouldn’t bother us too much, but when they are literally pulling our child from your arms and yelling at you, it’s hard to just turn the other cheek.
Unfortunately, things did not get much better after she was a month old. They just managed to find new things to yell at us about. This is because the Chinese culture is a very community-orientated one, and babies are shared property. I also don’t think it helps that because of the one-child policy children have become such prized possessions, and are therefore treated like glass dolls until they are at least 18yrs. Everything she ate got taken away – she wasn’t allowed to eat meat, sit on the floor, play in the sand, run, climb or anything else potentially dangerous. She was supposed to sit like all the other drooling kids in her pram during any outside stimulation. Yes, China is breeding generations of kids with sensory, language and gross motor issues, but my goodness at least their hands remain clean!
So we get used to being yelled at, eventually. And then we have to get used to our child stopping traffic because she is SO BEAUTIFUL. I feel like Jennifer Lopez when I take my kid outside, the paparazzi start snapping away on their mobile phone cameras from the moment we step foot out of the door! They don’t ask permission, and they don’t even try to be discreet. I have been in busy markets, trying on clothes or bargaining with a salesman and when I turn around my child has been whisked away to another stall and is being photographed with every twenty-something female within a 10-foot radius. She has been poked and prodded, squeezed and hugged, which I supposed I should be grateful has contributed to her easy-going and friendly demeanor with strangers.
And to add insult to injury, we are choosing to be Zipporah’s primary care givers but not summoning the help of our parents and in-laws all the way to China. This is very frowned upon in China, where grandparents raise your children and move in with you when you have your one and only child because you cant be trusted to do it properly yourself. Oh you should see the stares I get when I walk outside with Zipporah (now almost 18 months), pregnant, pushing the pram AND carrying groceries. My goodness, us African woman must be made of tough stuff to manage all that unaided! I often think of my very competent friends back home who manage much more, and with much more grace. I suppose you just learn to deal with your lot in life.
Grandparents raising children is a strange phenomenon that brings about very sad consequences – ill-disciplined and wild children are everywhere, with their grandparents running frantically behind them giving in to their every whim and desire. The fact that I discipline my child gets us even more attention. Tantrums are never tolerated and when my (darling) does have a melt-down, I deal with it in a stern manner, wherever we are. But this parenting-privilege does not come without its price in China, and we are usually pointed at, gasped at, and scolded from way off in the distance.
I now have some coping mechanisms that have enabled me to navigate this minefield of parenting an African child in Beijing. These include allowing her Chinese nanny to take her outside to socialize most days, and force her to explain our weird foreign philosophies to more than curious other mums and grannies. Feigning complete ignorance in the language when I am approached and quizzed about my child, minimizing what we call “damage control” by keeping meat-related products only for consumption at home. And of course giving in to the invariable assault on our privacy when we are out and about, instead of rant and throw cameras, I have come to accept the paparazzi as a way of life.
I know that you will get different styles of parenting wherever you are in the world, but I am looking forward to one day living in a place where we can blend into the crowd, and when we do something others deem inappropriate, they have the decency to keep their opinions to themselves!
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