User Comments - bababardwan

bababardwan

Posted on: Pregnancy Series 10: Postnatal Recuperation

November 14, 2011 at 9:07 AM

Interesting discussion. But I'm most interested in Jenny's comments. As Zhenlijiang has suggested, we don't know just how serious Jenny was when she said:

"Yuèzi was the darkest days of my life."

...and I think this comes to the crux of it. Why were they the darkest days, and what depth of feeling is really behind those words?

The idea of having a month of rest after birth sounds quite appealing especially having others to slave over you. But I'm guessing the restrictive nature of it could be a bit oppressing. Also, some people aren't comfortable with having others look after them [or perhaps they're not on an outward level, but if it's culturally the norm then that may make it ok to be comfortable with]. There are of course non cultural reasons for them being dark days for some...such as the baby blues...post natal depression.

But it was interesting to read Jenny's take on yuezi and see it in it's historical context and also that she was following to keep her mum happy. I suspect this may well be why a lot of traditions such as this continue. So what would be most interesting to know is whether her mums views on yuezi were the same [I suspect her mum may have had more belief in the significance] but more to the point, and here's the question, would Jenny expect a daughter of hers to adhere to all of yuezi's customs regardless of her daughters comfort with it? Of course I don't want this to get too personal and I respect Jenny's privacy and thank her for being so generous with sharing in this lesson. But at least in general terms I'd be interested to know how many modern mums will expect this tradition to continue in the next generation.