Comment

High time for Chinese parents to take a break

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-02 10:29

There is one thing about my mother that drives me crazy. She calls me 10:30 pm every night to make sure I've arrived home safely. If I accidentally miss her call, she will keep calling all my friends and roommates until she "tracks me down".

As a 20-something lady in Beijing, I feel the 10:30 pm curfew embarrassing - especially when I have to ask my friends to be quiet so that I can pick up my mother's phone call, telling her a white lie that I'm already at home.

However, compared with other parents I ran into recently at a matchmaking meeting, my mother is not that overprotective.

The matchmaking event is held twice a week in a park and specifically designed for single white-collar workers in Beijing. The interesting part is that all of the attendees are single people's parents, desperate to look for a life partner for their children.

One mother told me that her 33-year-old son is busy working on his career and has zero time to find a suitable girl for himself. So she goes to the matchmaking every week, trying to find her son a perfect bride.

She guaranteed that her future daughter-in-law doesn't need to worry about anything. "I've prepared an apartment and a car for them. I'm now choosing the kindergartens. If the kindergarten's location is far from the apartment I've bought, I will buy them another one," she said proudly.

Looking at hundreds of middle-aged parents standing in the cold outdoors of a freezing winter trying to build their children a perfect future, I suddenly understand my mother more.

In Western countries, once people reach 18 years old, most of them need to earn money by themselves or at least borrow money from their parents to go to college. In China though, if children have the desire to learn, their parents will do whatever they can to help, even financially support a PhD degree or in some cases sell their blood to pay tuition fees.

I believe Chinese parents are the most dedicated and devoted parents in the world.

From the moment their children are born, Chinese parents never stop thinking about them for a second - they are used to taking care of their children even when they are old enough to take care of themselves.

It's now time for Chinese parents to take a break and realize that their children are grown-ups.