My sister had a baby boy yesterday morning. Gaige McClain Wingert. Only one month to go before I can go home and start the spoiling!
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Only Children in China
You've probably heard about China's "One Child Policy". It's China's way of trying to control its huge and growing population. The policy is enforced fairly well except in more remote rural areas where the government is less present. I teach in one middle school and one high school and I don't even have to ask, I know every student is an only child.
Imagine a society of only-children. The social consequences must be horrible. Children don't learn how to interact with other children. No sharing, no playing with brothers and sisters, and so much pressure from parents to excel in school, plus sole responsibility to care for the parents as they age. That is a lot of pressure!
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stories and thoughts from my life in India
5 comments:
For some reason maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the kids at BeiDa have brothers and sisters. I think it just kind of turned into a profitable tax on the super-rich by now.
One of my teacher friends in Tianjin was the second or third daughter of a school teacher. He lost his job because he had too many kids trying to pop out one with a weener.
On a more serious note, Cody's family heard something on NPR before visiting about some local authorities in some small city "raiding" a local hospital, grabbing up women in their third trimester pregnant women and performing forced abortions and sterilizations to meet a set quota.
As always, Chinese policies are capricious at best, horrific at worse.
btw, the rule with this gig is that I comment on yours, and you comment on mine.... riggghhhtttt??????
You talk about only children like it's a curse or something...I turned out okay, well maybe I didn't...look who I chose for a partner...hehe. That's why I've chosen a family with siblings, so I won't be lonely anymore :-(
Can't wait to see you! Gaige is very cute by the way, looks just like Garrett when he was born!!
Love,
Mandy
A lot of my students have brothers and sisters. I'm starting to believe that the one child policy is just another one of those rules that is written, but is rarely followed. I could be wrong though. There sure are a lot of babies though - that at least I do know!
Its so strange to hear the two of you say lots of your students have brothers and sisters. I've asked lots of my classes and they all claim to be only children. Maybe you two are teaching students from a different social/income class because I know if you have more the one child the fines are heavy. Out of the 13 middle school and high school classes I teach (that's about 600 students), I've only met 3 students who have a sibling.
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