Time to wake up

After living in China for two years, what have I learned about children?

• Children across the world are more similar than different. It is when we grow up that culture differences in our behavior and ways of thinking start to show themselves more strongly than when we are children.
• Most of my students have brothers and sisters. So what about China's one child policy? People can pay fines and have more children. Often farmers tend to have more children. If you want to become a leader, have a better job, work in the government, then you better stick to the one child policy otherwise more than one child will work against your application.
• Checking for the sex of babies before they are born is illegal.
• Often the government will pay a bonus if you have a girl.
  
• If a family has more than one child, the new baby is sometimes sent to live with a childless couple and often are not registered which makes it difficult for them to later attend school.
• Because of work, many people do not live with their children nor their spouses. Grandparents tend to raise children. It makes it easier for spouses to find jobs since it is not required that they live in the same city.