水瓶SHOW

                                                        The Only Child in the Family

     How many kids do you have?  We don't ask this question in my country because our government has a policy:" One family, one child."  This policy has been in use since 1979, and it is still in place.  We understand having one child has a lot of advantages. For instance, we can devote more patients to the only child, and we can spend more money on the child's education and activities.  I was born in the "One child" generation, and I have only one son myself.  Because of my experience as the only child in the family, there are definitely some disadvantages that affected my life.

     First, as the only child, caring for the entire family is hard.  As our parents start to get older, it is tradition that we give more attention to them.  However, our child is still young and needs to be care for as well.  In addition, we have to keep a career.  It was like juggling three balls together: parents, child, and career.  Many couples in China face this dilemma. I too, had this problem.  I had to keep all of balls in the air continuously, and at times I felt stretched to the max.  Whenever my parent or my child had a problem, I had to drop my work and spend time to resolve the issue.  Often my career suffered as a result.  It was very stressful.  Now, living in Seattle, I have another problem.  My parents are still living in Shanghai and I can't get close to them to take care of them when they need my help.  I worry about the fact that as they get older and older, and their health deteriorates, they will need me more and more.  If I have siblings, I can rely on them to help me.

     Second, an only child tends to be spoiled.  In China, we have a saying: "Six adults nurture a child: four grandparents, two parents and a child”, meaning there is too much attention pay to a child.  This problem is very wide spread.  Children don't know how to share because they never have to.  As result, it is hard to make friends or keeping their relationship strong because every child is the only child in the family, they are accustomed to be alone.  My son is a classic example of this situation.  He thinks he is the most important person in the family.  It often feels like he think he is a king, and he believes he can take what he wants from the family.  When my son immigrated to the US, at first, he didn't know how to relate with my husband's kids.  He asked me questions, such as:  “Why do I need to share my food?  Why doesn't anyone let me win in the game?  Why do I need to do this but they don't need to do it?”  It was obvious that he was used to being spoiled.  If my son had siblings, I believe he would adapt faster in this family.  This problem manifests itself in adult world as well.  In China, people usually don't enjoy working as a team, and they like to work alone and find their own ways.   More and more, kids born in the 80's don't know how to work with others, and they don't share their experiences with each other.  This is very different in American.  You may put "self absorbed" label on them.  However, I know they are not exactly selfish; they just need to learn how to share if they had a sibling to play with.  An only child tends to be spoiled and will affect their later life.

      Finally, losing an only child can be devastating.  In a Chinese family, it is expected that we have someone to carry on with our family name.  So having a child to inherit the family name is an important thing.  We all heard about the earthquake in China in 2008.  That event caused many thousands people's lives, many of them were children.  For most of these families, the parents are in their middle ages, and they have passed their child bearing age.  They can no longer have children again.  Because they had only one child, not only did they lose their home and their livelihood, they also lost their only hope.   They had no one to carry on their name.  Now, if these families have more children, they may still have another child to depend on, and they would not feel as painful.  I don't have this experiences but I can understand this feeling.  It made me think I should have another child.