How Free From Others Should We Be?
(Written by a friend from Shanghai)
The question of just how much independence each of us should have has always interested me, as I was born in China where people stay dependent on each other all of their lives.
Every baby cries when it is born. To my mind, those are sounds of happiness that imply he is finally no longer dependent on his mother. After living in her womb for several months, he exercises his limbs, as he feels free at last.
When he begins to eat solid food, he uses his hands to feed himself and chooses the food he likes. In that way, his sense of taste is developed.
Soon he begins to walk and climb. Although he sometimes falls down, he doesn’t always want help. He likes the feeling that he can go anywhere he likes.
The first time he uses a pencil nobody knows what he is drawing, but he is happy to be using it and his mother and father are also pleased.
As he grows up, he wants to know everything. He reads books, learns to play games and is interested in exploring. He knows what he likes and sometimes doesn’t listen to his parents.
Day after day and year after year, he continues learning and develops his own world. There are times when he doesn’t want other people to enter his life – not even his parents. Sometimes he writes in a secret diary, and is very angry if someone reads it. He feels that is an infringement on his liberty.
Parents spend a lot of time with their children to help them develop, but children often think that parents restrict them too much – bind them hand and foot. As a result, children tend to argue with their parents.
While a child is maturing, it is important that there be an open dialogue between the child and his parents. That provides a time for a friendly discussion of the changes talking place. Parents want to give help and advice even though the child may already consider himself to be mature. In America, students entering college become much more independent, as many of them live away from home. When they finish their education and find employment, they frequently live on their own or with friends and are almost completely independent.
In China, it is quite different. The parents continue to be involved in matters such as the selection of major subjects in school, careers, marriage partners, the new family, grandchildren, and any other decisions that must be made. Sometimes their involvement in children’s lives leads to discord, and therefore I feel that evolvement into independence as practiced in America is much better for young people.
I’ve had to remind myself many times that my responsibility had to be limited to bearing my children, caring for them, giving them a good education, and teaching them how to be good people. I don't feel that I should remove the rights that they have as separate human beings by making all decisions for them.
Last week I watched a TV program about a family in which the mother was taking care of several disabled from several families. All of them had skin diseases and as a result, two of them had had to have their legs amputated. Her own son had already died of the disease. All of the children, however, looked very happy as they read and played games. They were able to move about the house without help, and it was hard to believe that they were disabled. The mother had encouraged them to do as much as they could for themselves, as she knew how important independence would be in their lives.
I admired her greatly.
When I was growing up, my mother was very strict. She banned various books, and never let me go to the theater without my brothers. As a result, I felt as if I didn’t belong to myself. One would think that I would have acted differently with my children, but I didn’t always do that. I, too, was sometimes strict, but I tried to soften my discipline by thinking of what I would want a parent to do it if I were the child. That has apparently worked as my children and I have a very friendly relationship.
