Text/Observer Network columnist Zhang Zhonglin
Civil aviation worker, commentator of the civil aviation industry
There are many firsts in a person's life, such as the first time to come to this world, the first time to go to school, the first time to ride a bicycle, the first time to play football, etc. As you get older, you unlock more and more firsts, and fewer firsts to unlock. But when I arrived, I unlocked a new first time in 2023: becoming a father for the first time. Unlike most first-time parents, both of us parents were not involved in the whole pregnancy and subsequent upbringing of the child beyond financial support. On the one hand, it was caused by the special period of epidemic prevention and control at that time, and on the other hand, it was also determined by the subjective unwillingness and objective inability of parents on both sides. In addition, my wife and I were in our thirties when we became parents, so we basically made our own decisions during the whole process, and we also made several important decisions. In fact, my wife was constantly doing her homework and copying other people's homework throughout her pregnancy, so I just had to follow her instructions and follow her instructions. So my wife's painting style as parents is somewhat different, and in the eyes of others, it is somewhat "deviant", of course, I want to say that this should belong to "punk with a baby". A child's nickname often carries the expectations of the parents or a beautiful meaning, but the style of the nickname that my wife and I give to the child is obviously a little different. When Mrs. was in labor, one day her mother's group suddenly discussed fortune telling, discussing what name the child would have, whether there would be any conflict, and it would not be good for the child's future life. Mrs. immediately said that the child's nickname is Jianguo, and see which fortune teller dares to say that this name is not good, and who dares to say that this name is a child-just like that, Mrs. gave her a nickname Jianguo. Of course, as a parent of the new era, my nickname is also a bit unusual, when the baby in the delivery room in the early morning fell to the ground, I suddenly remembered that at this moment in the far north, in the far north, groups of the loveliest people were crossing the Yalu River under the cover of night to a strange foreign land. That's right, the child's birthday is the anniversary of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, so I named the child Yuan Korea, after all, his current happy life comes from the struggle of those loveliest people. Since the child has two nicknames, how do you call them every day? Mrs. shouts for the founding of the country, and I shout for aiding the DPRK, which is very fair. Friends fell silent when they learned the nickname we gave their children, and a friend from the Northeast said that there was nothing wrong with this, and that the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was a battle for the founding of the country. The child's grandmother was not far behind and gave her grandson an exclusive nickname, which was called Little Tiger because it was a tiger. Listening to the child's grandmother taking a bite of a little tiger, I thought in my heart that it was good that the child was not surnamed Lin.
After the birth of the child, we chose to invite the confinement lady instead of going to the confinement center, because the money in the Shanghai one-month confinement center is enough to hire a three-month confinement aunt. But the good times are always short-lived, two months later, the sister-in-law will go back to her hometown for the New Year, which also gives rise to a problem: how to bring the baby in the future? At this time, there are three plans in front of us: 1. Completely rely on yourself to take the baby, the lady is the main during the day, and I am the main at night; 2. Spend money to hire a sister-in-law, the monthly cost is about equal to my salary income; 3. Let my parents take the baby. Since it was the Chinese New Year that I couldn't invite a sister-in-law, this option was directly ignored. In January, when the epidemic was still raging, it was obviously quite risky to let my parents come and bring them, so in the end, my wife and I chose to bring them ourselves. Even though we did our homework beforehand and learned enough skills to bring the baby, it still left us exhausted. For example, when it comes to wearing diapers, there have been a few times when I didn't get it right after changing the diapers for my child, resulting in a side leak, and the clothes and mattress were covered with urine. Thanks to the lady's homework, she laid a diaper pad under the sheets, which did not penetrate into the mattress. Breastfeeding is the opposite, the child often does not cooperate when the wife feeds, and the brewed 160ml milk often only drinks 100ml, and sometimes even only 80ml, resulting in the milk volume is not up to standard. But when I was breastfeeding, those tricks of refusing to drink milk were useless in front of me, if I just drank too much and needed to change the air, I would wait for a while and then knock on the bottle to signal that I would continue to drink, and if I should continue to drink and not drink, I would keep knocking on the bottom of the bottle to urge me to drink, which made the child often drink a lot more milk in my hands than in my wife's hands. And after drinking the milk, I turned into a ruthless burp machine, picked him up and leaned on his shoulder for 5 minutes, and then put it down after two or three burps - you see, this is really good at each other.
