3/13/23 - Without me, she would have way more options in life.
A blogger talks about how she’d went shopping with her mom last weekend and got into a fight on the way back. The fight was over how her mom had retold a story of an old couple—the man was over 80 and had bad legs, but the wife was only a bit over 60 and still wanted to travel and see the world. They often fight over this, and their son decided to hurry up and have a kid, so he can occupy his parents with raising his kid, and they wouldn’t fight anymore. Her mom thought the son was super smart, but OP said that he was very inconsiderate, and they fought over this.
OP thought that the son didn’t have any sympathy for his mother at all, who wanted to go out and travel. The fundamental premise of “Old people won’t fight anymore once they have a kid to raise” is all about increasing the stress in their life and take away their free time, putting extra strain on their body so they have no resources to fight with.. This is all calculable and measurable.
But OP’s mom repeatedly emphasised that even if it’s tiring, the happiness you get out of raising a kid is more than worth it, even if it is less calculable and measurable.
“That’s just you, though,” OP said.
“Yeah, that is me. Otherwise, why would I keep letting you live with me? Why would I bother cooking for you every day?” OP’s mom said, “Do you think I don’t get any happiness out of this?”
At this point, OP’s mother is getting a little upset, but she continued, “Sometimes you make me feel like maybe it was a mistake to bring you into the world. You don’t like this world, you didn’t want to be born. Is that so?”
OP was silent for a long time, “I’m grateful to be alive, but I feel like I’ve screwed you over by being born. I’m a burden to you from the moment I came into this world, and your life would’ve been much smoother without me…I don’t feel like you’re happy raising me and caring for me.”
OP’s mom urged, “Why would you think that?”
OP said that that was how she was taught from childhood. Maybe because she was kind of stupid as a kid, she needed this kind of thing to be spelled out for her.
OP’s mom finally worked it out, “Right. Because from childhood, everyone only taught you how you have to be grateful to your parents, how tired and stressed they are from work, how much they provide for you…we never thanked you for being in our life. We never appreciated you for your companionship.”
OP paused and burst out in tears. She walked along with her mom, carrying groceries in one hand and holding her mom’s hand in the other, and felt like she was a little kid again. Her mom lead her down the street and said, “Mommy forgot to tell you that we’re super happy. When you were tiny and soft and carried in my arms, when you would look up at me and call me mama, when you started learning on your own and telling me all your exciting discoveries—I was so incredibly happy. Life is really hard and stressful—lots of times, I wanted to give up. And I’d come home and see you, and feel like I could keep going again. It wasn’t because I was thinking how there’s someone to take care of me in old age. It was because you were still full of energy and life. You were the reason the world was worth living in.”
“It’s the same way you keep cats. You don’t need them to do anything for you. They just have to exist. You’re the same to me. You’re my kitty. You bring me immense happiness if I just get to hold you for a few seconds a day. You make me feel loved, feel dependable, feel like I’m worth something to someone, I’m special to someone, I’m someone’s favourite…that’s amazing.”
“You’re not a burden on my life. You didn’t choose to be born to me, I chose to have you. And I’m grateful for that.”
“I say a lot that you’ll understand once you’re a mom. I’m not referring to understanding how hard things are. But once you have a kid, you’d understand how happy I am. But now I see that I should’ve just told you this a long time ago. You were always such a good kid, you’re always accommodating me and your dad. You made us forget that we needed to actually say out loud that we love you, and we appreciate you, and we’re thankful for you.”
“I respect your choices, whether you want to get married or not, whether you want kids or not. But I need to make it clear, and you need to remember, that I’ve never regretted having you. You’ve brought far more happiness to me than hardship. I’m grateful you are my daughter.”
She said a lot that day, and OP cried a lot. OP’s mom led her along like she used to when OP was three, and said that she was just about as old as OP is now back then. She’d been exhausted after a day of work, and still needed to take a wailing kid home. She looked down at her daughter’s face, all scrunched up and red from crying, and finally could laugh after a day of work.
OP says at the end, “Thank you, mom, for letting me know that my birth was a gift. My life is meaningful in and of itself. This is very, very important to me. I love you.”
Comments say, “My mother often says that she’s lucky to have me—if it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t have to motivation to come nearly as far in life. But I always felt that, without me, she would have way more options in life.” Other comments are saying how this post made them cry.
A blogger answers the question, “How come Europeans can work in a factory for 3 generations, but Chinese factories are hiring every day?” And said that they’d watched a documentary on the BMW factory once. The protagonist of the documentary is from Turkey. His father and his grandfather both used to work at BMW. He’s working as a supervisor there himself, as the third generation. He works 35 hours a week, two days off per week, 30 days of paid leave per year. His pay cheques are 3500 Euros before tax and 2340 Euros after tax, 15 pay cheques a year. Most importantly, his 7 hours a day of work includes lunchtime and coffee break. And his only work is that, if something breaks down on the line, he calls the maintenance guy over to fix it. I think that the reason so many people like blue-collar work in Germany is because of short work hours and long vacation time. Most German factory owners start out with a very small home production, make a finished product, sell it on the market, and then slowly develop their way to being a big business. They have a complete supply system that’s been developed over the generations, and most of their employees are from the same hometown, if not their neighbours, and have a strong sense of loyalty to the factory.
Chinese factory owners are usually salespeople or worked in export. They get orders first, then organise people to produce the item, and then become a business. They’re usually just a part of the supply chain for European factories. They don’t have a real customer-facing product, they just manufacture parts, so they care a lot about profit margins and therefore don’t offer high pay. In fact, most factories just hire people when they get an order, and immediately lay off everyone once the order is complete, until they get a new order. This is impossible in Europe because unions make sure that you can’t lay people off without a good reason, and have to pay a lot of compensation for it.
Honestly, if there was a job that was 8 hours a day, no overtime, and pays enough to let you afford a house, a car, get healthcare, raise kids, and be able to retire, how many people would want to quit it?
At the end, the blogger asks what their readers think.
Comments ask, “Why not compare China to India or Vietnam? Why are you comparing a second world nation with first world nations when it comes to social benefits?”
A tourism guide to Japan has been embroiled in controversy, for using a picture of Yasukuni Temple on its cover. Dalian Publishing has made an official announcement that due to lax review protocols, an inappropriate picture was accidentally approved for the cover of this book, and that they have ceased selling it and are engaging in various avenues to track down books already sold to be bought back and destroyed. They promise to look into who is responsible for such negligence and to do better in the future. Comments say there’s no way this could possibly be an accident, and this is clearly some sort of conspiracy.
A video of a little girl being given a pair of sparkly Cinderella shoes by her dad and being absolutely delighted. Bloggers note that she’s going to make all her friends so jelly, they’re gonna cry.