A Night Talk
Long since our dorm talked at night before sleep. Yet we happened to have done so last night, till 1:30 am.
All because of the topic of babies of the school brothers of one of my roomates,
and especailly the title of one of them, namely "the most idling dad".
We all know this "most idling dad", for his somehow different experience than ours. He has worked eight years before he entered university again for a MD. He did take the exam for postgraduate five or six times, but failed each time until God turned an eye on him. He should be a fine man, as it seemed to me. He knows history, writes poems, takes interest in calligraphy and is easy-going. Of course
some would say he is far from handsome , attributing to his shabby appearance and poor physical shape. But that is far from the core. as it seems to me.
The core is, he married a woman when he went back home in winter vacation, and became dad the following summer vocation. Of course he spent most of his time at
school, thousands of miles away from his hometown. And it was reasonable fro him
not to be able to take care of his baby child. Right now tha baby is more than
one year old, and he has made an even eye-broadening choice by persuing his further study of a PHD.
There should be not much fault with trying to realise one's dream. The point is,
his wife is a nurse and has to work on night shifts besides taking care of the
baby who has just passed his infancy. And though there are his parents staying close to her, we bet it felt quite different when she gave birth to a child and take the maternal responsibility to care for it all day throughout the past one more years.
And as for his being admitted to be a doctoral student, it is not much of a honor. He did not get the honor to do so at public expense, but all at his own expense. This, of course, has made things even worse. His family is not wealthy at all, nor is his wife's. They have already been in great debt not only to his child
, but also for his more than RMB 10,000 tuition to school.
So all in all, it is a 35-year old ugly man taking the pleasure of wandering at
school without attending his wife and infantile child, making his whole family in great debts, while the chances are dimly slim for his to find a even decent job to support them even after his graduation----He studies history of medicine, and the best chance chould be to stay in school to be a teacher. But he will not
be able to move his son and wife, and raise his family here in this much bigger
city due to the skyhigh living expense here compared to his hometown.
The topic has befcome somewhat heavy at this point to all of us. It should be a
misery for his wife, also in her 30s, to get any better outcome once she is tied
in this marriage. Divorce him? She has already got a baby. Try to creat a better future? How can you so innocently expect this when your man was not beside you
when you gave birth to his child and satying up almost all night to feed it?
She is doomed, we came to this conclusion.
I dare not to say what we have discussed was exactly the reality of his family.
Maybe his wife loves him so much that she is willing to sacrifice for him, in even the greatest way as raising a child at her own strength, paying all the expense, while borrowing money from relatives and friends to further his study---a sadistically a doctoral study which promises no good future in the job market. After all, these things can happen.
But we dare to say, even if there is love, the love can be going to the edge of
dying due to his "inresponsibility". He has not, as a matter of fact, fulfilled
his duty of a dad.
The conclusion was:
For woman: It is better to set up searching for a mate soon after graduation if
you are getting a master's degree. Do not wait till you are beyond your 30s. Then you will be in great pressure from society, mostly enbodied in your relatives
nad friends' pressure. Detect every trace in a man without any arbitary conclusion. Observe him. Better to focus on men around 30, who are with a stable job, passed the greeness of a freshmen in society, and eager to set a family of his own
rather than wandering around for pleasure.
I have been somewhat snobbery I have to admit. And I once wrote to advocate the
noble marriage by following one's heart and love. But life has taught me that love itself is not enough, as there are some other factors affecting the happiness
of a marriage.
The night talk ended with a laughter while quoting the saying of this man, "Well
, I married at such an early stage. All blamed on my parents. They have been urging me." In his 30s, he still knows little about responsibility of a family. No
wonder age does not mean mature. We all laughed until tears came up, mostly for
his wife.
