By Zhang Kun (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-17 10:04

"But the situation is changing fast. People accept our ideas more easily now, even in mid-sized cities in China," Shiah says. Last month when Gymboree organized a public lecture in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi Province, Shiah was glad to see that men comprised 50 percent of the audience.

The average age of fathers and mothers who have under-three children is 32 and 29, Xu says. They are the first generation parents of China's family planning policy. They grew up in the era of market economy and have acquired all the trappings of its culture.

Many of these parents believe success is synonymous with wealth, and happiness means money. They want to give the best to their offspring because they can have only one child. What's more, many of them can afford it. Almost 70 percent of the 386 families Xu and her team surveyed had an average monthly family income of more than 6,000 yuan if husband and wife both were working.

"Some hire piano tutors, others employ native English speakers as language tutors," says Nana Miao, a young mother. "Most of the people in my residential community are quite well off, and most of their children have to learn something extra. Many parents spend more than 10,000 yuan a year on their children's early education."

But conflicts in more than 80 percent of the families in which grandparents take care of the kids. "My mother-in-law asked me to leave my son in her care in the countryside, but I thought it was a bad idea," a young mother says on www.19lou.com, an online BBS on family life. "Once she returned after spraying pesticide and went straight for the baby without either changing her clothes or taking a shower," she has written.

Another mother complains it was difficult to persuade her father-in-law not to smoke in front of the baby.

All these are the result of better education and awareness of the present generation of parents. "They log on the Internet and search for all types of information once they realize (or imagine) there's something even slightest wrong with their children," says Peng Yongmei, professor of Children's Hospital, affiliated to Fudan University.

Some parents, in most cases the mother, are so obsessed with their children that they panic the moment they sense a problem, Peng says. "For example, a woman read somewhere that a healthy child should drink 300 ml of milk each time it's fed, and got nervous if it didn't drink that much." This often leads to forcible feeding because of which a child can develop aversion to food and milk.

"Some grandparents, too, are to blame for such situations because of the love and affection they shower on the kids," Peng says. "I've handled a peculiar case of a child eating just one mouthful after a one-way ride on an escalator in a nearby shopping mall."

Shanghai Family Education Institute Deputy Director Chen Jianqiang says: "It's a serious problem we provide lots of information on childcare but it doesn't reach part of the target audience: grandparents. Very few of them log on the Net or read about such matters."

Though most old people disagree with their children on how to raise their only grandchild, they are generous to pay for their care and education. "Often, people think, 'Why shouldn't my child have that if others do'?" Nana Miao says.

The age-old tradition of loving grandparents and the modern scientific education process parents prefer should be the best possible mix to bring up a child in these times, it seems.

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