"I used to take my baby out and often had to hide in the bathroom when changing diapers. Nowadays, the shopping mall has a’ father-baby room’, which is spacious and hygienic, as well as a baby care desk and a milk warmer. Finally, there is no need to hurry. "
Recently, Mr. Fan from Beijing shared with reporters that when he was shopping with his 1-year-old son in a shopping mall in Chaoyang District, Beijing, his new "father-baby room" provided him with a lot of convenience.
With the increase of dual-career families, the change of parenting concept and the implementation of the "three-child" policy, for some time, in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places, there have been "father-baby rooms" or reformed new-style nursery rooms for parents. Compared with the traditional mother-baby room, the newly-built public space takes into account the convenience of fathers’ participation in child-rearing, but it also faces problems such as low functional orientation and insufficient coverage.
The reporter found that the promotion of the new nursery is not only a subdivision and upgrade of public facilities, but also reflects the diverse needs of working parents for a child-friendly public environment, and meeting this demand requires the concerted efforts of the government, enterprises and society.
There are more and more new nursery rooms.
A few days ago, a reporter visited a shopping mall in Chaoyang District, Beijing, and found that at the entrance of the nursery on the fourth floor of the shopping mall, two signs were hung with the words "common parenting" and "a room not only belonging to her", and the sign of the nursery was a man and a woman holding their children together.
The reporter saw that in the nursery, there are facilities such as sofa, sink, crib, diaper changing table and bottle heater.
In addition, the nursery room is divided into nursery space and nursing space, and there is a "men stop" sign and a partition curtain at the entrance of the independently divided nursing space. In about half an hour, seven families took their children into the nursery, and three of them were accompanied by men.
"There are quite a few cases of taking children with my husband. I have been to the maternal and child rooms of many shopping malls before, and some will write’ Men Stop’ at the door. In this case, the father of the child can only wait in the seat outside, and I am too busy to be alone inside. " Ms. Xu, a working mother who came to the nursery of the shopping mall that day, said that as a member of the dual-employee family, she expected more shopping malls to add "father-baby rooms" or new nursery rooms, thus reducing the parenting pressure of working mothers.
"The original intention of adding a’ father-baby room’ is to facilitate more treasure dads with babies." Liu Wei, director of the brand center of Beijing Huiduogang Shopping Center, said in an interview with the Workers Daily that the mall is mainly "parent-child-friendly", and more than 70% of the customers are parent-child families. Each floor has a maternal and child room. "It was observed before that many Bao dads would hesitate to walk to the door of the maternal and child room when they were alone with their baby. In order to meet the needs of customers, in April this year, the mall added a’ father and baby room’. "
Liu Wei said that the "father-baby room" in the shopping mall was not newly built separately, but was transformed on the basis of the original mother-baby room on each floor, retaining the same functions and facilities as the mother-baby room. "The only difference is that the logo of" father-baby room "was affixed, which clearly served the Bao-dad group who took the baby alone and better protected the privacy of both parents with the baby."
Solve the needs of "Bao Dad" with a baby
According to Wang Tianyu, deputy director of the Social Law Research Office of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the promotion of "father-baby room" and new-type nursery room is an important innovation in the field of social public services, and it is also a key exploration to improve the birth support policy and build a child-friendly environment. "The expansion from’ mother-and-baby room’ to’ father-and-baby room’ appears to be a subdivision of the function of public space, but in fact it reflects the breakthrough in the concept that the responsibility for child-rearing has shifted to’ shared by parents’ and’ shared by society’."
In recent years, the concept of parents’ joint participation in parenting has been popularized. According to the data of China family follow-up survey conducted by China Social Science Research Center of Peking University, among the post-90s fathers whose children are less than 10 years old, Bao Dad spends an average of 2.39 hours a day taking care of their children, which is about 16% more than that of post-1970s fathers.
At the same time, workers’ needs for child care are increasingly diversified. "I hope that the’ father-baby room’ is the beginning, which can drive more public places and offices to improve childcare facilities." Ms. Cui, a working mother who works in a science and technology park in Zhengzhou, has expressed the voices of many workers.
"For working parents, there are many difficulties in’ traveling with a baby’,’ overtime custody’ and’ emergency care’. If shopping malls, parks, office buildings and other places can provide more childcare space and temporary custody services, it will better solve the urgent needs of working parents. " Ms. Cui said.
In this regard, Fan Lina, an associate professor at the Trade Union College of China Institute of Labor Relations, believes that from the perspective of labor security, the promotion of "father-baby rooms" and new-type nursery rooms supports fathers to take on the responsibility of childcare. The essence is that the protection of workers’ rights and interests extends from the workplace to the whole scene of work and life, and its core connection lies in effectively reducing the pressure and worries of workers’ childcare.
Some interviewed experts believe that improving accessible childcare facilities in public places ensures that parents in the workplace can participate in social and economic activities with equality and dignity during childcare, so that workers can avoid the limitation of career development caused by inconvenient childcare.
"It can also reduce the time cost and psychological cost of child-rearing, and reduce the demand for leave from parents in the workplace because of’ difficulty in carrying milk’ and’ difficulty in walking the baby’, thus improving labor productivity." Fan Lina said that workers will benefit from the action that employers and society share the responsibility of child care, which will be manifested in higher return rate, retention rate and innovation investment.
Promote pluralistic co-governance among government, enterprises and society.
How to upgrade public facilities to better meet the needs of working parents? Wang Tianyu believes that the design concept of various social facilities needs to be adjusted in time with the changes in population structure, and the functional setting of public space and office space should consider the dual identity of working parents as "workers" and "children-bearers".
Wang Tianyu further suggested that on the one hand, with the gradual promotion of flexible office, we can try to equip the childcare space in public places with remote office facilities to help working parents meet office needs when taking care of their children. On the other hand, qualified employers can provide children’s custody services for workers, "which not only solves the problem of bringing children to employees, but also allows them to work with peace of mind".
"Parenting facilities in public places should be upgraded from’ fixed facilities’ to’ urban network nodes’." Fan Lina said that the construction of childcare facilities should cover more daily living spaces such as community business centers, libraries, parks and subway stations, and build a "15-minute childcare service circle".
"We must also accelerate the digital transformation." Fan Lina suggested that intelligent services such as facility inquiry and reservation should be provided by developing convenience applets, and cooperation with enterprises to implement the member sharing system should be explored.
The reporter learned that in recent years, many policies have been introduced to improve childcare facilities in public places and offices, and practice has been accelerated. For example, Shanghai issued documents to regulate the construction, management, operation, maintenance and supervision of maternal and child facilities; The Nan ‘ao Office of Shenzhen Dapeng New District has set up a community nursery point to meet the needs of residents in the area. Xi ‘an No.2 Nursery School set up "Hou Dad Studio" to share the scientific parenting concept with Bao Dad through holding large-scale lectures, educational salons, parent-child games and other activities.
"To build a child-friendly environment in which the workplace and public space work together, it is necessary to promote the pluralistic governance of the government, enterprises and society." Fan Lina believes that the government should play a guiding role, incorporate the allocation of childcare facilities into the mandatory standards for the construction of public places, and encourage their implementation through tax incentives and financial subsidies. At the same time, in the transformation of community life circle, priority should be given to the layout of childcare service space. Enterprises should also bear the main responsibility and build a child-care security system for employees with commercial service facilities.
Source: Workers Daily WeChat public account
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