35 is such an embarrassing age. An ordinary 35-year-old woman with two children can be so embarrassed.

01

Most job advertisements require job seekers to be under 35 years old.

I will be 35 years old in just over a month. I have two children at home, one is 7 years old and the other is 5 years old. I have been out of the workforce for 7 years. Unknowingly, I seemed to have reached the most embarrassing stage in my life.

My husband and I both agree with the concept of companionship education. When we gave birth to our children, we agreed that he would be responsible for making money and I would be responsible for taking care of the children. Unlike many tiger parents and tiger mothers, we are super-Buddhist parents. When many relatives and friends are changing or buying houses so that our children can go to better schools, we can stay in the small town with peace of mind and our children will go to school near our home. of public schools. Of course I have anxiety in my heart, but most of it has nothing to do with my children, but with myself. The time when my children needed me to be on standby 24 hours a day has passed. Since my two children have entered kindergarten one after another, my inner anxiety has also increased day by day. It is not because I am afraid that my children’s father will abandon me in the future, but I have no survival capital, but as a I seem to have lost a very important thing. I am important to my family. In addition, I seem to have become a marginalized person in this society.

It’s not that I haven’t thought about finding another job, but as a mother of two children, a 9-to-5 job is really not suitable for me. Although I don’t have any requirements for salary, I want to find a job that is close to home, It is quite difficult to work in a job where you can get off work at 3 or 4 o'clock and often need to ask for leave. According to my husband, instead of just finding a job to earn a little money with no room for development or advancement, it is better to learn and develop your own interests and hobbies to enhance your personal value. I agree with this, but it’s still not enough for me. I’m a very ambitious person.

02

It’s embarrassing to give up your career. Aren’t women who stick to the workplace embarrassed?

College friend A has a son who is in the third grade of elementary school. With nearly 10 years of experience in the fabric industry and an annual salary of 300,000 yuan, she suddenly changed her career in 2017 and became a kindergarten teacher. Her monthly salary as a non-working kindergarten teacher was more than 2,000 yuan, and she did not get a share of the year-end bonus.

Her original job in the city center meant that she had to get home after 7 pm. Her children had to go to after-school classes after school, and she was in charge of dinner. After finishing her homework, she would go home with dinner. It’s almost 9 o’clock when friend A arrives home to buy groceries and cook, and her husband and I have finished eating and washing the dishes. After a tiring day, the family of three had very little communication every day, and everyone went to bed after 10 o'clock.

Until one day, she dug out a self-reflection letter from three days ago in her son's schoolbag. If she hadn't accidentally discovered it, her son would have kept it secret from her. After talking to her teacher, she suddenly discovered that her son, who she thought was a good and obedient son, was actually a "problem child" in school.

Friend A, who felt guilty because he had too little company for his children, came up with the idea of ??changing his career to become a kindergarten teacher. He would get off work early, be close to home, not tired from work, and have winter and summer vacations, but the salary would be huge. discount. It was a very difficult decision for her to make, and she spent a long time in our best friend group asking for advice, but I knew there was nothing we could do to help her except support her decision.

Embarrassingly, due to policy changes in 2018, she lost the opportunity to formally establish herself in the kindergarten. This was the most important condition for her to decide to become a kindergarten teacher.

After raising the first and last class of children in 2018, friend A returned to the workplace.

03

I was born in a rural area. In that era, adults had to earn work points. My parents, including my grandparents, had to work in the fields. All the children have no adults to supervise them. The children in the village have to play wildly all day long, stealing cucumbers, playing with mud, and using long bamboo poles to beat mulberries to eat... although they sometimes starve (when their parents come home before they finish their work) Late), but this period of life in the countryside as a child is the happiest memory of my childhood, but there are almost no parents in these memories.

I don’t know when it was, but it was as if suddenly everyone no longer needed to farm all day, and all the adults went to work in the factory.

I moved from the countryside to the town when I was 6 years old, and my family became a dual-income family like thousands of ordinary families.

After moving to the town, I started the most boring period of my childhood. For a long time, I was locked at home alone with nothing to do. The level of discomfort in my heart is like a bird that was originally flying in the sky and was suddenly locked in a cage. In that era, it was absolutely impossible for an adult to not go to work just to take care of his children at home.

When I am taking care of my children at home all day long, the elders next door will tell me to my face that you are wasting your labor by staying at home like this. When I heard them say such things, on the surface I was disdainful (I have also contributed a lot of value to the family), but on the inside I was still a little weak. Maybe the values ????of my father's generation have influenced me to some extent. From a psychological perspective, in addition to basic needs such as physiological needs, safety needs, and social needs, being respected and self-actualization are also a person's strong growth needs.

04

I also have female friends who are very good at integrating career and family. Although two of them gave up their 9-to-5 jobs, after a few years, Taobao stores and Weidian stores are opening smoothly. Let’s take a look at the two successful women who have children at home that I admire very much. Yue Yue, who has been recording her life in comics for more than 10 years, has gone from living a miserable life as a family of three in a rental house to becoming the author of best-selling comics. A self-media with millions of fans, he started from scratch and bought a car and a house in Guangzhou, where land is extremely expensive, and he has reached the pinnacle of his life. The other is a goddess-level figure, a former McKinsey partner, now the head of the Gates Foundation in China, and the founder of the "Slave Society" public account with more than one million readers. Like a perpetual motion machine, she also They non-stop founded Yitu School as a community with a promise of educational innovation and adult learning and growth... What’s shocking is that they are both mothers of three children! In my eyes, both Congee Yueyue and Li Yinuo are not ordinary people, they are supermen.

Being in front of these elites really makes me feel ashamed. I also tried to open a Taobao store, but it never worked. In the past two years, I almost started a private bakery. Based on 4 years of home baking, I spent more than 20,000 to learn advanced courses, but in the end I Without the support of my family, I gave up. I admit that I lack the courage and courage to start a business.

If it weren’t for the fact that there were many friends around me who were in the same situation as me, I would really feel that I was isolated.

05

After all the plans failed, I turned my self-realization needs to my hobbies. Sometimes I feel that we are really happy to live in this era. We have a painting teacher that we like, and we can directly sign up for online and offline courses. If we like anything, whether it is dancing or writing, we can just learn and try it.

After joining various painting groups, writing groups, dance groups, and baking groups, I discovered that there are so many women who choose to take care of their children and families at home, and at the same time have a deep passion for life. There is a group of friends in the painting group who are loyal fans of the Swiss Art Nouveau School. In addition to domestic courses, they also travel thousands of miles to Switzerland to take courses. In the writing group, there is a group member who, in addition to living and writing, is also a marathon runner for several years. Players (you need to find information for details here)...I suddenly realized that our group is much larger than I thought. But we are like little flowers blooming alone in the dark, and not many people care. I can't help but think, even if I am not very good, isn't my five points not enough to provide value to this society?

It seems difficult to find a satisfactory solution to my dilemma. As I am about to turn 35, I am still confused about life and still have doubts about myself. Fortunately, I still have the passion and pursuit of life.