“Middle‐aged Old Mothers” in China: Childrearing Anxiety, Humor, and the Narrative Self

Abstract

With the rise of hyper education in contemporary China, the phrase "middle-aged old mother" has become an important narrative identity for mothers over 30 in the urban middle class. Based on ethnographic and virtual fieldwork from 2018 to 2020, this paper weaves together interviews, observation, and social media data to examine mothers' moral experience of childrearing anxiety in Beijing. This article goes beyond the surface content of "middle-aged old mother" narratives and instead highlights the narrative context, style, intention, and effect. It aims to understand their first-person narratives of parenting characterized by heightened uncertainty, high stakes, self-reflexivity, and gender inequalities. The "middle-aged old mother" script provides a template for and becomes the "co-author" of Chinese mothers' auto-narratives: It blends self-mockery, personal story, and social critique in an environment of intensifying competition and moral quandaries. The term is a deliberate act of humor and an invitation for empathy. [motherhood, narrative, morality, education, and China] "Middle-aged old mother" narratives even gained traction in state media. For example, in January 2019, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece magazine, Banyue Tan, published an article that was reprinted on the Chinese central government's news agency website,