The mother of all dilemmas

The story of Chen Lanqing, another protagonist, is set in the late 2000s.

The only child in her family, Chen enjoyed overwhelming love and care from her parents. She also married an emotionally supportive and relatively competent husband. Even so, the woman still experienced a breakdown when doing the round-the-clock job of taking care of her newborn.

Apart from experiencing weight gain, the appearance of stretch marks and some other physical discomfort, Chen also had to mediate intergenerational disputes on such problems as when to wean the baby.

Affected by hormonal changes, Chen could be easily driven crazy by trivialities. She became suspicious about whether she was qualified enough to be a mother

Her story is about how she extricated herself from the situation and became more able to take on her maternal responsibilities.

"Chen was once carefree and naively held the belief that life wouldn't change much after giving birth to a baby, as the maternal and paternal grandmothers would help," Zhang says.

"She gets to be stronger after becoming a mother."

Another story centers on Lu Yuanfang, an independent career woman and a single mother.

Her story shows how she struck a balance between work and the role of a mother. She formed the habit of fixing everything on her own. And when adjusting to motherhood, she felt the lack of control in her life and gradually became more willing to seek help from friends and show her love and care for others.

The drama also points out many inconveniences faced by new mothers, such as the lack of lactation room in public places, calling to improve the social environment for new mothers.