A secondary school in East China's Hangzhou city recently held a unique parent -teacher meeting, which only fathers are invited to attend.
While they were at it, they drafted and issued a 10 -point MOU outlining the responsibilities of good fathers.
This, in turn, started a new round of discussion about the role of fathers in parenting.
Hello, I'm Lai Ming and this is Round Table.
Today with Newholing and Steve Hatley, we share our observation on the shifting winds in parenting.
So the fathers were invited to attend the parent -teacher meeting.
They were asked. They were asked.
They were asked. They were asked.
They were asked. They were asked.
They were asked. They were asked.
They were asked. The school terminal.
And apparently you're not allowed to ask for, well, absence.
To be absent, saying that, well, I know you're very busy as a dad, but you have to be here for a dad.
Or you'll be fired.
What were the... This is an interesting move, right?
Because this is very specific to this school, not this community, not this school board, but this particular school in this part of China.
This isn't a nationwide policy.
No. Why, I'm curious to know, did the school see the need to ask the fathers to come and make them come?
Because mothers were not up through the job?
See, I didn't... I'm picking up back here.
Yeah, that's a cheap shot.
Well, the idea is that fathers are not there enough, often enough, and they are not fulfilling their tasks as a dad.
And that is why the school get into the family business because it's not just a family business.
It has a lot to do with a kid's healthier growing up.
And that's not the only incident.
Actually in Hangzhou, there was another school organized a father -only meeting to address the absence of fathers in children's education.
And but I think this school is already being very nice.
Sugar -coating everything, saying that there is a 10 rules you can follow to be a perfect dad.
To be a really good dad.
It's like the 10 commandments.
Were they imposed on the fathers or did they discuss and agree to it and put their...
The idea is only that if you're doing all 10 out of 10, then you are praised as a really good dad.
And we're going to praise you in front of all the other dads and you know, shaming them a little bit.
I'm not really sure.
Do we know what the 10 commandments were?
Well there are many.
I think the idea is not specifically what are listed as the 10 commands.
It's more like asking parents, asking dads to figure out or to realize that their absence is no longer okay.
Yeah, we're treating this a little bit with a bit of fun so far in our discussion.
But this is obviously a real issue in these communities because the schools went so far as to make this decision.
Which means the schools saw the lack of father participation in the child's education somehow, some way.
So they decided to make this move.
They thought it was a big enough issue that they decided to do this.
And this is somehow important because things have shifted somewhat.
Because here living in the Chinese society, we actually have noticed the shifting winds in people's ideas about parenting.
Whereas before people might believe that it's the man's responsibility to go out and make the money and feed the family while the mother's responsibility was to be the loving caregiver within the household and to tend to every need of the family, including the children.
And there's even, again, I intend to say perhaps it's the responsibility of the mother to oversee the education of the children.
But then again, I think of the Sanzijin in ancient China, where this specific term said yan bu jiao fu chiguo, meaning if a children is born and is not educated, then it's the fault of the father.
So we actually don't have the tradition of painting the responsibility of education of the children only to the mothers.
So what has changed?
Where did we get this perception that perhaps it's the mother's only responsibility?
Well actually in 1969, there was this attachment theory that argues that the mothers have traditionally been seen as the primary caregivers because of their closer attachment to infants, which extends to schooling and education.
Meanwhile, cultural norms reinforce the idea that fathers were less involved in the day -to -day aspects of children rearing.
The idea also in China is that, even though we had the saying for a really long time, Lai Ming has just quoted, but the idea is still that mothers are taking care of the kids in a day -to -day basis, where fathers would provide the direction of how to raise a kid.
You guys are the leaders in the families, you know, you give the principles and leave the work that I'm not gonna call it dirty work, but the heavy work burden to mothers like us.
So I'm going to ask the question, as a modern day dad, in your opinion Lai Ming, what do you think is a good or what do you think should a good dad do in the family?
I think like more and more young dads in this country, I believe that parents, fathers have a responsibility to be there around their children to closely watch and monitor what's going on with their children.
I think I was fortunate to have had that opportunity when my son was really young and he was born in the year 2019.
Right after that, we had the unfortunate incidents of COVID -19.
So I had the chance to be at home more often than if it were regular days.
And so I was pretty much in pace with the rate at which my son grew.
I was I could tell even better than my wife when he's about to urinate, when he's about when he needs a diaper change and when he's holding his bladder not to urinate, you know, difficult and difficult.
