August 06, 1999	atimes.com

China Little emperors, little brats By Wen Chihua BEIJING - The Chinese often debate about how hard it is to bring up children in these modern days, with many parents rueing how youngsters are ''helpless or selfish'' but confessing that they wait on their children like slaves. Little wonder, then, that sociologists are asking whether these citizens of a future China can really, as Mao Zedong once said, serve the people, if at 18 they can hardly serve themselves. Likewise, many parents and sociologists are increasingly worried about what they say appears to be signs - in much younger children - of insensitivity to others that may well be manifested in delinquency or violence later on. In May, local media reported a rise in the incidence of cruelty to animals in Beijing's zoo and several of its new marine worlds. One article related how a six-year-old girl grabbed a peacock and squeezed it until her mother agreed to buy her a Barbie doll. Similar reports of incidents of pinching and squeezing of animals led local media to theorize that Beijing's children were not really sadistic toward animals but were just in need of more warm human or animal contact. However, experts say such behavior may illustrate some of the effects of China's rapid socio-economic changes on family relations - including the ready willingness of many often absentee parents to give in to their children's demands. In many cases, China's so-called ''little emperors'' - a product of the ''one child per family'' pattern that has become prevalent in Chinese cities since the late 1970s - rule supreme. One parental specialist says she was most interested by the behavior of the mother of the six-year-old who, held to ransom, agreed to her daughter's demands in order to save the bird. ''The question that concerns me most is how Chinese parents discipline their children,'' worried Wang Zhenyu, deputy director for the Marriage and Family Studies Center of the Sociology Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Experts also say cruelty to animals may well reflect how Chinese children are taught little about proper appreciation for animals and other living creatures and nature - an environment they are often not exposed to enough. Wang stated: ''We need to teach our kids to cherish every tree and every blade of grass, take good care of public property, and be friendly toward animals. If they look after nature they have a far better chance of becoming what is traditionally and in the worldwide sense regarded as a decent human being, a good person.'' Zoo and aquarium administrators have their own theory - that children's attitudes are shaped by the fact that when parents bring them to see the animals, they more often than not describe the creatures in terms of their nutritional value, rather than their environmental value or beauty. So back in the Blue Zoo, a mother is more likely to tell her son that eating more fish makes him smart, while eating turtles makes him live longer. Talk of endangered species and polluted marine environments comes low on the list of talking topics. ''Foolish education about which animals are good to eat and which aren't will stay in a child's subconsciousness,'' warned Li Tong, a child psychologist from Shenzhen, southern China. ''Before long, the children think of animals as a food source and little else.'' To show the difference between the attitudes of Chinese and foreign children, Wang recalls a much-debated story from an international summer camp attended by Chinese and Japanese children a few years ago. The Japanese youngsters were far more independent and quickly set up their tents, while the Chinese children watched on with their parents. Out on the trail, Chinese children liked to break ostrich eggs, while those from Japan made new nests in an attempt to keep the eggs intact. Wang thinks that ''Chinese children are in danger of becoming destructive'' in later years, and such attitudes may signal much worse things to come like urban youth violence and hooliganism. Cheng Hui, director of the Happy Spring Children Study Center in Beijing, says juvenile cruelty toward animals is often induced by the conditions of children in small or one-child families. ''These kids are born and raised up in a reinforced concrete box-like environment. They are so lonely that they need something real to hold, and even squeeze in order to feel safe and not left out,'' Cheng explained. Far removed from nature in concrete jungles, these children have little love or appreciation for nature when they eventually come into contact with it. Cheng says he feels sorry for such children, since most of the time they are left at home alone, have nowhere to play after school, no pets to keep them company, and no sisters and brothers. Indeed, today's urban parents are facing problems which previous generations, even Mao himself, could never have imagined. They are in the throes of buying their own homes, perhaps looking for jobs after being laid off, and living in the most overcrowded and polluted of urban environments. Faced with these worries, child-rearing takes a back seat. Children are brought up by nannies from the countryside, the old folks, or television and video games. It is no surprise, therefore, that children are resorting to extreme means to attract attention, says Wang Yun, director of Youth and Children Department of Beijing Women's Federation. She says average parents in Beijing nowadays spend 2-3 hours per day communicating with their children, as opposed to 4-5 hours in the 1980s. Wang adds that children should be encouraged to do more household chores, which he says is a prerequisite for their successful graduation from childhood to adulthood. This way, they learn to work instead of having things done for them. ''Unfortunately, most of the parents haven't realized this,'' she acknowledges. ''They often think what's exactly wrong is actually right: that doing everything for their kids shows them the most love and care.'' Above all, she says, time is the most precious gift and parental investment in a child. Giving food, trips to the zoo and video games are no substitute for this. But as Chinese society changes so fundamentally and shifts dramatically in terms of lifestyles and employment, social institutions like the family will face even more pressures. (Inter Press Service)

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