(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-28 10:26

Ten months after they tied the knot, Li Lei and Wang Yang, both 20-something Chinese professionals, decided it was time to break up so they could spend more time with their lovers.

A newly-married couple poses for a photo in front of a church in Beijing November 13, 2007. [Agencies]

They signed on the dotted line on their divorce paper less than 20 minutes after answering "no" to a few key questions - "Do you have kids?" and "Any disputes on property?"

China's phenomenal economic growth has created a generation of "emperors" and "empresses," the now-adult children of China's family planning policy, who often put their needs before anything and anyone else.

Experts say many of this generation are unable to sustain relationships, a result of being spoilt only children, doted on by parents and grandparents who catered to their every whim.

"They are weak in horizontal bonding, communicating with the same generation," said Professor Fucius Yunlan, a US-trained psychiatrist who runs counseling sessions in Beijing.

"They tend to apply a vertical approach to horizontal relationships."

With an enlarged sense of entitlement, some of these couples tend to part quickly. Counselors say some marriages fall apart after a week or a few months.

Problems of the rich

The problem of grown only children having difficulties sustaining relationships is particularly pronounced among the affluent middle-and upper-classes.

Divorce figures in some cities show about one-third of all divorce cases involve children of the affluent "me" generation.

Many parents buried themselves in work to build a better life as the country underwent fast economic growth over the past two decades just as their kids reached their teens.

"They ignored the emotional education of their children," explained Prof. Fucius.

But in many cases, these parents showered their children with everything that money could buy as well as the emotional weight of high expectations for their only children.

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