The single-child generation in China has grown up to become parents, creating a new social phenomenon of sorts
The little baby is lying on the sofa, giggling. Beside him sits mother Liu Li, 26, with her eyes glued to a South Korean soap opera on television, instead of the baby.
Unused to such a scene, Liu’s mother Wu Xiuqin sighs and says, “Now I have two children to raise — my daughter and my grandson.”
The scene is typical of Liu’s generation — referred to as China’s ‘little emperors’ — the ‘spoiled’ single children of their parents, born after the late 1970s, when China began to promote the one-child-for-one-couple pattern in family planning. The first generation of these single children has now entered parenthood.
Wu came to live with her daughter and son-in-law when her grandson was six months old. “They are both single children, and neither of them knows how to cook, not to mention how to tend to a baby. I have to help look after my grandson, and also cook for them,” says 55-year-old Wu.
Liu, a high school teacher, says the baby was unplanned. “I thought of abortion, but changed my mind when I stood in front of the hospital, suddenly feeling it move inside me.” Nevertheless, she confesses she cried at the sight of the newborn baby. At first, she “didn’t dare to touch him, for fear I might break his little finger”. Liu admits that without her mother, she would be at a complete loss in dealing with her unexpected motherhood.
Up to 2004, there were 80 million families with only one child across China, according to the Research Centre for Population Information in Beijing. More than six million of the single children from these families have entered the marriage and childbearing stage. The Centre estimates that by 2035, “one child” families would account for 71 per cent of the total families in Beijing and 73 per cent in Shanghai.
Sociologists have been following the growth of the single children closely. In 2004, the Youth Research Centre of Shanghai’s Academy of Social Sciences conducted a survey on 1,828 parents aged 25 to 35. Of these, 39 per cent were the only children in their families.
The research shows that ‘single-child’ individuals begin dating earlier than those from ‘multi-children’ families — about 34 per cent of the first group began dating before 20, as against eight per cent of the second group.
Both groups agree that marriage is a choice of life rather than a must; and both groups attribute tolerance, trust and independence to a lasting wedlock. While respondents of both groups hold that the purpose of having a child is to bring more joy to the family rather than sustain a family line, there is a marginal difference on how to deal with the conflicts over child-raising and career development. Nearly 17 per cent of the single-child group as against 12 per cent of the other group would choose career at the cost of having a child.
In addition, researchers are intrigued by the fact that 74.1 per cent of the single-child parents, compared to 68 per cent of the other group, not only buy toys for their children, but also for themselves.
The Shanghai survey reveals a striking difference on the relations with parents between the two groups. The only-child group is more dependent on their parents — about 18 per cent use their parents’ money for their wedding and buying a house, against 10 per cent of the other group. Also, half of the grown-up only-children live with their parents, compared with 28 per cent from the other group.
Such a tendency puzzles sociologists. Dr Bao Leiping (of the Youth Research Centre) observes that in a better-off economy, the family size normally gets smaller, with only two generations living together. “But single-child parents often have their parents living with them so that they can help take care of their grandchildren. Consequently, new conflicts arise between the two adult generations on how to raise a baby,” she says.
Liu’s husband, Qian Qian, says Liu and her mother bathe the baby every night, and each time there is a debate on how to position the baby or how long it should take. And when Liu’s mother goes away for a few days, the baby smiles less and eats less.
Too much dependence on a grandmother could compromise the young mother’s capability to raise a child and build an intimate mother-child relationship, warns Bao. On the other hand, she says, the share of the care for the baby may expose the child to both traditional and modern education, so “it does have its advantages”.
Liu says she plans to let her mother go back to her own home when the baby is a year old; she would then send him to a day care centre, to play with other children under the care of professional nurses. She still dreads the memory of loneliness when she was little — “no one played with me while my parents were busy”. She doesn’t want her son to experience that loneliness.
Aside from remaining “childish” when they become parents, Bao says single-children parents like Liu may also face the pressure of having to take care of two old couples — their parents and parents-in-law — when they reach middle age.
However, Dr Chen Gong at the Institute of Population Research of Beijing University dismisses these concerns as unnecessary, given that welfare and community services are constantly improved. “More social resources will be involved in the support of the old, who will no longer just depend on many children staying home to take care of them.”
On the whole, Chen says, there is no big difference between the single-children and multi-children groups. Although single children have received more attention in the family, “it’s not right to label them as selfish, lazy or spoiled,” he says. But they need guidance on marriage and child rearing. — By Arrangement with Women’s Feature Service
The single-child generation in China has grown up to become parents, creating a new social phenomenon of sorts 
