Maturity and parent-child relationship

[jasonzzzz]

Often time, I heard in US that a Chinese girl looks 10 years younger than its actual age. Maybe, it is not just younger appearance. It is quite possible that her social age, in term of independence and responsibilities in American view, is 10 years younger than her biological age.

 

In most Chinese families, unmarried children live with their parents, with exception that the children attend a college in a different city and find job there. A living-with-parent adult daughter does not have any pressure to move out. Quite often, no matter how old they are, those adult daughters may never have opportunities to training themselves to be independent. Parents not only provide board and lodging, but only are responsible for finding school, job, or even for finding a boyfriend/husband for their daughters. Nowadays many parents release the boyfriend/husband-search right to their daughters. But they still reserve their veto right, which their daughters often honor.

 

Many Chinese men prefer living-with-parent girls who seem naïve and childish to girls who look smart and independent and rent and live in their own apartments even their parents live in the same city. The reason is that a man would like to “customize” a simple and unsophisticated girl into a good wife that meets each individual need. Most Chinese men are proud of doing that. After all, I think that men, either Chinese or American, like young-looking, physically or emotionally, girls. It is worthy of doing some extra jobs before enjoying lifetime happiness.

 

Traditionally in China, when a daughter is married to a man, the soon-to-be father-in-law would say some thing like this, “Now, I hand over my daughter to you. Please take a good care of her”. Her father not only hand over a daughter, he also hand over a parental responsibility for her daughter.

 

Parents take parental responsibilities even their daughters get married. When there are arguments between new couples, the daughters would go back to her parent house, staying there until their husbands come to make apologies. When a baby is born, the grandparents take care of the baby. On other hand, a husband is supported to give gifts to his parents-in-law in some Holidays, and is not requited to give any to his girlfriend/wife traditionally. According to national family law, children have legal responsibility to put up their parents when parents have no ability to earn money. Parents are always important part of the family.

 

In a word, the Chinese society does not require children to be independent. So many adult children in China, married or unmarried, dependent on their parents to live happy lives.

 

This culture difference may pose some difficulties for young “immature” Chinese girls to live with their American boyfriends/husbands in the first few days and weeks. Being an adult by her biological age, she may have never attended a college to learn to live a self-independent life, and she may have never needed to live as adult in a house before. However, an American man regards her as an adult in American standard. He may treat her like an independent and responsible lover and friend. But he may not take some parental role to her fiancée/wife who just came from a family environment where she depends on her parents to live a normal life. When she does something wrong, if she is regarded as an adult, it hurts; if she is regarded as child, it is an opportunity to train her.

 

This is my partial observation of one aspect of this topic.

[owenkrout]

Jason,

 

An extemely well made point. This is one that I had been intending to write on and just had not gotten around to doing. I am glad I delayed since you did such a good job!

 

I can verify what you are saying. I have three daughters and two of them are about the same age, but from different cultures. I have a 19 year old American daughter and my wife's 21 year old Chinese daughter. The 19 year old daughter is in many ways much more mature and definately more independent than the 21 year old. In fact I think that the main reason that the 21 year old has moved out and is running a small kindergarten is because she felt pressure to be on her own because her younger sister was.

 

The 19 year old American communicates with me as little as possible. Something that is not uncommon for American society. She wants to prove her independence. The 21 year old rarely goes a day without calling home at least once to talk to mama and baba. She definately lacks the "hardness" to her nature that most Americans of that age exhibit. She still has no qualms at all about asking for any help that she needs from her parents. In fact, the rest of the family was very critical of us because we let her move out of the home when she was "only" 21.

 

It is not uncommon for students to live at a boarding school even as early as middle school, but even there they are totally dependent on the school. They don't make decisions of their own about things. College students are little different. The impression that foreign teachers often have is that the college students are very immature. In fact the system still tends to treat them more like Americans would treat high school students. Parents often forbid romantic relationships and the students often abide by that.

 

Things are slowly changing, but on the whole they simply are not expected to behave in an "adult" manner until much later in their lives. In fact, most Chinese don't really consider someone to be truely adult until they are somewhere in their late 20's.

 

Our home is run more traditionally Chinese because we are living in China. Our Chinese daughter knows that she can come home and live with us at any time and stay as long as she wishes without needing any reason. She occassionally tests that by stating that she doesn't want to be a burden to me, since she is not my daughter. I understand the culture enough to know that I am supposed to reassure her at that point that she is truely my daughter and that she can live with us anytime she wants to. That always leads to a big smile and the reassurance that I will not need to worry about my old age, because I can live with her and her future husband and they will take care of me. It is basically a role playing game that is performed and as long as everyone plays their role properly it helps to reassure everyone that the rules of life, as she sees them, still apply.

 

She, by the way, still considers it my job to decide if she goes to college in the US or not, where she goes and what she studies. I still have the power of veto over her life. If I say that she should close the school and come home to live, she would do so. She had the original idea of the school, but would not do anything until I agreed with letting her try. The idea that she would decide these things seems totally unbelievable to her.

[Eric&Yuhui]

Although I travel internationally a lot by profession as you know, and that I am myself sort of bi-cultural kinda guy on whom certain people here that will remain nameless like to pick on , I think I'll just sit on the side lines on this "culture" posts and just read and enjoy your different experiences, specifically on China. It is interesting and true as far as I could so far tell with my short 3 years experience of this country.

