“我不如做一个真实的妈妈”

“什么样的妈妈才是一个好妈妈？”

90年生的王胤一，和世界上所有第一次当妈妈的人一样，觉得这始终是一个无解的题。

"What makes a good mother?" That's a question every mother-to-be would contemplate and every mother would struggle to explore in front of clamoring children. For Wang Yinyi – a single mother of two, it's a question she spent three years trying to figure out.

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01
 “完美的妈妈” 

2014年，王胤一的大女儿出生。24岁的她初为人母，对未来充满期待。

她暗暗下定决心，“要为女儿做一个完美的妈妈。”

"I wanted to be a perfect mother for my girls." Wang, born in 1990, spent much of her childhood without her parents, so she went all out to be around her own children every minute. That was six years ago, when her first daughter was born.

王胤一和大女儿于2016年

诞下女儿后，王胤一开启了全职家庭主妇的生活模式：

每天一睁眼就陪女儿玩，通常是一直陪到中午。到了中午，开始研究菜单，想方设法地换花样做菜。午饭过后，哄孩子睡觉，孩子睡醒了后继续陪玩。接着准备晚饭，继续陪孩子，直到孩子睡下。

每天只有到夜深人静的时候，王胤一才有了一点属于自己的时间。但就是这点少得可怜的自由时间，她也没让自己闲着。

自小在单亲家庭长大的王胤一，小时候总有一种被抛弃的感觉。她担心自己做不了一个好妈妈，于是把深夜的时间都安排得满满当当——要读亲子教育的书，还要上“宝妈育儿”类的网课。

王胤一说，印象最深的一节课上，老师告诉她养育孩子的一个核心要点是“做一个平和而坚定的妈妈”。

"At the time, I would begin playing with her right when I woke up. As noon approached, I would study a variety of recipes for lunch, then lull her to a nap and play with her again until dinnertime," Wang said as she described her daily routine as a stay-at-home mother to CGTN. Her only alone time was the few hours after her daughter had fallen asleep. "I'd usually read books and attend MOOCs on parenting in the still of the night." Since in her childhood, she had often felt like she had been abandoned, she was scared that her daughters would feel the same way.

两年后，王胤一的小女儿出生。她在欣喜之余，生怕自己给两个孩子的爱不够，更是一刻不停地努力做着一个“平和而坚定”的完美的妈妈，不和孩子发脾气，不在孩子面前表露负面情绪。

但当日复一日的琐碎的家务填满了她的生活时，生性外向、爱好运动的王胤一，越来越发现自己的生活与“平和”二字沾不上边。

“那段时间我自己真的是平和不了。在家带孩子、看孩子，孩子捣乱，无法做自己的事情。那时候的平和是装出来的。”

Two years later, Wang was pregnant with a second child. While she was excited to lavish love on her girls, she became more frazzled by the day .

"In those online classes, the teacher always told you to be 'a composed while determined mother,' so I acted accordingly."

Whenever she was about to lose her temper with her kids, she would try her best to stay calm. But ultimately, she realized that she couldn't make it unless she faked it. "I found that I had been pretending to be a composed mother for such a long time that I had forgotten who the real me was."

后来，王胤一渐渐明白，假装的平和无法掩盖内心的焦虑——

“要做到真正的平和，是需要一个人内心很有力量的。你要感知你自己的情绪，才能处理这个情绪，所以你的内心要有力量才能做到这些。”

她决定做出一些改变，让自己的生活除了照顾孩子之外还有一些盼头。

For Wang, an outgoing lover of sports, being a sweet-tempered housewife made her feel worthless. The dull yet tiring days at home tanked her confidence.

"When I have nothing to do but take care of the kids, I feel powerless," she said. "I must tough it out."

She went to a psychologist who suggested that she pick a hobby and spend some time on herself.

