Original link: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/603
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Text/Cheng Yuanqian
Editor’s Note: This is the first report on the topic ” Choice of Elite Mothers ” on World Travel. Starting from the book “Elite Mothers Want to Work”, we interviewed female politicians who are both mothers and political workers, listened to mothers struggling between the workplace and family, and sorted out the data on female employment and housework in Taiwan to revisit “Balancing family and workplace” is a long-standing parenting problem. This report exclusively interviews Zheng Lijun, the former Minister of Culture. She will discuss why it is still difficult for women to be “free” at home and in the workplace based on her own child-rearing experience and political thinking.
On the day of the interview, the author made a mistake and went to the “next step” space of the Qing platform first. This “next step” is really broad and has different possible imaginations.
It has been two years since Zheng Lijun, the chairman of the Youth Platform, resigned from the Minister of Culture in 2020. In an interview that year, she said with a smile that “the most I want to go back to study and become a parent.” family”?
Why is accompanying children and learning to be a parent the same as returning to the family?
Zheng Lijun, who loves freedom and has been thinking about the meaning of freedom for 30 years, gave this answer: “I just use a relatively free way to do what I want to do with private foundations.” In the past two years, she Rediscover the flexibility of using time, and gradually adjust, establish, and draw a blueprint for the future of thinking about political work and parenting.
She knows very well that she is very lucky to be able to make such a choice in a personal way, because she must have a certain material foundation and social conditions. Returning to the work of think tanks to think about policies, she hopes to work harder to allow more women, regardless of gender, to make such choices freely under a better social environment and structure. The following is an exclusive interview with Zheng Lijun:
Realize “freedom” in the workplace and at home
After resigning from office, my time has become more flexible. Every day after dinner, I am busy with my children and homework. After 7 o’clock, my father will take over and accompany me to bed. I will start to think about policies through video conferences with hundreds of experts and scholars. This kind of flexible time adjustment is also my achievement in the past two years: to re-establish the norms and rhythm of life with my children.
The first successful change we made was to let the children develop the habit of going to bed after eight o’clock. During my public service, even if I didn’t have a schedule at night, it was after eight o’clock when I got home. My son stayed up late to wait for me to come home. At the beginning of the practice, we will pretend that everyone is going to bed, and when he falls asleep, we will start the adult night life. Remember the first night of success, just open champagne with Mr. Later, I will always care about friends who have children at home. What time do the children go to bed? Some said it was very late, so I encouraged them, and if the children go to bed early, I will send a bottle of champagne!
The second thing is sports, climbing trees, getting close to nature, and going mountain climbing every weekend. I told him, you have two mothers, one is Zheng Lijun and the other is Nature. The past two years or so have been a rare period. I spend more time with my children, and it feels like making up lessons. He used to ask me when I got off work, but now he asks me “What time do you go to the meeting?” Sometimes I take care of him too much, and he asks, “Mom, when do you go to work?”
The parent-child relationship is like a tug of war, the most important thing is to balance love and wisdom. From birth to self-development of a child, a series of social growth process, parents change from a complete caregiver to a facilitator of his growth, during which parents will have many emotions. When he grows older, we are just companions. Sometimes I read a lot of parenting books. No parents are perfect. I don’t think we should give such a heavy role to “mother” and pursue the “perfect mother” .
Even though I don’t know what the next stage will be in the past two years, I feel very at ease because I am doing my favorite “thinking”.
My definition of political work may be different from yours. Many people think that it is running for elections and holding public office. Of course, this is important, but I think politics does not lie in this form, it is just one of the ways. I am one of the few people who went from a think tank to a public office and then to a think tank, but the ideals and things I want to do are always the same, but I practice them in different positions and ways. Looking at Taiwan from the 1990s to the present, political, economic and technological development, climate change, etc., time and space have changed drastically, the situation is very different, and there are many new challenges.
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Burning at both ends or perfect balance? society’s ideals for women
I did struggle once, should I be a good example of a woman who balances family and career? When I first left office, there were still some voices: Why did Zheng Lijun choose a family?
It is not easy for women to be a free self in society. We have too many books and articles teaching you how to be a perfect woman, requiring modern women to be a strong woman in the workplace and a “good mother” to prove that you are successful. This proposition is too heavy, too stressful.
My own experience tells me that this is really a process of constant dialogue, exercise, and exhaustion.