Breastfeeding in the middle of the night, in order to coax the baby, I really used all the tricks at that time. The child relies on the pacifier when sleeping, and may cry when the pacifier falls out, but the pacifier will fall out on his own. In order to solve this problem, I have come up with all the tricks, in addition to preparing four or five pacifiers ready to be plugged at any time, I also use baby toys against the pacifier to prevent it from falling out......
The hippocampus doll sent by a friend has become a tool for the top pacifier, but it depends on two novice parents to bring the baby, in the end it is not so easy, when the lady with the baby with the lumbar disc herniation recurrence, we think this can not be sustained, and chose to ask the sister-in-law. The first probationary sister-in-law was found through an intermediary, and she was originally going to work for a day on trial, but at noon, Mrs. resolutely asked me to stop the trial. Out of tacit understanding, I didn't ask much about the reason at the time, but paid the money for half a day to the sister-in-law who came to try the job and gave more, and let her go back. Later, my wife told me that the so-called sister-in-law couldn't even read the scale of the milk bottle when she brewed milk powder for the child, and asked my wife if she should add so much water. And when bathing the child, he directly pulled the child's arm instead of supporting the body, which is not at all like the sister-in-law who has taken the baby, and suspects that her resume is fake. Finally, under the introduction of acquaintances, we invited a live-in childcare sister-in-law who was only in her thirties but very skilled to take care of the baby, which made us breathe a sigh of relief. Although this sister-in-law and aunt are young, they have a lot of experience in bringing babies, so my wife and I are very satisfied, and the grandparents of the children are very good and relieved. In a blink of an eye, in May, due to the adjustment of the layout and the addition of furniture at home, I asked my sister-in-law to take the child to live at my parents' house for half a month. The sister-in-law and aunt of the child-rearing sister did not get vaccinated because they did not meet the vaccination requirements because they were previously impotent, so they were not vaccinated, which also planted the seeds for the subsequent turmoil. One Saturday morning, my wife suddenly shook me up and nervously said to me, "Auntie is impotent, and Jianguo also has a fever." I immediately got out of bed, put on my clothes and went straight to my parents' house with my wife. Parenting sister-in-law and aunt have several antigens that are two bars, tearing the last bit of luck to shreds. Thankfully, my parents didn't have a positive day, probably thanks to the vaccine they just received at the beginning of the month. The yang aunt couldn't continue to take care of the baby in a short time, and after giving the aunt a sick leave, we took over the baby by ourselves. The first thing was that the child had a fever of 39 degrees, and the whole family urgently mobilized my father to take us and the child to the children's hospital as a driver. After a blood test and nucleic acid tossed, the doctor's diagnosis was that the nucleic acid was negative to rule out the new crown, which was a fever caused by a bacterial infection, which somewhat relieved us, and we went home after prescribing baby antibiotics and antipyretics. However, the child had just subsided in fever, and the wife had a fever again, but fortunately it was only a low-grade fever and the new crown positive was ruled out. But in this case, it is obviously impossible to let the lady take the baby alone, and although the sister-in-law and aunt have turned negative, but for the sake of insurance, she will come back to work in another week, and in this case, I have to let my parents help. After hearing this, my father volunteered to take the baby and play the role of "live-in aunt", but apparently he greatly underestimated the difficulty of bringing the baby. Although he had explained the timetable and how to get it with him in advance, on the first day of getting started, his eldest grandson gave him a little bit of strength, and my father was busy and at a loss. From noon to the next day, when I got up the next day, my dad was already on the verge of an emotional breakdown with the naked eye. Previously, my dad had been telling us that we couldn't let the baby hold the pacifier all day, which was not good for the teeth, but now when he felt the immediate "anti-crying effect" of the pacifier, he became the biggest supporter of the pacifier. Considering that there is already one poured at home, if another one is poured, this day will not be passed. So I asked my dad to come and take over when I was going to work, I made dinner after work and left, and I took the baby in the evening. After my father was polite and polite, he agreed to my proposal very happily - you see, this is to watch people take the baby and simply take the baby by yourself. It was also this short but precious experience of bringing up a baby that made my father firmly support the plan to continue to invite a sister-in-law, and they were responsible for all the follow-up expenses of the sister-in-law. Between money and effort, they chose to pay, which is indeed very much the style of contemporary Shanghai grandparents. Many traditional concepts of bringing babies believe that when you have a baby, don't have pets such as cats and dogs at home, but my cats and children have always lived in the same space. When in the infant state, the big cat in the house is full of curiosity about the baby, and even often snuggles up next to the baby to sleep. But when the baby is older and starts to crawl, the big cat dislikes the human cubs and hides far away.
