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When I embarked on the journey towards fatherhood in
Beijing, I had no idea what to expect. Not only was there the anxiety of
doing this in a place like Beijing, although I had already been here
for three years, but also rearing a child in these uncertain times.
While this pretty much ruled out the option of moving back stateside, my
wife and I were content with our lives in China’s capital.
At the time, I was the Nightlife and Culture editor for
the Beijinger, a DJ on the weekends, a moderately successful voice actor
for films and TV, and I loved that I was able to mix all of these
different careers and side-hustles and start saving some money. I was
fairly certain I would be in Beijing for the rest of my life and that I
could create a comfy environment for my family and myself in this city
over time through continued learning and working my butt off.
After the birth of my son Victor, I became the Managing Editor of
beijingkids. It was through my work here that I learned that Beijing is
actually a great place to raise kids. It’s safe in comparison to many
other cities around the world, and at-home childcare is relatively
cheap. Moms are also given a generous maternity leave, while dads are
also entitled to a paternity leave to help out during the week or
sometimes weeks after the baby comes. This is miles ahead of what you
would find in America, where we are usually immediately back to work
following a birth, but still behind areas of Scandinavia where equality
between the sexes is considered more comprehensively.
But, like most countries with a booming economy and a rising cost of
living, work commitments can often take control. This ability for me to
pile on work, while good in many respects as we needed the money, also
became problematic. It meant longer working hours. It meant always being
at the beck and call of the whims of multiple employers. But with the
desire to send my child to an international school on the horizon, no
opportunity could be ignored. All of these things result in a
considerable amount of stress for many parents living in the capital.
A Beijing survey office of the National Bureau of Statistics revealed in
March, 2019 that the average working day for Beijingers was about 8.6
hours, just above 42 hours per week. The average of China as a whole
sits at around 44.7 hours per week according to the China Labour
Dynamics Survey, published by Sun Yat Send University. That puts China
at the top of a long list of countries based on data compiled from
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), just
above Mexico, Costa Rica, and South Korea.
As an added note, and not to throw any shade, Germany ranked last on the
OECD list with 26 hours per week, but for good reason. There are
initiatives being created in the country to allow millions of Germans to
have 28 hour work weeks to spend more time with their families.This sort of work/parenting balance is something that has been troubling
me considerably lately. I would often wake up around 5.30 am, do some
work before breakfast, shower up and walk to work, do part-time gigs
during lunch, and get home at 7pm. Tired and mangled by the stresses of
the day, copy deadlines, and monotonous tasks, I would arrive home a
zombie. I could only eat dinner and maybe entertain my son for a couple
of hours before putting him to bed and usually passing out in the
process. All the while, the weekends were normally spent voice acting or
DJing at night, and only occasionally recuperating from the intense
workload I had allowed myself to take on Monday through Friday.
My wife was also working a full-time job with abnormal hours; sometimes
during the day, sometimes at night, and almost always on the weekends.
We were only completely together as a family a couple of waking hours
every week. At some points I convinced myself that this was only
temporary, and that I would one day find “one job” that would cover all
of our needs. But we soon came to realize that this was a gamble and
would likely never fully cover the growing costs that Beijing continues
to demand.Something that’s often unspoken but widely known among expats in Beijing
is that unless you are a foreigner with some sort of relocation
package, living a normal life with the same advantages you were given as
a child is pretty difficult. However, it is by no means impossible. So
we continued to hope for a change.
All the while, so much about my job with this magazine was
learning about what it means to be an effective parent, but I
constantly lacked the time to implement anything in my own home. I knew
this wasn’t going to change, especially when my son started preschool
with a monthly tuition of around RMB 11,000.Some call it burnout. But it was also something more. I was feeling
guilty about not being able to put into practice all of the parenting
tools I had accumulated; guilty about relying so much on hired help to
do a satisfactory job of watching over my child throughout these early
years. Being on the phone replying to messages late into the night was
not the example I wanted to set for my son.
I want to play an integral role in my son’s development into an
empathetic, intelligent, and, most importantly, happy child. I want to
help him understand the world we are living in and give him the tools
necessary to thrive. This won’t happen if I’m unable to balance work
with life, and while I’m well aware that I’m not the only father in
Beijing or the rest of the world going through this at the moment, it
was a major factor regarding why my wife and I decided to hit the
restart button and leave Beijing for a place that is more affordable.
We all know the tired cliché that dads belong at work, but I can no
longer neglect the fact that my son needs me. He needs me to help him
navigate this complicated and sometimes scary world we are living in.
How else is he going to learn about what it means to be a man, or, more
importantly a decent human being? So many of the pitfalls regarding
toxic masculinity seem to stem from these developmental years and a lack
of positive guidance. Even as an adult, this is something I’m still
learning about and trying to reprogram about myself. As dads we need to
understand how essential we are to our children, and that no amount of
money can buy back the time we lose by not maintaining a proper balance
to prepare them for whatever the future might bring.
While this will be an emotional departure for me and my family, Beijing
will forever be a part of our identity. This city and the experiences
I’ve gained here have taught me that being a good dad isn’t about
working yourself to death to provide. It’s more important to be present
and a willing participant in overcoming all of the challenges that
family life may bring.
Photos: unsplash, giphy