An offer you can refuse
A nice tradition in Taiwan and China is 坐月子 zuò yuè zǐ, postpartum confinement. It’s a one month period immediately after birth during which mother and child get time to rest, heal, and find strength again. Usually mothers spend that time in bed and have others like a granny take care of them. Nowadays, a whole industry has sprung into life to offer that service for the medium to very big buck. It’s not rare even for Taiwanese American women to fly to Taiwan to give birth and have that time here. Seeing their mothers certainly is one reason, but I’ve heard that the immense US health care costs are actually the prime one. 坐月子 is so common here that when we went for a walk with a newborn, people were chiding me for not caring for my wife well enough so she had to leave her bed early.
When you are all on your own with a newborn there’s little you might want more than have a simple and tested way to get support for a month. Someone to care for you, cook for you, who knows of the needs of a newborn. And yet it didn’t feel right for us to “sit for a month.” Neither fear of well-meaning patronizing behavior nor the hefty price tag were the actual reasons for us to not book a 坐月子, though, but rather the romantic ideals planted deep in our Germanic and Helvetian souls. And thus, we decided to follow the tradition of the Wochenbett, two weeks with just us in bed at home.
And as if to show us what we would miss, the universe gifted us two days of quasi-坐月子 anyway. As all hospital rooms were occupied by other dragon children, we had to get the luxury upgrade for us („us“ as, somewhat surprisingly, I was allowed to stay as well). And so Anna enjoyed the opportunity to have someone to ask if she had a question. I appreciated a two hour „daddy lesson” that in its progressive and pragmatic approach declared me “master of the rear end.” („Mommy takes care of everything that goes into the baby, daddy takes care of everything that comes out of the baby.“) We both fell slowly in love with the Traditional Chinese Medicine inspired food menu… and in the end really loved to be on our own again a few nights later.