Pros and cons of having a 2nd child

Seven years ago when Chen Minhong's son was about 3 years old, she threw out the training wheels as her child entered another stage of growth. It seemed she had successfully negotiated one of the most trying stages of raising a child. But now Chen finds herself back at square one. Four months ago, at the age of 37, she had a second child.

Now Chen is relearning mothering skills and polishing personal traits like patience. That means, for example, pulling herself out of bed several times a night to feed her new son.

"Bringing up a second child is proving to be a mixed blessing," says Chen, who works at a university in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Despite the new demands on her, she acknowledges that it's "wonderful to see my older son play with his little brother".

Yet she is longing for the day when her new baby can stand on his own two feet and she can enjoy a bit of relaxed shopping.

At the beginning of last year, the Chinese government relaxed a family planning law that was more than 40 years old, allowing all married couples to have a second child. An earlier relaxation of the policy, at the end of 2013, allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission says the number of births last year, 17.86 million, was the highest since 2000, 11.5 percent more than in 2015. More than 45 percent of those babies were born to couples who already had at least one child; the proportion was about 30 percent before 2013.

In a survey by the commission in 2015, respondents gave reasons why they would not have a second child. Almost three quarters cited financial pressures, 61.1 percent cited the work involved in raising children and 60.5 percent cited a shortage of caretakers.

But if Huang Jingyi, 38, and Song Jiangtao, 47, of Guangzhou, are feeling such pressures, they are not showing it. In fact the couple seem to have taken to the two-child lifestyle with gusto.

"With our two adorable daughters, we can enjoy family happiness together," says Huang, who works for an international company. "It is worrying, though, when they kick up a tantrum or are sick."

Like many parents, Huang believes two siblings can provide each other companionship, and are less likely to grow up self-centered. One of her daughters is 4 and the other is almost 2.

Her parents, who live with the family, look after the younger daughter during the day. They take the older one to kindergarten in the morning and collect her in the afternoon. When Huang and Song, an architect, comes home from work, they take over.

With an eye to a time when the children are bigger, Song plans to redesign their 105-square-meter home so that there are four bedrooms. His car is a seven-seater, sufficient for the family's everyday use.

"The two children are more attached to their mother, and I'm like a driver. But when we go to the zoo, our elder daughter likes to be close to me because she wants to ride on my shoulders," he says.

"At our age we're at the point where life is stable, our careers may have peaked and we're not quite as ambitious as we used to be. Raising a child is a great thing to do. Nothing makes me happier than being out with the kids on the weekend, lapping up the sunshine in a park."

When it was announced last year that the family planning policy was being relaxed, many of Song's friends born in the 1970s said they wanted to have a second child but had failed, he says.

Huang says motherhood means taking more responsibility. Being a mother has underlined for her the importance of family ties. She used to feel irritated if she heard a child crying or making noise in public, she says, but she can now be empathetic and is even willing to help another mother. In the same considered vein, she reckons any couple contemplating having a second child needs to weigh the proposition carefully.

"You have to be well-prepared and consider many things such as how to balance your work and family life and how to give the child a good environment," she says. And that will mean making compromises and sacrifices. She says that, for the moment, she has withdrawn from business trips.

Anyone who has decided to have a second child might want to consider doing so only after the first child has started kindergarten, she says, which means that maximum energy and other resources are available and the second child can be well taken care of.

Relying on parents

Unlike Huang and Song and countless other Chinese couples who rely heavily on their parents to take care of their grandchildren, Ren Yan and her husband Pan Yongqiang have opted to do something different, intent on ensuring that their parents can live out their remaining years in tranquillity. That means that when the grandparents pay a visit from time to time, they can enjoy the family happiness free of the cares that keep many a grandparent preoccupied.

Ren and Pan employ a part-time nanny to take their elder son, 5, to kindergarten and collect him later.

Pan, 46, works for a State-owned enterprise in Beijing. He says he's stayed home and looked after their 7-month-old son for more than two months because it has been difficult to find a full-time nanny since Spring Festival about six weeks ago. He has become skilled at looking after his son and feeds him five times a day, he says.

"It's not just about changing diapers and feeding him. He can't talk, so you have to watch him really carefully and do things like playing with him."

Ren, 38, works for an IT company in Beijing. She says both she and her husband have brothers and sisters. Their parents are in their 70s, and enjoy seeing the children.

"I am enjoying the different phases my children go through. Yes, you have to spend a lot of time with them when they're tiny, but you'll get your rewards in the end. I love seeing my younger son in swaddling clothes smiling at me. And I know that when I am sick my older boy will look after me," Ren says.