Political work is not a commute job, it has been the most physically and mentally challenging six years of my life. I was pregnant at 44 and really felt like this baby was coming for me. Firstly, it was not easy to conceive at that age, and secondly, I had severe embarrassment. I often questioned the budget in the Legislative Yuan in the morning, and went to the hospital for IV drip in the afternoon, and I became a vegetarian. I even think that I am the first subject this child came to this world (laughs).
When the child was just one month old, I had to go back to work. It happened to be the Sunflower Student Movement at that time, and there were 40 legislators, and if there was only one less seat, the difference would be huge. Later, when the DPP came to power, I dare not relax. But I was lucky, my husband was willing to take on considerable parental responsibilities, but at that time I said that I worked in three shifts, and I took over taking care of the child at night, and then I continued to prepare for the next day’s work after the child fell asleep, plus my own requirements It is also relatively high, and it is a state of going all out.
We didn’t hire a babysitter, not to say that the babysitter is not good, it may be because we cherish the child too much, the combined age of the two of us is 105 years old. Of course, our family is also our backing, my parents will come to replace my husband, after all he has a company to take care of.
Fatherhood, motherhood? Can we just talk about “parenting”
Everyone likes to ask about the role of mother, but rarely talk about the role of father. From another perspective, everyone has different patterns of gender or sexual orientation in intimate or parenting relationships. I think society should come back to talk about the role of “parenting”.
When I was young, I didn’t think I was capable of managing my career and my family. I am a person who is not very focused on myself. Since I participated in the student movement at the age of 19, I have often gotten into public affairs and issues in a flash. I have not concentrated on completing my doctorate, and I often feel that I cannot take care of myself.
I wanted to do a lot of things, but after I met my husband, I became more confident to become a kind of partner with him, because he was willing to give. When we first met, he would make bento, sometimes I wonder if it is fake? (laugh)
I became a legislator immediately after marriage, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. We didn’t deliberately have a baby, but if we did, we were looking forward to it, so we naturally had a baby at the age of 44, and he will take on the job of a baby daddy, and I can continue to serve as a legislator. My understanding is that parenting should be gender-neutral.
Perhaps the division of labor among the younger generation is relatively equal, but the concept of gender division of housework has not really changed. Even though Taiwan was an early step in Asia, with a high proportion of female college students and a high proportion of women entering the workplace in the 1990s, the ceiling is still there, and there are still relatively few female scientific research talents and female managers.
Women also tend to be self-mobilized, with a sense of duty-like responsibility for household chores. Therefore, the gender division of housework is not only in the actual family relationship, but also in the heart, internalized and copied in our lives. So how do people choose freely in the end? Can this free choice be universal and equal freedom, rather than individual freedom?
Thoughts on Parenting of Female Politicians
I think the society should not only ask what women can do, what we should pursue is to ask what can this society do? The Youth Platform Research Center has a proposition that it is necessary to enhance the “warm power” of society and warm up the social support system so that society can have “soft power”.
Taiwan has reached the point where it needs to upgrade and transform into an innovative economy, which must be based on human capabilities (soft power). In the past, education and economic policies alone were not enough. I think what needs to be strengthened is social policies. We are gradually doing it in the process of democratic transformation, but at present, it is relatively fragmented and single-point individual policies. We should start thinking about a relatively complete social support system with a certain public proportion.
If the burden of childcare, elderly care, housing, and education can be reduced for each family, such as strong childcare and early childhood education, so that everyone regardless of socio-economic background, regardless of whether they organize a family or not, can be equal and free to self-discipline Realize and perform better, society has soft power.
I often say that history is not one hundred steps forward by one person, but one step forward by a group of people. Taiwan has been democratized for 30 years. Most of us think that freedom means freedom of speech and freedom of voting. In fact, there are more aspects of equality and freedom to pursue.
I hope to work with political workers, NGOs, and friends in the industry to think more clearly about social images and influence more people. No matter what job these people are in or they will be elected one day, they will have more humanistic thinking , With this ideal, it is possible for us to move towards such a beautiful society. (Finish)
In the next report, we will conduct in-depth interviews with mothers struggling to balance family and work, so stay tuned.
About the Author｜ Cheng Yuanqian (Reporter/Editor of Parent-Child World, Tianxia Magazine, Mirror Literature Podcast Producer, World Travel Special Correspondent)
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