So the latest topic of discussion amongst some of my mommy friends has been about how the lives of mothers and fathers are affected differently by children, especially living here in Shanghai. As I've written about many many many times before, Shanghai allows us to experience the luxury of full time help that we may otherwise not get to have back in our home countries. Is it because of this full time help that the traditional image (at least in the US) of mothers and fathers pulling equal weight in the parenting and overall homefront is somewhat lost here in Shanghai? For many, we feel like our lives have completely changed after having kids, yet for our husbands it's like nothing changed at all, except they got a new toy to play with when they feel like it.

Example: Since many of us have full time nannies, it's easy to go out and enjoy the Shanghai nightlife. As we all know, Shanghai's nightlife is one of the many things Shanghai is famous for. For my friends back home in the US, the thought of going out until 3 in the morning at a club drinking bottles of vodka is about as foreign as considering fish heads a delicacy. However, in Shanghai it seems like lots of parents are out clubbing on any given night, including myself, but boy do I pay for it the next day when Tanner is up at 6am. Also because we have full time nannies, many things that dads would have to do back home gets replaced with nannies. One mommy friend of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous) states, "Because we have an ayi, my husband basically feels that he doesn't have to do anything with the baby except play with her when he wants. He hasn't changed a single diaper, given a single bath, or woken up for a single nighttime feeding. In many ways I feel like I'm married to my ayi."

I've noticed in cases such as these that resentment between husband and wife sets in as we all know, no matter how late we stay out, every mom is up at that 6, sometimes 5 am wake up call from our little ones. Even if the ayi is around, there's something about being a mom that gets us all up in the morning. While dad can lay around snoozing in bed until noon, we have usually gotten up, prepared breakfast, fed the kids, changed them, played with them, and put them back down for a nap. So it's easy to understand how a woman can begin to resent her snoring husband as he lounges around all day nursing a hangover. Does the inequality that exists between husband and wife begin to take a toll on a marriage?

I've always thought that Shanghai is like Disneyland for adults. It's a place where we never have to grow up. We can act like we're 21 for the rest of our lives. It's not a bad thing I guess, but don't we all have to grow up sometime? Or is this just a notion that was created in our head based on the lives of people back home? I have to say for me personally I'm torn. I feel lucky that we can balance our lives and have kids yet still have our own lives as we all know a happy parent is a good parent. Compared to friends back home with kids, we live a really cushy life here, I really can't complain. But is staying "forever young" good? When will we grow up if we never feel like we have to? I guess maybe we don't have to after all....