The mother of all dilemmas

Three remarkable women have drawn inspiration from their own experiences, creating a drama series that sheds light on the life of new mothers and calls for improved postnatal care and support.

Zhang Wei, Teng Yang, and Jiang Mi have taken on the roles of scriptwriters and producers for the series For the First Time in My Life, which exposes the hidden pains endured by women as their bodies undergo significant physical, hormonal and emotional changes after childbirth.

The show also depicts how they cope with challenges such as relationship stress, intergenerational differences in caring for a newborn, and the trade-offs of juggling work and motherhood.

An associate professor with the department of literature at the Beijing Film Academy, Zhang has good relations with her former postgraduate student Teng, who gave birth to a baby in 2021.

Despite having a supportive husband and parents, Teng still suffered mood swings and even depression due to the dramatically shifting hormone levels.

Witnessing Teng's suffering, Zhang was reminded of her own pregnancy and "lying-in" period a decade ago.

"The recovery period can be painful," Zhang says.

"I found that there are few TV dramas focused on what happens to a woman as she adjusts to motherhood. I was determined to write one," Zhang recalls.

She collaborated with Teng in scriptwriting, and with Jiang, also an alumna of the academy, for the production of the drama.

The 14-episode series tells the stories of three women from different generations who experienced their first childbirth in 1993, 2008 and 2022, respectively, and how they adjusted to the maternal role, reflecting on self-growth and exploring new possibilities in life. Their stories are presented alternately in each episode.

The story of one of the mothers, Dai Sijin, unfolded in the 1990s, a time of rapid change and growth for China's economy.

Dai, a publisher, believed in traditional approaches for women such as filial piety, humility and obedience, bearing in mind that a wife's primary role was taking good care of the household and always supporting her husband, even when the man failed to fulfill his responsibilities in the family.

However, after giving birth to her child, Dai realized the unreliability of her husband and decided to divorce him. To create better material conditions for her daughter, she started to retail clothes and later turned into a successful businesswoman.

"In the 1990s, the country was in the initial stage of reform and opening-up, which led to a surge in entrepreneurship and the springing up of new businesses," says Zhang.

"Back then, my uncle and some of his friends chose to travel to coastal cities in South China and started their own businesses. I've heard their legendary stories from my mother, who later also ran a business.

"Dai bears many merits of my mother," she says.

The story of Chen Lanqing, another protagonist, is set in the late 2000s.

The only child in her family, Chen enjoyed overwhelming love and care from her parents. She also married an emotionally supportive and relatively competent husband. Even so, the woman still experienced a breakdown when doing the round-the-clock job of taking care of her newborn.

Apart from experiencing weight gain, the appearance of stretch marks and some other physical discomfort, Chen also had to mediate intergenerational disputes on such problems as when to wean the baby.

Affected by hormonal changes, Chen could be easily driven crazy by trivialities. She became suspicious about whether she was qualified enough to be a mother.

Her story is about how she extricated herself from the situation and became more able to take on her maternal responsibilities.

"Chen was once carefree and naively held the belief that life wouldn't change much after giving birth to a baby, as the maternal and paternal grandmothers would help," Zhang says.

"She gets to be stronger after becoming a mother."

Another story centers on Lu Yuanfang, an independent career woman and a single mother.

Her story shows how she struck a balance between work and the role of a mother. She formed the habit of fixing everything on her own. And when adjusting to motherhood, she felt the lack of control in her life and gradually became more willing to seek help from friends and show her love and care for others.

The drama also points out many inconveniences faced by new mothers, such as the lack of lactation room in public places, calling to improve the social environment for new mothers.

Zhang says she hopes the stories of the three women would help people know more about what it means to be a mother.

"Pleasure and pain coexist," she says.

"Some mothers might feel ashamed to talk about such problems as leaking urine in front of doctors. I hope the drama can help them get rid of the unnecessary sense of shame and seek solutions of these problems," Zhang adds.

"We notice a rising feminism through the ages in China from the three mothers' stories," comments a male viewer on the review site Douban.

"It reminds us that couples should be well-prepared for the coming of a baby, and men should be more engaged in the whole process."