When I was a little younger, the big cat in the family was very curious about the baby, and later we added a "sister" to the child in the summer - this "sister" belongs to the cat. When the kitten brought home was released from the one-month quarantine, the child quickly became one with the cat sister, and this adaptive self-growing and self-cleaning intelligent baby toy was really the right one. Of course, as the child grows up and strengthens his mobility, he gradually begins to use various hands and feet on the kitten, highlighting a "raising a child is not good for cats". Of course, so far, the highest willingness of the whole family to take a baby is the kitten.
Human cubs and feline cubs are a perfect match
The child is gradually outrageous, and even stuffs his hand in the cat's mouth must be said, as a first-time father, I don't know if I did a pass, but I try to fulfill the responsibility of a father and bring the best growth environment to the child. For now, I don't have the idea of hoping for a son to become a Chan, I just hope that he can grow up happily and healthily, and give him a happy childhood. And after the birth of the child, there are obviously a lot of packages to do, including my second "first" in 2023. Since the outbreak of domestic new energy vehicles in 2021, I have always wanted to replace the old fuel vehicles at hand with the latest new energy vehicles. But on the one hand, the family generally believes that "it's not that you can't drive", and on the other hand, there is really no reason and money to change the car, so it has been shelved. And by the end of 2022, after adding a new member to the family, the original A-class sedan is obviously not enough, not to mention anything else, just after putting the folded stroller in the trunk, there is basically no space, let alone bringing big bags and small bags when taking children out for long runs. Therefore, at the end of 2022, after I proposed to change to a bigger car, my wife also changed her previous attitude and agreed, and the other big "sponsor" - my parents and mother-in-law also agreed and paid for the support when they heard that they were going to make a match for the eldest grandson. The process of buying a car is skipped, after all, it has been talked about a lot in the Fengwen community. For me, what is more meaningful is that this is the first car in the true sense of my life in more than 30 years: the car I chose, the money I paid, the car I picked up, the license plate I put on, everything was in my own hands. Although the car was bought under the banner of the child, but in addition to taking the baby to get vaccinated for a year, the baby did not have any chance to take the car at other times, this car is mainly cheaper for me, quite an old father to buy a 4090 graphics card for the child as a gift for Children's Day.
After all, the car is still used to drive, not to be used to watch. Although it seems to others that I am a bit "too aggressive" to buy a pure electric car directly, it is determined by my comprehensive consideration of the performance of the current domestic electric vehicle, as well as my use scenarios and life-cycle use costs, and a year of use proves that the logic and practice of buying a car at that time can stand the test of time. Due to the installation of home charging piles and being in the south, I have the most ideal conditions for the use of electric vehicles, and the total electricity bill is only less than 1,500 yuan after running 20,000 kilometers a year, which is a significant reduction in cost compared with fuel vehicles. The biggest change brought about by electric vehicles is the change in living habits. Previously, due to the reluctance to pay for fuel, fuel vehicles were in a state where they could not be used, and every day they commuted to work by bicycle for subway, and only drove to and from work in bad weather. And if you want to travel on weekends, you also prefer the subway or taxi, because after counting the parking and fuel money in the city, you find that it may be cheaper to take a taxi. But the very low cost of using electric vehicles changed everything, and when I realized that the electricity cost of an electric car for a day of commuting was only 2 yuan, and the cost of a day commuting on the subway was 10 yuan, I naturally chose to drive to and from work. Moreover, in the face of commuting traffic jams, the adaptive following cruise capability of domestic electric vehicles is standard, which greatly reduces the driving intensity and traffic jam anxiety. The extremely low cost of ownership of electric vehicles has also greatly stimulated the desire to travel long distances on weekends. Throughout 2023, there have been four self-driving tours of destinations around Jiangsu and Zhejiang alone, and countless trips to the suburbs and surrounding areas of Shanghai, with occasional weekends for a "walk-and-go" trip. When I used the last fuel car, I only drove three or four thousand kilometers a year, and I often only refueled once a month. After changing to an electric car, it became 20,000 kilometers a year, and the mentality changed from "don't drive unless necessary" to "don't drive when necessary".
