People keep asking: so how much does Niuniu’s school actually cost?
Let me put it this way: one day of her tuition equals one night at a five-star hotel in Shanghai.
When I ran the numbers, I didn’t believe them either.
Back when Niu-ma was a working stiff in Shanghai, I split an apartment with roommates — 500 yuan a month.
Am I remembering this wrong? Didn’t I give birth to her at the hospital down the street? Because it’s starting to look like she was born in Rome.
Oh, right — no. She wasn’t born in Rome. Her parents are just the mules hauling her there.
And like any wage earner who grits her teeth and buys the luxury handbag, I had extremely high expectations for private school.
Nothing like my beautiful fantasy. Every time I pick Niuniu up, her state of being says less “day at a five-star hotel” and more “twelve hours hauling bricks at a construction site.”
And the exhaustion is real. How could it not be?
She wakes at 6, is up at 6:30, out the door at 7:15.
Seven classes, no recess. Unlike elementary school, where one class stays in one room all day, in middle school every period is a different classroom — the second the bell rings, everybody sprints to the next one.
The only downtime is an advisory meeting after lunch. If there’s sports practice after school, she’s not home until 6.
Throw in a weekend activity and — isn’t this just a 996 job?
Bear in mind, six months ago this child was living the dream: out the door at 8:40, home at 3:30, zero obligations, pure play.
Overnight, the young lady of leisure became a corporate drone. Nobody adjusts to that.
The other day Niuniu said to me, mournfully: “Mom, I have no time of my own anymore.”
Look at the schedule: cross country Monday and Wednesday, taekwondo Tuesday and Thursday, Chinese class Friday. And the school! also! assigns! homework!
Bedtime is 9. Where’s the time for TV, for drawing, for chatting with friends, for games?
Niuniu wore the face of someone done with life.
Honestly, forget her — I’m running on fumes too. Niuniu and Niumei have different pickup times, different dinner times, different after-school classes, plus a pile of school events. When it all lands at once, my feet don’t touch the ground.
I was this close to suggesting she quit taekwondo. Then last weekend I ran into a friend whose middle-school son does three sports plus piano, and whose younger kid does two sports —
— and I decided we could hang on a little longer.
Oh, right. Homework.
Niuniu’s elementary school assigned none, which suited me fine — as long as her grades came back passing, we were good. Those viral videos of moms in China melting down over homework? I watched them as comedy.
Well. Niuniu has homework now.
The scary part: there’s a lot of it.
The scarier part: there’s some every day.
The scariest part: I can’t do it!
The other day she got stuck on a math problem and chewed her pencil to splinters over it. Niu-ba gallantly stepped in. Father and daughter asked Google, asked ChatGPT, still couldn’t crack it — and finally came to ask me.
Yes: I am not a STEM person, but I am the best mathematician in this house.
With a faint, contemptuous smile at the corner of my mouth, I snatched the worksheet.
Read it once. Twice. A third time…… and sensed that things were going very wrong.
I asked Google. I asked ChatGPT. I even asked Baidu. Clearly, this is territory the big data was never trained on.
No. I had to find the answer. This was no longer about my daughter’s homework — this was a matter of national honor.
So I deployed the ultimate weapon: my old Tsinghua classmates.
And yet! Two certified STEM geniuses in a row had no idea how to do it either!
Amid the shock, I felt a strange flicker of comfort:
Which means the problem is obviously American education!
And so I reached for the one solution every parent on Earth knows:
Now that I’ve hyped it this much, you’re dying to see the problem, right? Here it is. Friends with good English, give it a shot — no prize for solving it:
Yesterday on the way to school, I asked Niuniu: what’s the biggest difference between elementary school and your school now?
Niuniu said: other than both being schools, everything is different.
That startled me — but think about it, she’s right. New school, new city, new teachers, new classmates, plus the jump from elementary to middle school. Every single thing is unfamiliar.
I joked: so if you could go back to elementary school right now, would you?
Knowing Niuniu, I expected her to sneer at rejoining the little kids.
Instead she thought about it for a moment and said: yes.
I took a deep breath: “It’s okay. Take your time — adjusting takes a while. And if in the end you truly don’t like it there, we’ll go back to public school. Not a big deal.”
Niuniu shook her head: “But isn’t this school really good? From here I’d have a better shot at a good high school, and a good college.”
Heavens. Where did this child hear that?
We never talk admissions or Ivy-climbing at home. I don’t believe my kids are studying now so they can get into a “good college” someday, and I don’t believe a good college buys a happy life.
But clearly, this family is no longer her only source of influence.
I said: “Not necessarily. There’s no such thing as a school that’s one hundred percent good — only a school that fits you better.
“Five-star hotel or three-star Michelin: if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Don’t gaslight yourself over the halo.”
Niuniu nodded, half understanding. The car pulled up; she hoisted her lead-heavy backpack and trudged toward the school gate with its bronze lions.
Kiddo, you just haven’t yet faced down something this hard. When it’s all behind you, you’ll have grown.
All we can do is wait patiently. The clouds always clear.
It’s just that before the sun comes out, everybody gets their share of confusion and pain.
And now I finally understand the dilemma of every parent who tightens their belt to pay private-school tuition:
I can’t tell if my heart aches for the kid — or for the money.
P.S. Some of the panels in this post were drawn by Niuniu herself. Please be encouraging.