'One child' generation grows up to face strained family ties
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-04-13 11:25

China's "one child" generation has grown up to face strained family relations as they leave their doting parents to start a married life.

A recent survey has found 32 percent of them at odds with their in-laws or often quarreling with their spouses.

The survey, conducted recently by a family education research body based in the northern China city of Tianjin, has found couples who are both the only child at home -- particularly those from well-off urban families -- even more frustrated from time to time.

Most of their problems start with minor trifles such as who should take up more housework or who should retreat in case of a conflict, the survey showed.

While many young wives complain they are doing twice as much household chores as their uncaring, inconsiderate husbands, discrepancies tend to escalate into constant quarrels, or occasional fighting between these self-centered couples, both of whom have strong characters and do not easily give in.

The survey has also found that 60 percent of the "one child" couples are not competent enough for parenting and have to turn to their own parents for baby-sitting, but different ways of childcare, too, have induced discrepancies between the three generations.

On the other hand, their parents tend to feel lonely and unattended, when these grown-up kids, once the focus of the family life, are too busy at home to spend any time with the elderly.

Sociologists say, therefore, China's only child needs to become more tolerant and considerate to cope with varied social relations, solve discrepancies and in the long run, create a healthy environment for their own children.

This has to be included into their early childhood education, they say.

"One child" families began mushrooming in China in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the Chinese government adopted a strict family planning policy to encourage couples to have only one child.

These children are then dubbed "little emperors", as most of them were doted on by parents and grandparents alike and described by critics as spoiled, self-centered and in need of discipline.

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