TBT: On Chinese Mothers-in-Law & Raising the White Flag

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Beijingkids has been an essential family resource for Beijing international families since 2006. And just as kids grow up in the blink of an eye, Beijing has grown and changed almost beyond recognition in that time. In Throwback Thursday we jump in the time machine, traveling through our 14 year-strong blog archives to dig out the most entertaining, fascinating, and thought-provoking stories for your reading pleasure. Ready? Let’s go…

For this week’s Throwback Thursday instead of digging through the archives looking for an unusual news article to riff on, we’ve taken a slightly different tack. This piece comes from to you from Jun 2012… however, it could have been written in just about any year, or even century because the topic it discusses is so universal: Mothers in Law.

Our waiguoren author wrote this insightful but loving ode to her Chinese MIL just a few months after the arrival of her first child, as a magazine piece published in the June 2012 magazine issue. She captures the heady mixture of love, frustration, and gratitude that goes along with motherhood and living in a foreign culture, in a way we know our many Beijing mom readers will recognize.

We hope you enjoy it.

My mother-in-law is leaning over the crib clucking and clicking her tongue at my gummy-grinned, 4-month-old daughter. It sounds a bit like the African Xhosa language. Almost every Chinese person who meets my daughter does the same.

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Since coming to China, I’ve had lots of opportunities for cultural comparisons. Marrying a Chinese man stepped it up a notch, and having just given birth to our daughter in January, I’m witnessing a whole new level of culture clash. Enter the mother-in-law.

In modern Chinese culture, the in-laws generally move in with the new parents to help with the infant, often staying indefinitely. Mercifully, my mother-in-law, or MIL, chose to rent an apartment in the same complex instead. It’s hardly distinguishable, however, because she spends about twelve hours in our home each day.

But before my story takes on the roar of a battleground, I must pause for my gratitude to wave its white flag.

She is an incredible cook. During my first month postpartum, it was thanks to my MIL that I ate such healthy food and recovered so quickly from childbirth. Since then, she has kept us beautifully fed, and prides herself in her cleaning and organizing skills. She is also wonderful with our daughter and is a doting grandmother. Her presence has allowed me to resume exercising, occasionally go out with friends alone, not to mention write this column.

Inherent in all this, however, is the Chinese philosophy that my generation isn’t equipped to adequately manage a household with a newborn child...

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Images: beijingkids, Unsplash

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