"Sometimes it's as if the older boy has suddenly grown up. He loves telling people he has a young brother. When one of our neighbors wants to hold the baby in their arms, he cheekily says something like, 'Oh, this baby is naughty. You really won't enjoy holding him.'

"When they grow up and live elsewhere, perhaps at least one of them will return home for Spring Festival. By having more than one child, you increase your chances in that regard."

Ren and Pan say there is no doubt that having two sons has put pressure on them financially and in other ways. Apart from having to employ a live-in nanny, they always seem to be short of time, they say, and their five-seater car is too small.

Hospitable beds

Because the number of pregnancies has risen since the recent change to the second-child policy, reserving a hospital bed for prenatal examinations and delivery has become more difficult, Ren says.

She also suggests the second-child policy has had an effect on the marketplace. The average cost of a live-in nurse has shot up to 5,000 yuan ($723; 681 euros; 591) a month, double what it was five years ago.

Tuition fees in a private kindergarten that teaches both Chinese and English have risen from 4,000 a month to 6,500 yuan over the same period, she says, and although a public kindergarten is a lot cheaper, it is difficult to enroll in one.

Whatever the downsides to having a second child, the government is encouraging couples to have them.

Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress, said recently that as the second-child policy is implemented it is important to ensure that appropriate polices and services are in place to meet the resulting demand.

Beijing News quoted Yang Wenzhuang, a division director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, as saying the government was striving to improve its medical, child care, education, social security and tax policies, and to develop child care services and ensure women's equality in employment and child care leave.

xulin@chinadaily.com.cn

Enthusiasm to have more offspring is muted

For 40 years, family planning policies kept a tight lid on how many children Chinese couples could have, but now that the lid has been loosened, there seems to be no great rush to start producing more babies.

That was made clear in a survey about the impact of the second-child policy on family education, which was published in December by the All-China Women's Federation and the National Innovation Center for Assessment of Basic Education Quality.

Among more than 10,300 parents with children under 15 around China that were surveyed, 53.3 percent expressed no desire to have a second child, 20.5 percent were willing to do so and 26.2 percent were uncertain.

Those from developed regions and cities expressed less willingness to have a second baby, especially those in Beijing and East China.

Key factors that seemed to influence the decision were the availability of public services such as education, medical care, and the living environment. Other factors included the availability of kindergartens, the quality of infant products and access to medical treatment.

Parents said they wanted to have a second child mainly because they believe children bring happiness to the family, and a second child made the family complete. Also, a second child would provide companionship for the first.

About 61.6 percent of respondents said their parents helped take care of children before kindergarten, and 78.8 percent said their education values differed from their parents.

More than half said they were worried about how to establish a close relationship between the two children and deal with problems if the two could not get along with one another.

Age produces complications and risks

Liang Haiyan says she has noticed an increasing number of older pregnant women - above age 35 - coming to the hospital where she works since the universal second-child policy came into force.

"Those in their 40s are most eager to have a second child, and you can feel how anxious they are when they come for checkups before pregnancy," says Liang, who is associate chief physician in the Gynecology and Obstetrics Department at China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing.

"They are under great pressure because they know it's not easy to conceive a child at this age. It's a challenge for the doctors, as there are more difficult and complicated cases."

Liang, 41, is herself four months pregnant with her second child.

The optimum time to give birth is between the ages of 25 and 29, she says. Those over 35 have a higher chance of gynecological problems and needing assisted reproductive technology. Mothers with a uterine scar from an earlier caesarean section have a higher chance of developing risky complications with a second pregnancy.

Sometimes they may have a life-threatening uterine rupture that could necessitate the organ's removal.

The oldest woman to give birth to a second child in the hospital recently was 50. She had twins last month and had her uterus removed after the delivery.

"Nowadays, young women in labor are more willing to have a normal childbirth rather than volunteer for a caesarean section because they know about the risk a caesarean poses in the case of a second child," Liang says.

She adds that in the past many women chose to have a caesarean section because the surgery mattered little for the future - one effect of the family planning policy . She suggests pregnant women have regular obstetric examinations, communicate regularly with their doctors and follow instructions.

"Just take it easy. The sooner you find any potential problems, the easier it is to solve them, with the help of doctors. If doctors say you cannot give birth to a child because of your physical condition, you need to take responsibility for yourself and give up on the idea."

It is important for a pregnant woman to maintain a balanced diet, have regular blood pressure and blood sugar checks, and to maintain a good mood, she says.

After being pregnant for three months, one can start to do exercise such as jogging and swimming to reduce the risk of complications, she says.

(China Daily European Weekly 03/24/2017 page1)