So I'm I know I would like to know those things about you as well.
That that ship has sailed.
Anyway, I think I've heard this story from many different friends of mine who had small children during the pandemic and with something like COVID, it's almost impossible to find a silver lining.
And in the beginning, but in the beginning, when those dads were forced to stay home with their kids, the initial reaction was, oh, my gosh, I'm going to go crazy.
I'm in this house all day with my family, my entire family.
And then a few months later, fast forward a year later and my friends all said the same thing.
Actually, it's the best thing that ever happened to my family because then they suddenly got to learn about all the things that you learned about.
Did you feel that as well?
Were you kind of grateful for that opportunity?
Well, I made a decision right before we decided to have a baby that I would be a part of it.
And no, thanks to COVID, I really had the chance to be there.
At least if only for the two to three years.
And that part of my memory has been a blessing because that has enabled me to build a close bond with my son and a part which I can now exercise certain authority without worrying about whether I'm hurting his feelings, whether I'm leading him to question whether I love him or not.
So we have an emotional basis to work with.
I mean, then that that really is a blessing.
I think the unspoken background of that specific example is that there is a societal consensus that dads are not supposed to be as involved as moms when a kid is born.
I'm not I'm not only saying the conception about the dads themselves, but more like, for example, in a workplace, if you're giving birth to a child, you are looking at a around five to eight months of parental leave.
And the idea is that you could invest in your child's growing up as a mom for at least two or three years in the first two or three years.
But for dads, we are giving dads around 15 days of maternity days.
Yeah. 15 days of maternity leave.
Which you can share with your wife.
Yes. For some dads.
For girls. They would they would even give that 15 days to the moms.
Even if she works at a different company in a different industry, those are transferable.
Yes. And if and that actually we do not see a similar transferable eight month maternity leave from moms to dads.
And some countries are practicing that and encouraging fathers to spend maternity leave.
Saternity leaves. So the idea here is that this society, the companies, the workplace are expecting dads to be involved in family matters in raising of a kid a bit less than moms.
And that, regardless of the dads own wishes, is the situation.
And maybe changing that would help dads be more involved.
Well, before covid and before the recent years, I think the wings have already been shifting and more and more fathers having been educated and having been informed about the importance of their presence around their children have become accustomed to be there, to to spend time with their children more
often than not. When I go to a mall, I see like minded to fathers sticking with the babies, even holding them in their in their breasts and that kind of thing.
So it's that kind of pattern and that kind of paradigm shift has already taken place.
But I would like to bring our attention to the recent changes in in the pattern.
And that is is past covid and life has somehow become even more fast paced in metropolitan areas, at least in China.
And that's such I think there's more of an inclination for whoever is the breadwinner in the family to be more engaged in whatever they do.
And this could be the father of the family in more often in more in pre -imprevalent cases.
It is the father. But again, I'm referring to the tendency of the breadwinner of the family being more occupied, being more being more demanded at work, which is why I think it's important for companies to implement things, implement rules, perhaps, that almost force fathers out the company door for maybe
a day, a month. You talk about maternity and paternity leave.
Paternity leave is a wonderful thing.
15 days. Yeah. Yeah.
That's a great thing for when the baby's born.
And then what? What about when the baby is four years old or five years old or six years old?
What about on a monthly basis?
I think why these schools want to see the fathers show up to the parent teacher activities is because they're seeing absenteeism.
And I don't think we can blame the fathers wholly for that problem.
People are busy at their companies and they don't have a lot of time.
What about that? If companies implemented a policy where they said you get maybe one day every two months or something like that, and it's called Daddy Day or something like that, where you take a day off and you spend it with your kids?
That would be the ideal situation for moms like myself.
I would applaud for that to happen.
But before that happening, actually, dads can be more, let's say, active or proactive.
Even when they're at home, they can spend half an hour, very high quality time with their kids, playing with the kids, be rough, play not only playing with the kids, just play the kids.
Throw them in the air and catch them, make sure you catch them.
And the idea is that this kind of relatively rough and tumble play often helps children develop resilience and risk management skills.
And another thing I hope can happen in today's world is that stop calling a dad a hero dad when they actually are basically doing the tasks that mothers routinely handle every day.
So as someone incompetent in everyday parenting tasks and like changing a diaper, like changing a diaper.