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02
 “就像哈利波特从麻瓜世界回到霍格沃茨” 

“我曾经问过我已四世同堂的奶奶，这一辈子过来是什么感觉。奶奶说，这一辈子匆忙就过了，感觉时间太少，什么都没有学。我被此话点醒了，我不甘心。即便我是两个孩子的妈妈，我也只有27岁，我想要精彩的生活，想有爱好，想有梦想。”

王胤一从小就是全能型运动选手：

“自小喜欢运动，夸张到出门抬腿就是跑步，很少走路。参与过各种田径、速滑的训练和比赛，还是跆拳道黑带。”

基于对体育运动的兴趣，她决定为自己重新培养一种爱好。

2017年，抱着“减肥塑形”的目的，王胤一体验了一次巴西柔术课。

可以算得上是“半个体育生”出身的王胤一，其实早在十年前就接触过巴西柔术。然而，这项当时在国内鲜有女性选择尝试的运动，让她从心理上觉得难以接受：男女抱在一起在地上互相压制，动作亲密，令人尴尬。

但当时的她不会想到十年后，在自己成为两个孩子的母亲之后，这项运动竟成为她找回生活激情的开始。

Wang had her brush with Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), a traditionally male-dominated ground-fighting sport, by chance in 2017. The first time she came to know BJJ was almost a decade ago – back then, she found it embarrassing because male and female fighters grappling with each together offended her sensibilities. She never thought that she could accept this martial art when she got older.

“巴西柔术是一项神奇的运动，体型、力量更小的女性却可以战胜重量级的男性。”

这样以“小力量”对抗“大力量”，不断寻求自我释放、自我突破、自我超越的感觉，让王胤一欲罢不能。

于是，她只要一有时间就去道馆练习，后来一跃成为全国知名的女子柔术运动员之一。时间充裕的时候，她每天上午练、下午练、晚上练，一天三练，用她自己的话说就是——

“每天挥汗如雨地和伙伴们’耳鬓厮磨’，每天在野兽群中寻找活路。”

王胤一的训练伙伴这样评价进入练习状态的她——

“她一上垫子，就像哈利波特从麻瓜世界回到霍格沃茨一样，她能在这个垫子上使出那些她打磨多年的魔法。”

"It's fascinating to make your opponent submit to you with everything but a weapon," she said with light in her eyes. Her training partner describes the effect the sport has on her: "Whenever she steps on the mat, she's like Harry Potter traveling from the Muggle world to Hogwarts, and all at once gaining the power of magic."

Holds, throws, rolls, scoots… she can use all these techniques in her arsenal to pin an opponent to the ground. With everyday training, drills and sparring, Wang has found herself. "BJJ is a miraculous sport in which a smaller, weaker woman is likely to defeat a bigger, more muscular man," she noted. In this intense confrontation, she keeps pushing the boundaries with grit and stamina in addition to applying new techniques.

Even as a child, Wang had always wanted to get the first place in a competition, be it track-and-field or high jump. But before taking on BJJ, she had never realized this dream, despite having a black belt in Taekwondo.

王胤一在道馆

尽管接触巴西柔术的初衷很简单——只是找回一点生活的乐趣，但这项运动带给王胤一的却远不止这些。

正如训练场上总有自己无法撂倒的对手一样，王胤一也开始用更坦然的目光审视自我，接纳自己的不完美——

“我觉得还是要接纳自己。因为接纳自己以后你会发现，心里是很平静、很稳定的，没有那些焦虑。”

As time went on, she has realized inner peace derives from a high self-esteem, from loving herself, from pursuing her own dream. She has also learnt to accept herself because there's always someone she can't pin to the ground. "As I've come to accept myself as I am, I largely spare myself the anxieties that kept haunting me in my early years as a mother."

