This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
(Reprinter’s note: Having taught Chinese for so many years and taught hundreds of children, I can tell what the parents are like from what the child is like. I have long wanted to write about this. Today I came across this article, which says what I wanted to say, so I share it with everyone.)
Parents have a responsibility to educate their children
1
Yesterday after dinner I went for a walk in the park next to our residential compound and saw the following scene.
There are two small swings in the park that the local children love to play on. Because many children play there, they sometimes have to take turns and queue.
As I walked past, it happened to be the turn of a little boy of two or three. But before he could even sit down, a boy three or four years older than him rushed up from behind, plonked himself on the swing and started playing all by himself.
The little boy looked at his mother standing beside him. This mother was quite well-mannered and said to her child: “The big brother may be going home soon. Let’s give way and let him play for a while first.”
So the little boy waited a bit longer.
When it was the little boy’s turn the second time, the big boy, perhaps feeling he hadn’t played enough, tried to push the little one off again.
This time the little boy’s mother couldn’t hold back and sternly scolded the boy. Her words were still measured, but her voice was not very gentle.
The bigger boy’s mother was nearby, and seeing someone telling off her child, she hurried over: “What’s the big deal? Raising your voice at a child.”
The little boy’s mother was rather indignant: “Can’t you see my child is so much smaller than yours? Never mind that he doesn’t follow the rules, he even tries to force us off. If my child gets hurt, will you take responsibility?”
The people around also pointed at the domineering boy. Seeing she couldn’t get the upper hand, the boy’s mother pulled her child away, muttering as she went: “Let’s go home and play with something more fun. Ignore them. What’s so great about it, it’s just a lousy swing.”
Hearing her say this, I actually found it amusing. They say children are photocopies of their parents, and it’s quite true: mother and son had exactly the same expression and manner when snapping at people.
2
Such scenes are actually not unfamiliar to us.
One child is playing with a toy in a public rest area; another child walks over and snatches it without a word, and the child’s mother smiles and says: “You’ve already played with it, you should let our child have a go.”
The plane is about to take off and a child is still lying in the aisle of the cabin. When the flight attendant comes to persuade them, the parents actually say: “The child is still small, there’s nothing we can do, just let him be.”
A child pushes over a work in a museum that an artist painstakingly created, while the dad and mum are on the side laughing and taking photos.
……
Some parents always have the illusion that everyone under heaven is their child’s parent, that everyone should give way to their child and let him do whatever he wants. Otherwise one is “ungracious,” “petty,” or “not behaving like an adult.”
At the same time, they seem to think their child will never grow up. It has never occurred to them that if a child cannot acquire a good upbringing in his own small family, in just a few years the great family of society will slap him hard in the face.
One doesn’t even have to wait for the child to grow up; the bitter fruit of family education will take revenge on the child himself.
Do you still remember that news story?
A family in Wuxi, Jiangsu, was eating grilled fish. The child was running and playing in the restaurant, and at a corner collided with a waiter carrying a pot of grilled fish, leaving the child scalded in several places. Afterwards, the family claimed more than 300,000 yuan in medical expenses from the restaurant.
I think, even if you actually got that 300,000 or more, as parents who could not properly control your own child and caused your child to suffer such physical harm, doesn’t your conscience hurt?
As it happens, a couple of days ago my friend and I went to eat at a barbecue restaurant and also came across such a brat.
Two children were chasing and fighting in the restaurant, unbearably noisy. Some diners and staff could not stand it and urged the parents to control their children. The restaurant manager also warned the children’s parents: “The floor of a barbecue restaurant is rather slippery; children can easily fall.”
But the children’s parents just smiled and said: “It’s fine, they’re like this at home too. Kids are just lively.”
Treating the restaurant as their own home, these parents really are carefree. Must a pan of hot coals land on the child’s head before the parents regret it and wake up?
3
Parents’ responsibility is not only to make sure their children are well fed and clothed. We must also guard our children against potential dangers and teach them the rules of conduct of this society, so that they gain not only food and safety but also learning and upbringing. Only then will the children have a place to stand in future society.
The bank where I used to work once took on an intern, a fourth-year student at a top-tier university, said to have good grades at school too.