And sometimes when a dad is bonding with the children through sports or fun activities while the emotional and caregiving aspects of fatherhood are less frequently depicted, the media would call these dads hero dads, they're doing a really good job while they're doing what they should be doing.
I think I have to agree with you on this one.
Yeah, you don't get an award for something that you're supposed to be doing.
If you have a child, you're supposed to be taking care of your child and you're supposed to be taking care of the household chores at the same time.
It doesn't matter if you're busy at work or not.
That's the role, right?
In America back in 2010, let's talk about this briefly, dual income households.
In 2010 in the United States, 51 .9 % of married couples were dual income households, both the husband and the wife were working.
In 2019, that number went up to 53 .3%.
In 2023, that number went up to 60%.
That's according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If this number continues to increase, that implies then that both the mom and the dad are extremely busy with their professional lives.
That does not offer an excuse to the moms to ignore their responsibilities for their kids, and it doesn't offer the excuse for the dad's eyes.
This is exactly the point that I was trying to highlight, and that is we are facing a very complicated issue.
On the one hand, we are not there yet in terms of promoting awareness among the general public about the importance of others being there.
On the other hand, we are also seeing such changes in the society, rapid changes in the society, I mean technology that our life has become so much more fast -paced with instant messaging applications and also demand on higher productivity.
Whoever that's already making more in the family is being demanded more at work, and as such, I think it's not unnatural for families to make the economic decision to have the bright window of the family doubling down on what they're already doing, so that they can maintain or perhaps even earn more
space in their career to feed the family.
In comparison, whoever is stuck in the family taking care of the children and the domestic affairs risks losing more.
There's a study showing that with a better educated female and women in the workforce, they are not retreating from working.
In fact, it's just that from the economic term, the greedy work, which was identified by the Nobel Prize winner last year, said that this is a phenomenon, an economic decision on the part of each family.
And this is something that we need to combat given the shifts in the workforce in the workplace.
Yes, and on an individual level, I understand some dads are a little bit awkward when it comes to taking care of or being with their children.
They haven't done it for the past several years now.
They have the awareness.
They want to be engaged.
Yeah, they do not know what to do.
All of a sudden, their kids are already four or five years old and they're super, super natural and happy with their moms, but a little bit awkward with you and do not worry about it.
There's no, well, late is better than not being there all the time.
So if you want to get engaged, maybe set yourself 15 minutes or half an hour a day, find an activity that you can do with your kids, either it be playing Lego or reading bedtime stories or present or preparing for a surprise gift for the mom in the house.
That would give you good quality family time together and little by little, actually, the more you're engaged in parenting, the more rewarding you will feel after being with your kids.
Yeah, I don't know.
I grew up a little bit differently.
I think my university graduation, both my parents said to me, do we need to go to this?
I said, not if you don't want to.
And I said to them, wait, if you're not going, I'm not going to go.
I didn't go to my university graduation, partly because my parents thought it was going to be too long and too boring.
No, I was completely OK with that.
I think I could be a good example of how it better how is it better late than never because I was at a point where I was pretty much aware and I was quite in tune with my son.
I know his every need.
I know what he's thinking even before he was able to speak.
And now after COVID, my job has become even more fast paced and I couldn't afford as much time as I used to to spend time with my son.
As such, my wife is spending much more time and she knows much more about my son than I do now.
Sometimes we come to a point of disagreement or even conflict with regard to what policy to adopt in specific circumstances.
And I think it's quite important for now, at least for me, to communicate with my wife and also with my son to know what's really going on and what he is probably thinking and then to come up with the right policy.
Many times I've heard and made the wrong decision with regard to specific scenarios and that's somehow I hope this could this could be a good example to remind fathers out there who want to be there but didn't know how to.
And I think the answer is just be there and pay attention.
Yeah, that's a very honest answer.
Thank you for that.
But the good news is, I think, for people like you and people in your situation, the situation is fluid, right?
You don't set a policy for a year and then revisit it 12 months later.
You can change things as they go to try to suit your family the best.
Because children, they change every few months and you have to change accordingly.
You're listening to Roundtable.
Coming up, we have a question from a new dad.
You ask. We answer.
Roundtable. Heart to heart.
Welcome to this week's Heart to Heart and fittingly we have a question from a new dad asking about parenting.
Hello everyone, Table Team.
This is David calling from Chengdu.