As early as 6 years ago, when my father changed to a new car, the mainstream domestic cars were still in the range of about 100,000, and the price of a little bit was all the world of joint venture cars, highlighting a "no money to buy domestic cars". After a year of driving, my biggest impression is that Chinese cars have improved to such an extent. The smooth ride, surging power, smooth handling, and huge space make my whole family extremely satisfied. If you compare Mercedes-Benz, my domestic electric car is exchanged for the space and driving experience of Mercedes-Benz E-class at the price of Mercedes-Benz C-class. And for configurations such as seat ventilation and heating, 360-degree images, HUD, etc., basically every item in the joint venture car has to add thousands to obtain, and these have basically become the standard configuration on domestic electric vehicles, full of conscience. Therefore, I really can't think of any reason to buy a joint venture brand car unless I have special needs. If 2022 is the beginning of self-owned brand new energy vehicles, then 2023 will be the year when China's own brands will comprehensively surpass traditional joint venture vehicles, which is particularly obvious at China's major auto shows this year. When I visited the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, when Chinese domestic brands were competing for glory at the booth, the Japanese manufacturers that were most hit by China's new energy were the most crowded. German cars can still rely on high-end positioning and brand value to barely maintain, and Japanese cars, which focus on cost-effectiveness, are powerless in the face of more cost-effective independent new energy. This trend is indeed reflected in the sales volume of China's auto market in 2023, the most intuitive manifestation of which is the sharp increase in the market share of China's own brand cars and the sharp shrinking market share of joint venture brands. As China's own brand new energy vehicles began to enter the million-level traditional luxury car market, the situation has now become "no money to buy domestic cars". For me, it is an honor to be able to personally participate in this historical process as a car owner and contribute to the development of China's own brand electric vehicles.
At the Shanghai Auto Show, the doors of Japanese car companies are in stark contrast to the doors of their own brand booths, but the rapid development of domestic new energy and the increasingly volatile price war are often not so friendly to car owners who have already bought a car, and when I picked up the car on the last day of 2022, I couldn't imagine what kind of backstab I would experience in 2023. Take me as an example, as the owner of the car who picked up the car in 2022 and issued an invoice, I can enjoy the last batch of new energy state subsidies, and I can enjoy the replacement policy of Shanghai, so when facing the 2023 model configuration upgrade, I was very emotional at first. However, with the announcement of the new rights in March, I couldn't sit still: I gave 20,000 yuan of matching money and 200,000 yuan for three years interest-free. And to add insult to injury, the Shanghai replacement subsidy that was supposed to end on December 31, 2022 has also been postponed, which made me a clown in order to buy a car before the subsidy ended, and I was stabbed in the back. Until the latest rights announcement on January 1, 2024, my one-year-old car owner has already had four or five knives stuck in his back, and he has become a Caesar. If calculated based on the latest equity, excluding local subsidies and loan interest, I have already lost 45,000 on the basis of the official guide price, which is about 17% of the total price of the vehicle. For owners who have bought other new energy vehicles in 2023, everyone is a difficult brother.
Although the iteration speed of the new energy vehicle market in 2023 is extremely fast, comparable to the mobile phone market in 2017, the price war is so fierce and the configuration has changed so much, it is still far beyond the smartphone market at that time. And the most important thing is that a smartphone is just an electronic product that costs a few thousand yuan, and it will be replaced in two or three years. The new energy vehicle is a high-value fixed asset worth more than a dozen or even hundreds of thousands, and it will take ten or eight years. I was extremely angry when I was stabbed in the back, and I got used to it after a few more times, so I could only comfort myself to "buy early and enjoy early" and contribute to China's auto industry. And at the end of 2023, I am pleased to see that Chinese cars are not only fighting each other in the range of less than 400,000, but also beginning to attack the traditional high-end car position of joint venture brands. From an industrial point of view, shifting from price war to high-end is a healthier performance, and it is hoped that in 2024 we can see Chinese cars go to the next level.
Yangwang is the first Chinese luxury brand to be widely recognized in China, and at this time of the replacement of the old and the new, looking back on the past year, a lot has indeed happened. Although the burden is heavier after having a child and becoming a father, every time I get home from work, I look at me with a lot of excitement and shout "Mom" (yes, this kid only calls Mom now, and everyone calls Mom), and when I hug the milky little things, I feel that everything is worth it. And although my first car of my own made me feel a little "lost", I was actually full of pride when I drove it on the highway and attracted countless turns. Life is like this, there is bitterness but sweetness.
Source: Bottom-line thinking