2018年11月，王胤一与一位体重80公斤的队友对战时意外骨折。经历了四个多小时的全麻手术后，医生告诉她，以后不能再练了，她的腿已经无法支撑练习强度。

但王胤一骨子里那股不服输的劲又冒出来了。在床上躺了三个多月后，她开始做康复训练，从练习站立到走路，再到重返巴西柔术的训练场，她一次又一次突破自己的极限。

距离受伤不到一年——在2019年9月日本东京举办的“巴西柔术亚洲锦标赛”赛场上，王胤一获得季军，成为为数不多的拿下成人组奖牌的中国女选手之一。

王胤一（右一）获得2019年日本东京亚锦赛季军

在这场亚洲级别最高的巴西柔术赛事上获奖，对王胤一来说是一种莫大的鼓励。

如今，凭着个人努力成功“出师”的王胤一和几个朋友一起开了一家格斗社，把对巴西柔术的情感变成了一项事业。

她说，“希望与柔术长相厮守。”

Training in BJJ has become a balm for her emotional turmoil. Immersed in the sport and a sense of achievement it brings, she trained herself to be a professional BJJ practitioner and coach by pushing herself beyond the point of exhaustion.

Hard work pays off. She eventually won third place at the 2019 Tokyo Asian Jiu-Jitsu Championship as a blue belt under featherweight division. Just months ago, she was on the operating table for treatment of a broken ankle. "The doctor said it's impossible for me to go back to BJJ even if I've fully recovered." But she persevered, from standing up to walking and returning to the mat. She still has the bone plate in her ankle since removing it would require her to rest for a couple of months.

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03
 “我不如做一个真实的妈妈” 

接触柔术之后，王胤一对如何做一个“完美的妈妈”有了不同的认识——

“慢慢地，练习柔术让我知道，做到‘平和而坚定’更好。如果我做不到，我不如做一个真实的妈妈。”

输了比赛，王胤一不再隐藏情绪，她会将难过表现出来，跟女儿们说，“妈妈好难受呀，妈妈比赛输了”。

但释放情绪之后，王胤一也会乐观而坚定地告诉女儿们，“但妈妈还可以继续呀”。

王胤一说，练习柔术之后，最大的改变是“身材变好了，有肌肉了”。

但外在的改变只是最显而易见的那部分，现在的她，能够从容地将自己不完美的一面展现给女儿。

在许多人的认知里，妈妈是坚不可摧的守护神。她不会轻易诉苦，不会轻易流泪，永远是最好的避风港。

但母性的力量，即便被刻画得再无所不能，母亲作为实实在在的人，也有脆弱的时候。

事实上，做一个偶尔会有小情绪，偶尔会在孩子面前示弱的妈妈又有何不可呢？

"It's okay not to be a perfect mother. I can be a mother who's true to herself," Wang said when talking about one of her biggest benefits from BJJ training. In the first few years as a mother, she had always forced herself to smile in front of her kids all day long, to play with them as long as they needed, to cook the healthiest recipes for the family, which ultimately stretched her toward a breaking point. Now she does things differently. "I would cry if I lose a match. I would say 'I'm tired' if I'm too exhausted to play with the kids."

王胤一与女儿

王胤一时常会问懵懂的女儿们：你们有梦想吗？妈妈的梦想就是拿冠军。

但拿不了冠军又如何？输了爬起来再继续便是。

正如王胤一时不时对女儿们说的那句话——

 “要有梦想，要坚持梦想。你可以输，但不要放弃；你也可以哭，但不要放弃。”

生活中有如意不如意，人生道路上有输有赢。

做一个不完美但真实、勇敢的妈妈，在经历挫折后笑着对孩子们说一句“妈妈还可以继续呀”——也是一件很酷的事情，不是吗？

By convention, most Chinese mothers are afraid of showing vulnerability in front of their children. But it's hard to hide emotions in life, and attempting to do so can be unhealthy for mothers, in particular full-time mothers. It's fine to be in a bad mood, to be angry, to be sad, even to flip out once in a while. However, fighting the conventions of motherhood takes courage.

Wang's choices are reflective of how a mother is also a person who has her own goals and desires. Many want to return to full-time work or have a side job in addition to their dedicated parenting. The common theme here is that they get to choose what to do and how to express themselves.

"A mother must have her own life and dream. Through training in BJJ, I hope to show my girls that a woman must have a dream and hang in there, even if they want just to be a full-time housewife," Wang said while playing with her daughters. "You can lose, but don't give up. You can cry, but don't give up."

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