As divorce rates rise and the cost of living bites, single mothers in China are searching for a new kind of partner: each other. Across social media are posts from harried mothers seeking like-minded parents to share a home and child-rearing responsibilities. “I’m hoping to find another single mom to share an apartment with, so we can take care of each other,” said a popular post on Xiaohongshu, a platform known overseas as Rednote. “If our children are around the same age, that would be even better – they can…
Tag: Parents and parenting
Where you can turn for quality TV news | Brief letters
Can I suggest that the former Newsnight presenter Peter Snow, who feels starved of the journalism that matters (Letters, 1 December), watches Channel 4 News? At 55 minutes, it has ample time for in-depth analysis, and the journalism is of the highest standard.Philip HoldsworthRhos-on-Sea, Conwy It must be a sign of my age that, as soon as Zoe Williams mentioned her previous husband’s choice of the name Thurston for their baby, I thought of Thurston Dart, the classical musician, not a pop star. (Worried about naming your baby? Don’t be, 5 December).Marie PatersonNuneaton,…
Full-time children: the twentysomethings who may never grow up
Name: Full-time children. Age: 21 and up. Appearance: Coming to a doorstep near you. What kind of job is “full-time child”? Just what it sounds like: being someone’s child, the whole time. How does one get into that sort of game? By default. By default? By having no other role or function in life. I don’t understand. Full-time children are young adults who, finding no suitable employment, simply move back in with their parents to retrain as offspring. And what does that entail? Hanging out, eating free food, accepting handouts.…
For better or for worse: is the decline in marriage actually good for relationships? | Devorah Baum
One of the curious things about marriage is the role it’s played in embedding commonly held views about normality. Married people are generally considered normal people. As such, they have possessed inordinate power to dictate the terms of normality in a way that single people rarely can. And yet marriage, clearly, isn’t for everyone. Plenty of people have no desire to do it. Plenty of others have done it and haven’t liked it. The stats only corroborate this. Fewer people over the years have been getting married, while the stresses…
When my family was reunited in Australia, I had to learn to be a dad to a son I’d never met | Sadam Abdusalam
In December 2020, I finally got what I fought so hard for: my family back. I was over the moon when I was reunited with my wife Nadila and son Lutfi after being forced apart for three and a half years. I could finally hold my baby boy in my arms – every father’s dream. I was able to go on dates with my love; watch TV and eat dinner together as a family. They may sound like simple things, but not for us. Like many Uyghurs, we had been…