Cui Changying knew that little Shanshan was going to remain an only child. His constant demands for a new iPad and new iPhone and Louis Vuitton onesies had already dried up their Second Child Bribe account.
Even so, she felt overwhelmed!
She had tried so hard to be modern, investing in three organic cloth diapers from that Bugaboo boutique that was always filled with tall, blond laowai mothers who didn’t bat an eyelash at the premise of paying two months’ salary (well, two months of her salary) for a stroller that looked like a tank.
Shanshan had already gone through all three of those expensive diapers and it wasn’t even noon! They wouldn’t be dry for hours.
She sighed, then decided she would just follow the advice of the aunties in her lane. They had been fiercely critical of her approach to child rearing. The traditional ways were best, they’d scolded her as she pulled the split-crotch pants over Shanshan’s overpriced organic cloth diaper. He’d never be toilet trained that way, unaware of his own naked bottom!
She grabbed three more clothes pegs and fastened Shanshan, pantsless, to the laundry line, alongside his drying diapers.
Yes, perhaps the old ways were best.