Keep'em coming guys....

 

But Owen, keep those under 100,000 words OK?

 

Just kidding !

[owenkrout]

Geez Eric, you are as bad as my high school English Comp teacher. She used to keep telling me, "I only asked for 1000 words, Mr. Krout, not 10,000."

 

The funny part is that until I was much older, I rarely spoke. My father used to actually tell people, "My oldest son didn't speak until he was three and I still can't get him to say anything. My daughter started speaking when she was just over a year old and hasn't stopped since!" Now I can live up to the advice of the Professor Emeritus of the department who was my mentor during my Masters program. He insisted that one of the primary qualifications of a college professor was that they had to be able to talk about anything for two hours whether they knew anything about it or not.

 

 

And Eric, who would possibly want to pick on a nice guy like you?

[Lurker]

Was It Proust who wrote: "I regret I didn't have time to write a shorter letter."? (If it wasn't him, it should have been.) In any case, I'm finding these cultural discussions fascinating.

[Eric&Yuhui]

Was It Proust who wrote: "I regret I didn't have time to write a shorter letter."? (If it wasn't him, it should have been.)  In any case, I'm finding these cultural discussions fascinating.

If it's him..... and I heard this before.. I do not think it is Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922) would have said:

" Je regrette de ne pas avoir eu le temps d'ecrire une lettre plus courte "

 

I think it's from Victor Hugo actually, but I am not sure at all...

[tonado]

Even in America, most first generation Chinese are raised to respect their parents. No matter how old they are or how much money they made, they made decisions with their parents' blessing.

[owenkrout]

Was It Proust who wrote: "I regret I didn't have time to write a shorter letter."? (If it wasn't him, it should have been.)  In any case, I'm finding these cultural discussions fascinating.

If it's him..... and I heard this before.. I do not think it is Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922) would have said:

" Je regrette de ne pas avoir eu le temps d'ecrire une lettre plus courte "

 

I think it's from Victor Hugo actually, but I am not sure at all...

From Bartlett's Famous Quotations:

 

NUMBER: 43638

QUOTATION: I have only made this [letter] longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

ATTRIBUTION: Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), French scientist, philosopher. Lettres Provinciales, letter 16 (1657).

[Eric&Yuhui]

Was It Proust who wrote: "I regret I didn't have time to write a shorter letter."? (If it wasn't him, it should have been.)  In any case, I'm finding these cultural discussions fascinating.

If it's him..... and I heard this before.. I do not think it is Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922) would have said:

" Je regrette de ne pas avoir eu le temps d'ecrire une lettre plus courte "

 

I think it's from Victor Hugo actually, but I am not sure at all...

From Bartlett's Famous Quotations:

 

NUMBER: 43638

QUOTATION: I have only made this [letter] longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

ATTRIBUTION: Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), French scientist, philosopher. Lettres Provinciales, letter 16 (1657).

Owen, are you trying to suck up to the Frogs now, like the State Department and the Security Council ???

 

I still remember those naaaaaaasty French wars posts of yours pal...

 

Well, it works !

[Lurker]

QUOTATION: I have only made this [letter] longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

ATTRIBUTION: Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), French scientist, philosopher. Lettres Provinciales, letter 16 (1657).

Mercy for the correction. I do notice that the word count for my version was lower than Eric's French version or Pascal in translation.

 

And I hope this topic isn't completely derailed. jason--your posts here and elsewhere are very interesting.

[Eric&Yuhui]

QUOTATION: I have only made this [letter] longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

ATTRIBUTION: Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), French scientist, philosopher. Lettres Provinciales, letter 16 (1657).

Mercy for the correction. I do notice that the word count for my version was lower than Eric's French version or Pascal in translation.

 

And I hope this topic isn't completely derailed. jason--your posts here and elsewhere are very interesting.

just stop picking on DEAD Frenchmen OK you !@#$!@#$ Yankee you !

Back to the post now... Sorry for the disgression kids..

[Mick]

Ahem, aside from the brief derailment, I found the posts in this thread most interesting.

 

I live in Guangdong Province and this area of China is changing so rapidly that sometimes it makes your head swim. Most of my students are between the ages of 19-23, along with a few graduate students who are older. It is interesting to see the changes with each year's incoming Freshman Class. Without going into great detail (like Owen, I don't want to be accused of having a propensity for loquaciousness), I can safely say that traditional Chinese society, at least in this part of the world, is undergoing a transitional period and facing many challenges. Yes, by American standards, the students are less independent. But compared to Chinese students of five years ago, they are vastly more independent. They are increasingly beginning to think for themselves and although they still respect their parents, many of them are becoming more intent on following their own dreams, rather than the dreams of their parents.

 

This is just one area where change is rapidly occuring. I think these issues would make for interesting reading in the new Cultural forum. Hope to see more like it.

[Kaige]

Owen, I don't want to be ugly asking this? how old are you, I saw you posted old man twice in this post, are you ready for S.S.?

[Eric&Yuhui]

Owen, I don't want to be ugly asking this? how old are you, I saw you posted old man twice in this post, are you ready for S.S.?

Santa doesn't age... Neither do the Elves

[Mick]

Owen, I don't want to be ugly asking this? how old are you, I saw you posted old man twice in this post, are you ready for S.S.?

Owen is still a young sprout of a man.