Hope you're all doing well.
I'm a new dad here, you know, I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed because my kid is a five and a half year old.
And I really want him to grow up healthy and happy.
But my wife, you know, she is a totally academic superstar.
She got a PhD degree.
So she has a high expectation for science learning.
And we're all talking about academic racing and the surprising educational program.
So it's getting a bit tough to navigate.
So on one hand, you know, I want to give him every opportunity to learn and explore.
But from the other hand, I'm worried that all these extra classes and expensive study tools may take him away from the simple juries of being a kid.
So any advice for a new dad like me?
How can I find a balance, you know, between helping him grow and keep things fun and stress free?
Are there any simple, you know, less expensive ways to support young kids learning and the development?
Thank you for your comments and looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Sounds like he was hiding in the bathroom so his wife wouldn't hear him sending them.
Hey, listen, I've got like 30 seconds.
Here's my problem. And the wife is saying, I don't have a problem.
I know where to go.
But I could keep the kids playing in the background.
I was teasing, of course.
So what do you have for David?
Well, to be honest, I do not have an answer because I think it's a case by case scenario.
You cannot really find one theory that is suitable for every family when it comes to parenting theories.
I've read a lot of books before and after having my son.
And now I've come to the theory that all the theories are, you know, like a fashion trend.
They come and they go.
You've only got the most popular theories for your time when it comes to parenting, but you cannot really find the perfect theory.
Or maybe the latest one is not even the best one.
So my understanding is that you have to know your kid because when I was a kid, it's my first time being a mom.
Your parents didn't know you.
No, no, no. My parents actually knew me quite well.
The thing is, I love going to different courses.
I love these different classes.
I love attending these extracurricular classes because that's how I learned.
The way I learned is that I listened to the teacher's lectures and I love school.
That is uncalled for, but I understand what you're saying.
But my explanation here is that it's not like I am full heartedly listen to the teacher raise my hand every time when the teacher raises a question.
It's more like I play at one hand and listen to the teacher on the other hand simultaneously because I learned through listening.
I learned about that, about myself much later in life, but I realized I learned by listening, which is why for me, these classes were not a burden.
Know your kid. If your kid likes to learn by him or herself, let them.
And if they like to go into these occasions, give them the opportunity.
Yeah, I see your point.
I think that's a great point.
I was just teasing before, by the way.
I guess what you're saying is if the child seems like they're enjoying that academic kind of path, then okay.
Then there's really no problem with that.
But David, if you see your child, I don't want to do this today.
I'd rather go outside and play.
Well, then maybe searching for a balance.
And I guess what I would say is find a compromise.
Of course, your wife wants the best for your child.
So do you. You don't want to rob your child of their childhood joy.
Your wife wants them to have the best opportunities.
Maybe find a halfway point, 50 -50, where you can do both things.
You can do some academic stuff.
And then after that's finished, you can go do a fun, joyful, childlike activity together.
My response to David's question is number one, you are not a new dad.
You're the father of a five and a half year old son.
And you should know what he needs by now.
Tough love from Lightning.
And with regard to disagreement, perhaps some kind of disagreement with your wife, with a PhD, I think it's important to know that, well, you're dealing with survivor bias here.
And she obviously is talented.
And she's probably the smartest in her family and perhaps in your family.
Not to diminish your contribution, though.
Right, you did. You know, the issue with talented parents is that it's really hard for them to acknowledge or accept the pace at which their trojan are developing.
And it's important to have an idea of what to teach them at what stage.
Certain things they will eventually learn.
And I think there's no pointing letting them acquire and master in advance, like speaking, walking, running.
These are not essential skills.
With regard to whether or not he or she will succeed in the future, it's important to for them to develop certain good habits or a curious mind with things around them or their ability to observe and to see and to realize what's happening around them.
So I would rather stress the education or these basic skills rather than whether he can speak Chinese fluently or English fluently or whether he can memorize 3000 Town Dynasty poems.
These are not important.
The important thing is to give them the skills that they need for them to succeed in the future.
Because let's face it, you can only spare about two or three hours or eight hours if you're a four -time parent with them trying to teach them stuff, but they have to rely on themselves to acquire all the necessary skills that they need to pursue to succeed in their career.
I need that too, to be fair.
Sure, everybody needs that.
And I'm well after five years old.
All right, that's all the time we have for today's discussion.
Thank you for listening.