But after just one week, the boss couldn’t stand him.
When taken to meet clients, he sat down before the client had even sat down;
when a client poured him water, he drank it straight down without even a thank you;
as soon as it was lunchtime, whether or not the work in hand was finished, he was the first to rush to the canteen;
……
To be honest, the young man was actually quite capable; he picked up the business faster than anyone, and he had plenty of cleverness. But whenever something went wrong, he shifted all the blame and showed no sense of responsibility at all.
So of all the interns in that intake, he was the only one who was not kept on in the end.
Without upbringing and without responsibility, however clever one is, society will weed one out.
The best education is to teach children to respect others and to respect rules.
Today we can excuse all of a child’s mistakes with the phrase “children don’t know any better,” but one day the hot soup of a hotpot restaurant, the tigers of a zoo, or the boss at work will teach your child how to be a person, and perhaps not even give him the chance to be a person…
So never again say that children don’t know any better. Because those children who don’t know any better will sooner or later grow up, and sooner or later have to face this world without their parents’ protection.
If you really want what is good for your child, please give him strict love.
4
Finally, let me share a story circulating online, which I believe can give everyone some inspiration:
I got on the bus at the starting station and sat in the back row. Right behind me came a mother and daughter. The mother was in her thirties and wore rimless glasses. Her daughter was five or six and was hugging a plush toy tightly. At that time there were still some empty seats in the bus, but the little girl looked at those empty seats and then firmly
pointed at me and said to her mother: “I want to sit there.”
I was taken aback. The woman smiled at me apologetically. She lowered her head and said to the little girl: “Let’s go and sit by the window over there.”
“No, I want to sit there!” The little girl pointed at me once again.
I didn’t know why the little girl was set on sitting in my seat. But I knew that now she had dug her heels in against her mother: however the woman coaxed her, she just stood there and would not go and sit with her. Since she wouldn’t sit, the woman wouldn’t either, and the two of them stood in the narrow aisle while many people eyed them strangely.
I thought that what the little girl wanted now was not a seat, but a kind of gratification: habitual gratification of her demands, reasonable or unreasonable. Perhaps most of the time she could get such gratification at home, from her mother. The problem was that now she was not at home.
“You should ask me for this seat, not your mother,” I finally couldn’t help reminding her.
The little girl seemed not to hear me. She looked at her mother, tugged at her mother’s hand and said: “I want to sit there, I want to sit there.”
“Then come and sit here,” I said. “You and your mother can squeeze in together, or your mother can hold you…” Although I did not want to indulge her, I really couldn’t bear to see the woman’s embarrassment.
“No!” she said. “I don’t want to sit with Mummy! I want to sit by myself!”
This was going too far. Or rather, for her mother, this was far beyond mere unreasonable pestering; it was a threat.
I told the little girl that she rode the bus for free; her mother had not paid a cent for her. Since it was free, the bus had not provided a seat for her. If I now gave her my seat, she should give the seat to her mother. Or, even if she had paid and had a seat, if an elderly person or a pregnant woman got on, she should give up her seat to them. Now the whole of society does this.
“I want to sit in that seat!” The little girl turned a deaf ear to my words and single-mindedly pestered her mother.
A word came to mind: upbringing.
That day, all the way to the terminus, I did not give up my seat to her. I sat there calmly the whole time and never said another word to the little girl. And she stood in front of me the whole time, tugging at her mother’s hand, and every so often she would say again, “I want to sit in that seat.”
But it was no use. Her demand was destined not to be satisfied today, on this bus, in front of me.
The people on the bus looked at me, at her and at her mother, with all kinds of emotions in their eyes. But whatever they felt, I think probably no one felt sorry for this little girl, and no one thought I should give her my seat.
That day I had to refuse her, not only with words but also with action. I wanted to tell this little girl: in this world, some things do not belong to her. Things that do not belong to her cannot be obtained by acting spoiled or by threatening the only person who would yield to her without position or bottom line, her mother.
The little girl will eventually grow up. I hope that when she grows up she will understand: the world is not her family’s living room, other people’s things are not the plush toy in her arms, and other people are certainly not her mother.
This is the simplest truth in the world.
