Why I don't like One-Child Policy

Recently, Chen Guangchen, the blind lawyer who was saved by the US ambassador Jiahui Luo has come to the media exposure and show how a modern government ignore human rights in the basic human nature: birth.He was jailed and tortured by Chinese government for his brave behavior in helping rural residents who failed to protect their rights, of which the the right of having a second child in one  family is the primary one.

Of all the facts that affect us, the most urgent one is the 4-2-1 effects. The 4-2-1 effect refers to situation that when children who were the only child in one family grows up and have their own child, they have four parents to take care and one child to raise up. That is, one couple has to take care of at least five people in one time. As Chinese people value family bond and there was no mature healthcare system for senior people, the responsibility of taking care of seniors falls on to the young couple, which cause enormous to middle-aged person.

Take myself for example, I am the only one child at home and I have the responsibility to take care of my parents when they are old. That means I cannot choose whatever career I want, like staying in another country doing reporting. When  I get married, if my husband is the only child for his parents (which is mostly likely because if you marry another single child, you can have two children instead of one, this is the new policy), so we have to take care of four parents and two children. I cannot imagine how I can solve this economic puzzle by my poor payment.

Natural disasters aggravate this problem when parents lost their only child in the middle age or even senior years. For instance, in the Wenchuan earthquake that happened in May12, 2008, more than 680,000 people were killed, among whom 5335 were students in primary school and high school. The number 5335 were based on families who report the loss of children for applying for relief and help, so it was far smaller than the real number since many families were killed as a whole and many families did not apply. Couples who lost their children and want to have another one have to deal with problems like the increasing risk for pregnant women over 35, and many husbands or wives have done the sterilization surgery so that it is difficult for them to be pregnant again. As a result, the Chinese government introduced the special policy there---allowing couples who lost their children to bear another child, and provide healthcare to those pregnant women in related to the psychological and physical problems due to depression and age risk. 

This also leads to a problem of a lack of bide in China, when bachelor are hard to find their wives. The ratio of boys to girls in mainland China reached 117:100 in the year 2000. And because the Chinese tradition requires men to pay a certain amount of money to their wife’s family when they are getting married, men in poorer communities are hard to find wives. As a result, women trafficking became their solution. The movie <Blind Mountain> tells a story of a female graduate who was abducted to a village and was forced to have babies with a guy. After more than ten years of struggling she finally got connected with her family and was let to go. It was reported by the Xinhua net that in the year 2011, the Ministry of Public security has arrested 3195 groups of women abducting and trafficking, saving 1,5458 women and 8660 children. We have no idea how those women who were failed to be rescued or even unknown by the public and were still living with the trafficking family.

This concern affects me even I am not suffered from any natural disaster. Before I left for another country, like most of other parents, they forbid me to take single trip, even a two-hour single trip, jut because they are afraid of losing me. Now I am in a different country. And before I came to US, I told myself that my primary goal to be here is survival, to be more specific, to be alive. This is ridiculous but I do keep it in my mind. Because I am the only child in my family, they invest all the savings on me so that I can glorify the whole family, if by any chance I let them lose everything, I don't know how will they survive. My grandmother also told me this when I was packing the luggage, I am sure this is the fact.