Recently, from the family perspective, it is among the toughest time for me and Wendy.
After entering the 30s, and especially with the newly arrival of a baby (Yifan), many things changed. Combined with the recent heart surgery of Wendy’s mother, there are many things happening concurrently. The baby needs to be fed and taken care of, the parents need intensive care. Everyday, Wendy and I am running between home, work place, hospital, and sometimes back to work places – even car parking itself is a big problem, not to mention all the meal stuff. Wendy can fall asleep on my shoulder during even a short taxi drive.
I am not complaining at all. It is the time in life that we have to enter. In the Chinese saying: “parents above and children under”. Growing older means to be more powerful, and meanwhile, it means more responsibility. It means to give back what you owe parents, and to pass the due responsibility down to the children. It is not easy, but it is warm. It means no movie, no dining out, no spare time with friends, or even no time to stay late at office on work. It is another kind of life the we enter into. I suspect this time will last for a long time.
Just as I waved my hands to say good bye to my happy primary school time, and entered into the hot competition in middle school, or I said good bye to my pure life in middle school and entered an aimless university life, and then kissed good bye to my summer and winter holidays and started to work, or even left the memories of being a single behind me and setup a family, it is the natural process to enter into the next stage in life. There are a lot of fun waiting for me there. I am very grateful that Wendy and I am still young. We still have the power to take our responsibilities.
All we need is time to get used to the new life, and best wishes to my bigger family.
The best is yet to come.
Yeah, whatsoever, the best is yet to come. I agree with it :)
Hi, Jianshuo,
You are a great man and think positive way all the time. You are blessed by all your blog readers. Keep going, Wish you and your family have a early seasonal greeting.
Stephen
Jianshuo,
Wishing you, Wendy and Yifan the very best for the coming holiday season…..I am sure you will have a great time together with your family this holidays. Take some time off and go on a vacation, after your MIL recovers.
Regards
Sekhar
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going” …………remember the song by Billy Ocean?
Jianshuo,
I identify with this post. These events are great reminders of what is most important. It is not necessary the things that seem most important at the time, such as a promotion or a raise, or fame or even fortune. These things have a short half-life. They are immediately satisfying but may not ultimately be the most important things. Being a good son, husband and father is more important in the long-run, but often takes the back seat to more urgent matters that demand time. I wish you the best in your efforts to handle the additional complexity of this season of your life, as I am doing the same myself (with a 5 yr old and 1 yr old and a wife that works).
Jianshuo
Inspite of the overwhelming activity and responsibility, you keep positive and shoulder it well. My hat off to you. I often say parenting is one of the toughest jobs in the world if you do it well. Yes, the best is yet to come… a most positive viewpoint.. because it means life continually gets better. Your efforts now will come back to you in ways umimaginable.
Sending my most giant hugs to you and Wendy tonight, Jian Shuo. It definitely does get easier…but I have to be honest and say that doesn’t happen for quite a long time. We all need sleep, and young parents, especially hard-working young parents, not to mention young parents whose own parents are having problems, are the most sleep-deprived people in the world! Be good to yourselves, cherish each other, and tell your parents how much you love them. They are so lucky to have you and little Yi Fan in their lives!
All the Best to You and Your Family!
kid change your life…and complete your life
Jianshuo, I like the way you end your post with “The best is yet to come.” It’s not easy to stay positive when the going gets tough, and I admire your positive attitude.
I myself have been going through a similar experience since I got married. More responsibilities, more commitments. The difference is I got married when I was 32 years old, which is still considered a bit old for the Singaporean society. Physically, I’m already starting to feel tired more easily, and so that adds to my stress as well. But that’s also where we learn how to take care of our body better so we can fulfil our responsibilities.
Being in this stage of life is also challenging because I feel the pull between going for a great career versus having children. If I were a man, I could consider any job even if it involves traveling. But men don’t get pregnant (yet). Women, in this way, lose out in the marketplace. It’s something that can’t be solved yet, and the only way is to choose one or the other. Family is definitely the most important, but sometimes my heart aches when I feel limited in my career due to birth-planning. This kind of dilemma is really new to me. Now I understand why it’s not easy (sometimes impossible) for a woman to have both her family as well as her career. Many times, in order to have one, you need to sacrifice the other. And those who sacrifice their families usually regret at the end…
@all, thanks everyone for your encourage, and your sharing. Many times I need more guidance and sharing to face challenges, and to keep well… It is so nice to have a group of readers (or friends, to be exact) who care about me, and my family as well. I bet Yifan is one of the very few lucky kids who are the focus of many people, especially from Caroll!
Jian Shuo
Right on; it’s impossible to know how much a child will change your life, until you have one! I can tell you it will get a *lot* easier in a cuple years. In another 7 years (which will be much faster than you think) YiFan will be helping out with things and you will feel like you have a new partner to add to you and Wendy instead of just a source of chores.
One bit of advice for you: take lots of pictures and movies now, even though you don’t have time to relax or think. In 7 years, you will really appreciate it. Just last week, we found our video camera from when Megan was a baby. I had forgotten we even had a video camera!!! Well, we discovered we had taken a bunch of movies of her early years, and we forgot we even took them! It was such a blessing to show her what she used to look and act like!
Really, you are learning that you have so much more ability than you ever thought :-) Did you ever imagine you could work this hard before you had YiFan? And just think, in another 10 years you will be stressed out about a completely different thing — you will be realizing he is almost grown up, and will soon have a life on his own. Suddenly, you will start worrying about him *not* being dependant on you anymore!
Well, all the best to you and Wendy and YiFan. Enjoy sleep when you can get it, and hang in there!
Jianshou,
One thing for sure that has not change and never change which you have YOUR BLOGGING FAN reading your blog daily!!
I guess you have change a lot our reading habit. Adding your blog into our reading list.
Readers out there, what do you think? :)
@Joshua, taking video and pictures are great tips. I think it will be very useful. You reminded me – I may have forgotten it with all the things going on.
@DC, thanks for your support!
maybe you could try to hire a nanny to help you out. All the best for u and ur family.
@Jonnyboy, thanks. That was exactly we we did. That makes our lives much better.
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Jian Shuo,
I think as we all grow older (especially getting into our 30s), we will find that we are in the “sandwich” generation – to your point, we have an older generation that we need to take care of and also the younger generation. It is a hard task to juggle between family and work and find time for yourself. I hope that Wendy’s mother will recover soon and life will be back to normal.
Frances.