Being intentional about childbirth stops self-immolation – Just ask the Chinese.
Until fairly recently, China had the world’s strictest population control policy which restricted couples from having more than one child on the pain of, well pain. Errant couples could find themselves on the end of everything from huge fines to forced sterilisations and abortions. In some cases, any children born after the one allowed by regulation were effectively left unrecognised by the Chinese state, forcing their parents to pay out of pocket for everything concerning them including education and health.
The policy is often presented as either a chilling story of communist-style state oppression or a dramatically successful socioeconomic policy that prevented unplanned population expansion by an estimated 200 million people. Both perspectives are true, but they do not tell the full story of the policy. Other than just freeing up Chinese state resources to develop the country as against subsidising a poor and low-skilled population (sound familiar?) the policy had another equally important effect on the fabric and structure of modern Chinese society.
Prior to the policy, many Chinese couples, particularly in the country’s rural areas had reproductive habits that were strikingly similar to their modern Nigerian counterparts. It was common for couples to have more children than they could take care of for cockamamie reasons like “We wanted a boy” (stop me if you’ve heard that before).
This had the twin effect of causing an unplanned and dangerous population boom and creating a low quality, under-skilled population with no reason for existing other than faulty procreative habits. With no defined direction or purpose for existing, such a population could potentially become restive, and eventually pose a national security risk.
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If that all sounds very familiar, then you’re getting the point.
When the Chinese central government imposed the one-child restriction, all of this changed. Overnight, couples had to start putting a lot more care and thought into having a child because they would only get one shot at it. Instead of birthing multiple children as some sort of old-age insurance policy-cum-roulette game, they now had to make sure that the one they had got the best chance to succeed in life.
A good start is to make sure that you only have the number of children that permits you to give them your very best.
Over the past 40 years, Chinese parents have become some of the world’s most prolific spenders on all things child-related. Music and drama lessons, elocution classes, private tutors, expensive educational trips, Ivy League degrees, you name it – Chinese parents spend heavily on things that could give their kids a heightened sense of agency and a bigger voice in the world.
The results of this approach
The net result of this profound social change was that in a single generation, China moved from having a sub-par, 3rd-world workforce to having probably the deepest talent pool in the world for everything related to engineering, design and management. The trade-off was that these one-child family kids, born into a world where their parents often went to extremes to develop their individual agency and potential, are said to have something called Little Emperor Syndrome. Apparently, that is the price of transitioning from an industrial childbirth society model to a more intentional and sustainable model.
Little Emperors or not, the Chinese government’s policy has been so successful that it now sees its population primarily as an economic asset, hence the removal of the one-child restriction. Rather than just more mouths to feed, Chinese babies are now among the world’s most resourced kids with access to limitless opportunities as this previously 3rd world country now leads the world into the 4th industrial revolution.
He might be a ‘Little Emperor,’ but he will be far better off than ‘Stanley’ in both today and tomorrow’s world.
The takeaway is clear – while you do not have to spend eleventy jillion naira to send your kids to grange, you do need to make sure that they become fully-developed, self-confident and productive humans. A good start is to make sure that you only have the number of children that permits you to give them your very best. Birthing one ‘Little Emperor’ may be better than having four ‘Stanleys’. In the world of tomorrow, ‘Little Emperors’ will hold all the aces. That world has no need for fearful, hierarchy-dependent, unthinking workers built for an obsolete 20th-century industrial society.
It’s time for us to stop “rearing” Stanley’s and start raising Little Emperors.
Our entire future may depend on it.
