192 | Hu Chuan'an: No matter whether you are a single parent or a parent, raising a child requires building a village

 Text/Wang Yingzhi (Master of Arts, Department of International Communication, National Chengchi University. Internet media workers, I believe everyone has their own pursuits.)
(Original post published on August 6, 2022)

Hu Chuan'an, 43 years old, assistant professor of Chinese Department of Central University, has a 7-year-old son. Currently living in Zhongli.

I got divorced in 2019, and after returning to Taiwan from Canada, I started to take care of my children by myself. In the past, single fathers were regarded as a problem, which seemed strange or domestic violence, etc., but this should not be a problem. It's just a life choice, just like getting married or not getting married is a choice.

My son was born in Canada and took him with him while writing his thesis and spent the whole day together. At that time, the marriage was still there, but there were no relatives, so I had to do everything by myself. My son was born prematurely, weighing only 1,500 grams. When my wife was confinement, I would take my expressed breast milk to the ICU to feed him every day. Sometimes I go to the school library with my children.

Fortunately, Canadian health insurance and subsidies are very good, and it doesn't cost much. Even for an international student, the initial cost of raising a child is enough. I think this is the reason why people there are more willing to have children. So I would also think, why Taiwan has been doing babysitting policies or childcare allowances for decades, all of which are just for furs? If you don’t dare to give birth, you really can’t afford to raise it. This is a problem of the overall environment.

I only grew up to be a dad after my dad passed away

Being a dad gave me a second childhood. What my son is watching now, I will follow. I used to think that Ultraman was boring, but I followed him and found out that some monsters appear because of resentment, just like children also have emotions, When a monster grows, Ultraman goes to help solve it. I just realized that this thing has so much meaning.

In fact, I used to hate children very much. I thought children were scary. You must be a mature person to take care of children. But before, I always felt that I hadn't grown up, because I was a student all the time because of my Ph.D. What has changed me? I think it was when my father left eight years ago that I started thinking about how he used to take care of me. When he left, I seem to have grown up suddenly. I can mature to face myself and have the next generation. Even if I get divorced, I can mature to face my relationship.

Ever since I was a child, my impression of my father was different from tradition. My mom is a strong business woman. She sleeps in the morning, and it is my dad who gets up to make breakfast by making milk. My mother would say go to school to buy it and eat it, but my father said no, the eggs outside are very greasy, and he has to decide how to cook them himself. I asked him why he had to make breakfast? He said that we don't actually have many opportunities to eat together. We may only have one or two thousand meals in our lifetime, and every meal we eat is one meal less.

In literature, whether it is a parent or a single parent, the father is the image of the back. Dad is always silent, or he's dying to talk about how much he loves you. In fact, in Taiwan, single fathers account for 45% of single-parent families. I talked to the counseling social worker that many single mothers have groups where they share with each other what they encounter, but men do not (speak out). When I wrote the book, I was also telling other men not to be labeled by others.

However, the worst seller of my book is this one. Most of the audience of the speech were women. Single mothers told me that they cried. You see, this is how women express themselves. But a man doesn't cry, he doesn't want to come to the lecture, nor does he want to know other people's experiences to share. Sometimes "Single Dad's Mom and Dad" come to help him listen!

Why (men) can't tell everyone that they are single parents? As a father and a man, you can't let go of authority, but this will keep the pressure inside, and there will be no outlet to release it, and the relationship with the child will be tense. Fortunately, I am a loud person, and I value a sense of humor and optimism in life.

Motherhood is not born: Dads don’t have to be silent, moms don’t have to be overly anxious

I'll also be in the mom group to see what they care about that I haven't considered as a dad? But I sometimes think that the women's constant focus on children may be too much -- it's not that they're talking about something wrong, it's just that I don't have that anxiety, and the children are fine.

To raise children to build a village, we must first take stock of resources. For example, if I work in Taipei, the children may have to be brought by myself, but when I work in Zhongli, I have a lot of resources. My mother and even some relatives can help me occasionally. For another example, I have to sleep until noon on weekends, so on weekends, I find an Anqin teacher to accompany my children until noon. For a few hundred yuan, I can get enough sleep, and we can play in the afternoon. The quality of getting along is relatively good.

Regardless of parents or single parents, the core consideration is where is the resource system? We will hope that we grow up in the process of raising children, rather than that our work is delayed by children. Of course, it will be tiring to carry it alone, so it is necessary to build a village.

In this era, men are supposed to take care of their children. As long as they do everything by themselves, motherhood will emerge—on the other hand, motherhood is not born by women, this is not inevitable. (Finish)

[The original text of this article was published in "Walking the World": Hu Chuan'an: No matter if you are a single parent or a parent, you need to build a village to raise children ]

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