December 8, 2015
“If I’d shared my parents’ resources with brothers or sisters, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Jessica, a 23-year-old University of Michigan student, born in Weihai – about 6,500 miles from her current home. “I have so many options of how I can live my life now, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she said.
December 8, 2015
“If I’d shared my parents’ resources with brothers or sisters, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Jessica, a 23-year-old University of Michigan student, born in Weihai – about 6,500 miles from her current home. “I have so many options of how I can live my life now, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she said.
In 1979, in the grip of a population crisis, China took extreme measures to halt its rapidly expanding society. It began limiting births to one child per couple and administered severe, sometimes barbaric, penalties for deviation from the rule. In October, after 35 years, the policy was scrapped.
Many people who have grown up as an only child recall loneliness, isolation and, occasionally, imaginary friends. According to a 2013 study by Australian researchers, only children exhibit traits such as selfishness, pessimism and risk aversion that are not as prevalent in children with siblings. These findings click with commonly held views that only children, more often than not, are seen as having been dealt a bad hand.
‘On the one hand it makes me feel like a princess, on the other hand, I feel burdened to make my parents proud,’ says Bonnie. Photograph: Bonnie
“It is true that when both of my parents went to work, I ended up spending a lot of time alone at home and that might be one of the reasons that I am more of an introvert. But I am extremely lucky to have been born in an era of economic boom in China, so that my parents could let me try out different extracurricular activities, and ultimately send me to the US to study.
“You could argue that I am being a typically selfish only child, or that I just don’t understand how having siblings really works, but I loved being the centre of attention,” Jessica said.
According to the Communist party ruling, 400m births were prevented, which they say has contributed to the country’s dramatic economic takeoff. China has an unusually well-educated population: more than 85% of children born in the 1990s have attended high school. According to Unesco, the average for east Asia is 61% .
But these gains were not won without severe encroachments on personal freedom and women’s reproductive rights. “My aunt aborted her first child when an illegal x-ray showed that it was a girl. And when I was born, my grandmother was so disappointed by my gender that she offered to hide me in the countryside so my parents could try for a boy,” Jessica said. “I only saw her again the day before she died. The last thing she said to my dad was: at least adopt a son.”
China’s preference for boys coupled with its brutally enforced one-child rule resulted in sterilizations, infanticide and grim cases of forced abortions. The personal sacrifices made by parents transferred to their children in the form of excessive attention and expectation. The now dubbed “lonely generation” feel they must achieve and make their families proud, work hard to make good use of the years of financial and emotional support, and sacrifice.
“Young Chinese students you see at universities in the west, dedicated to work and Skyping their families every hour are symptomatic of China’s strict one-child rules,” said Bonnie, a 24-year-old journalist living in Beijing. “We have been made to feel special, like we have it all, but in reality we carry a heavy burden.”
‘Being born as an only child puts more pressure, on me, both in the past and in the future,’ says 21-year-old Peter.
Chinese parents are known for placing huge academic expectations on their children – and their children, in general, deliver. Chinese students score highly in international tests, and a recent study from the Institute of Education (IoE) at the University of London found that they are two and a half years ahead of their western peers by the time they are 15.
“As their only child, I’m precious; my parents love me too much. On the one hand it makes me feel like a princess, on the other hand, I feel burdened to make my parents proud. A brother or sister would help carry the weight,” Bonnie said.
When the news broke that China was scrapping its policy last month, people took to social media to celebrate and ask why the change had taken so long.
“I was a pretty lonely child, and I always had an imaginary sisters or brothers. I waited for a real brother or sister when I was young and it never happened and I didn’t know why. I guess we really are the loneliest generation,” Bonnie said.
Experts predict that the relaxation of family planning rules is unlikely to have a lasting demographic impact, particularly in urban areas. Demographers in and outside China have long warned that its low fertility rate – which experts say lies somewhere between 1.2 and 1.5 children per woman – was driving the country towards a demographic crisis and catastrophic gender imbalance. China now has more men than women, meaning that millions will never find female partners.
Twenty-one-year-old Peter, from the mountain city of Shiyan in Hubei province, thinks the change is positive for China’s economy and people’s personal freedom and fulfillment, but can’t see any impact on his own life.
‘I waited for a real brother or sister when I was young and it never happened and I didn’t know why,’ says Bonnie from Beijing. Photograph: Bonnie
“I’m not married and I don’t see it coming soon either, but I would like to in the future and hopefully I can afford to have two children. I’ve lived with two different host families in the past, and it was a nice experience to have brothers and to be someone’s brother. It also brings more fun to the family.”
The lack of interaction with siblings, and an understanding of what it means to be part of a larger family unit, is a worry for some of China’s lonely generation. Haiyue, 25, believes the attention and money lavished on some only children has created a generation lacking in life skills.
“There is a very small proportion of our generation that turn out terribly as they have huge amounts of money and very little discipline. It’s no different to how some of the trust-fund kids behave in the UK, but with more inequality in the country it feels more obscene. Obviously this is a huge oversimplification and most of them turn out totally fine,” she said.
By about the middle of this century, one person in every three in China is forecast to be over 60, with a dwindling proportion of working adults to support them. Smaller close family units means less available support but more pressure on the only child to care for family members in old age. Bonnie worries about how she and her husband will cope looking after four elderly people and two children.
“The number of people who are sent to nursing homes is increasing. Traditionally, the great majority of old people live on their own or with their spouse, children, siblings, or other relatives. But we are young and always busy with study or work, with no time or energy left to look after our parents.
“But my parents are also concerned about us. They worry that due to the cost, we may never make use of the new rules and have a second child. And they worry about young couples who are delaying their plans to even have their first child, because the cost of raising children in China is growing so fast,” she said.
With less certainty of creating their own families due to financial pressures, China’s lonely generation may be destined to be the loneliest generation after all.
“I wonder how we’ll be talked about in 100 years’ time? As a golden generation full of steel, hard work and good character, or as a social experiment that brought only sadness and selfishness?”
Courtesy: The Guardian
