The child that’s got its own

The Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission released a report last week about contemporary parents' attitude to children and family. The report reveals marked changes and differences between the older and younger generations of parents with regards to child rearing and family life.

The survey shows that the older generation of parents - many of who are now grandparents as well - prefer to take total responsibility for their family and believe that they should sacrifice themselves for their offspring.

However, parents born in the 1980s are shown to have markedly different attitudes in this respect.

They tend to view their children and family as an experience to enrich their personality and life journey, as opposed to a responsibility, or even burden, that they have no choice but to shoulder. In the survey many young parents said that they did not want to emulate their own parents' behavior, such as saving every penny for their children's future, and forcing them to study academic subjects they do not like.

As a citizen born in the 1980s, I feel a similar gap with my older relatives in our understanding of family and children, and I am heartened to read of these young people's changing attitudes. My grandparents and parents all believe that parents should treat children as the main priority in their lives. And this involvement doesn't stop when they become adults. Many parents believe it is also their responsibility to play an active role in the children's marriage.

It's true that our parents selflessly help us with study, travel opportunities and buying an apartment, but often this intensity of involvement creates unbearable pressure on children in trying to live up to their family's unreasonable expectations of them.

And it is a reaction against this stifling control that is making young parents turn away from such child rearing methods. Quite simply we don't want our children to suffer the way we did. That is not to say that parents shouldn't have a great deal of responsibility towards their offspring. All too often we read stories of neglected children being involved in accidents because of a lack of proper supervision and care. This is obviously unacceptable.

The tensions these opposing views can create becomes evident when we realize that many young couples today live with one or other of their sets of parents, who are naturally - some might say unavoidably - involved in the bringing up of their own grandchild.

These two generations of parents need to find common ground when it comes to child rearing, and to be prepared to compromise some of their dearly-held beliefs for the sake of the long-term welfare of the child. The worst environment a child can grow up in is amid that of a warring family that gives him or her conflicting messages. And let's not forget the important sacrifices that our parents and grandparents so selflessly made for us. In 20 years' time, how do we know how our children will react if they do not have the opportunity to inherit their own apartment in the way our generation has been able to?