Children Never Get to See Their Parents, and They Are Not Playing Hide-and-Seek: China’s Economy Causing Parents to Leave Their Kids and Head for the City

Making a sufficient amount of money is a concern for anyone today, but it does not outweigh leaving your kids alone and expecting them to survive on their own. Many children in China are being left in the rural areas while one or both of their parents go to China to find better jobs. While the parents may be making more money, their kids are developing physiological and behavior problems and are coping with many other hardships. In fact, about two million of these left behind children are living alone and are responsible for taking care of themselves (Sudworth). While the left behind children may seem like a controversial issue, in my opinion, no child should be growing up without their parents.

Many left behind children suffer from behavioral and mental issues once their parents leave them. For example, in one occasion, a grandmother was yelling at her sixteen year old granddaughter telling her that she was useless and stupid (A Generation Left Behind). The granddaughter must not feel very confident in herself to begin with, but especially not when her grandmother is telling her that she has no hope. In addition seventy percent of left behind children have some sort of “emotional trauma”, a third of the children will commit a crime, while another third will have to go into mental health institutions (A Generation Left Behind). In addition, the left behind kids must not feel very good about themselves when they see other kids living happily with their parents and they are struggling to provide for themselves. Lastly, another twenty-five percent of left behind children think that they have no hope for their future (Ross 16). While parents are trying to make more money for their family, they are really sending their kids down the wrong path.

On another note, most parents think that they are doing what is best for their children by going to the city to try and create a better future. While parents might think that this is true, they are not really creating a better future for their kids. The kids do not have as good of an education without their parents. For instance this one grandparent who is taking care of her grandkids basically says that she can not really help them because she has no education. The grandmother cannot help her grandkids with homework or school and only feels that she can encourage them to behave and pay attention. In addition, the kids would feel guilty if their parents stayed back just to take care of them (A Generation Left Behind). Lastly, while their parents think that they are helping, in reality some of the left behind children are already planning to set out for the city when they can in hopes to find a job and they will leave their children behind as well. This will put China in a bad state because the amount of homeless people will increase and more and more places around the country will turn into slums.

China’s economy causing the generation of left behind children relates to class in many ways. For example, we have discussed urbanization in many units, most recently in our Southeast Asia Unit. In China and parts of Southeast Asia, commercial farming is causing a lot of the independent farmers to lose their jobs because they can no longer afford to farm. The unemployed farmers then migrate to the city in hopes of finding a job. This has affected China because it is causing the urban population to increase substantially. In addition China’s urbanization and industrial revolution are at an extreme level: “Britain had a population of around 10 million when its industrial revolution began - China’s today, is more than a hundred times that size” (Sudworth). We have also discussed the industrial revolution in class. We learned that the industrial revolution is causing many of the independent farmers to lose their jobs. The industrial revolution is bringing higher tech farming equipment to the farming industry, but the smaller, more independent farmers cannot afford to buy this equipment. This results in the commercial farm groups producing better crops and taking over the farming industry. Lastly, although none of the articles reference communism directly, communism is still playing a role in the left behind children. Communism has played a role in the urbanization of China because the government monopolizes the economy. Because of this, more and more people are seeking jobs which can only be found in the urban areas. One can see, the left behind children relate to class in many ways.

All in all, I believe that while parents need to find a sustainable job, they should not leave their children in order to do so. Not only will this affect the original generation of left behind children, but it will affect China in the long run. The country will not be as well run in the future because of the emotional and behavioral problems of the left behind children, but many of the children are also not getting a good education. This issue needs to become more wider known throughout China and the rest of the world so that hopefully, important figureheads can step up and start to put an end to this problem.

Works Cited

“A Generation Left Behind: Millions of Chinese Children Abandoned as Parents Seek Work.” ABC Premium News, 6 Sept. 2016. Newspaper Source Plus. Accessed 26 May 2017.

Ross, Brooke. “China’s Left-Behind Children.” New York Times Upfront, 19 Sept. 2016, pp. 14-17.

Sudworth, John. “Counting the Cost of China’s Left-Behind Children.” BBC News, BBC, 12 Apr. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35994481. Accessed 19 May 2017.