To think this is cruel and genuinely unfathomable?

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An acquaintance of mine has a three year old child. My acquaintance is Chinese but has lived in Britain for a long time.

Today, she shared a story that her DD had had her last playtime with her little friends for a while. When people have asked why, she’s said that her DD is going to China for a year to learn the language. I assumed acquaintance was also going, but no. It is then filled with people commenting that she’ll miss DD but it’s a wonderful, selfless gift acquaintance is giving her daughter. Acquaintance agrees she’ll miss DD.

Her most recent post is them at the airport. AIBU to thinking this is barking mad? It had made me feel so sad for the little girl. Surely she’ll be confused and distressed? AIBU?

And in this case? Where it looks like the child lives with her parents and is possibly being sent to a grandmother in another country, who speaks a different language, in a different culture?

Come on now. Three year olds cannot have the same close relationship with granny from face times. Otherwise it wouldn't be necessary to send her to China would it?

But what actually happens is that you know and expect this to happen from day 1, it is not a surpise, it is part of your culture, your heritage. You are excited to go and spend time with people who adore you and have time for you as mummy and daddy are usually at work after school. You get to meet cousins, aunties, uncles who all look like you, everyone eats the tasty food your mum always cooks but is not available anywhere else, you get to spend a year with people you love, you are so young that it doesn't really register that you are away for a year as you have limited concept of time. Mum comes over for the holidays and special celebrations.

Chinese (there are LOTS of Chinese languages actually) is one of the world's most spoken/read languages. Any person able to communicate well in it has a major advantage over non-Chinese communicating people.

In Chinese culture, education is all important. It is so very valued. The mums main consideration is equipping her child with the best education possible. And there is no way she could pick up the high level of Chinese she will want her to have by only being exposed to spoken Chinese in the home.

The girl will have gone to family. I'm sure she will miss her mum but children are the very centre of life in China. It won't be a hardship trip.

We can't look at this event through a western lens. Totally different cultural values.

My granny didn't grow up with one of her sisters, her sister was given to her mother's sister as she couldn't have children. They had holidays together. Her sister remained close to both of her mothers. No one was traumatised, the only person who seemed to have any issues with it was my great grandmother who apparently did get upset at times about how close her daughter was to her sister. Gran's sister was a very successful woman and had a career when at the time not many working class women managed that.

Maybe your cases are the norm maybe my granny's family was more the norm or less. Who knows, I think it would need a bigger sample to judge.

We don't know the background. I used to have a neighbour whose mother came over from China and stayed for months after the baby was born and visited regularly. We don't know this grandmother is a stranger.

I know of a few people who's done this. Our Chinese neighbours did this when their 2nd was born and they send their 3yr old DD to their parents to be looked after for a year or so. I do remember the mum saying that when she came back there were attachment issue and how hard the whole experience was.
Also in my own family (south asian) a relative did similar and it also caused attachment issues for the older child.
Just because it's "cultural" doesn't mean it's right.

The grandparents of this child will have memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution where literally millions of people starved to death. They will have raised their child (only one) to see economic advancement through education as the most important thing. Before the revolution, most Chinese people were subsistence level poor. Their children/grandchildren are brought up with this mindset.

They see Westerners as massively lacking in ambition and focus. The way you see this event is not the way they see it. You can't use your own mindset to judge because your values are so different there is no point of connection.

Grandparents are hugely important in Chinese culture. A huge proportion of them provide all the childcare for working parents, from babies up to teenagers. Before school, school run, after school, holidays, overnight for business trips.

We see the nuclear family as the core. In China the family is the extended family. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins. Mum and dad not being at home isn't such a big deal.

Years ago, my sister made a similar remark when her colleague from the Philippines sent her child back home.

Fast forward to today, my sister is now close friends with her colleague. She recently attended a sixtieth birthday party for her colleague in her son's home.

My sister has little or no contact with either of her two sons. Both are selfish creatures and did not even text her on her sixtieth birthday.

We can judge other cultures and we must, otherwise where do you draw the line…fgm? No access to education?

I lived in China for 12 years and this is not an unusual situation ime. Grandparents play a vital role in the upbringing of children and many look after children full time when the mother goes back to work. Additionally people in China who are migrant workers often see their children in frequently, perhaps only returning home at spring festival or other holidays. The child would be cared for my the grandparents.
sending my child to live with relatives s not something I would do, but it’s not cruel imo.

The racism, arrogance, cultural ignorance and entitlement dressed as faux concern is writ large
Incredible

Well this is the UK where people cut off MILs for holding their babies for too long and start shaking and sobbing when ILs don’t give 2 months notice they’re popping around. So I’m unsurprised some people on here would think spending extended time with loving grandparents is damaging.

Okay, but the child will return here to Britain, and live in Britain. The parents aren’t being forced to work abroad and send money home to her, as was suggested in the post I was replying to.

I will try to explain more clearly. Parents who use childcare send their children for hours at a time (usually no more than ten), then they pick them up and spend time with them. They usually do this for a maximum of five days per week. So their children are separated from their parents for 10 hours a day, five days a week.

This is not comparable to children being separated from their parents for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for weeks or months on end.

Your last paragraph is an odd one:

A) at no point have I said the UK is anything like a shining beacon of child-rearing, so I'm not sure why you are telling me this; and

B) the child in question IS a UK child. If she lived in China, she wouldn't be sent back to China for a year to learn the language or culture, would she? So this is an issue specifically affecting children with immigrant parents, of which there are many in the UK.

I disagree, it’s natural to judge on different cultures!
I judge that it’s a harmful thing to do to a child and I feel deeply sad for the little girl.
I think it’s a rotten ‘cultural’ way to treat a child.

And the absolute blind refusal to acknowldge that other ways of raising kids, who all turn out to be fine, is insane

You could never quantify that, so it's a completely untrue and invalid statement.

Her mother seems to be flying over with her, then, I assume, coming back.

extended time with loving grandparents

Living thousands of miles away from your Mum for a year is not "extended time with grandparents".

Also "loving" is a very big blanket assumption.

(And how many children experience sexual abuse - 1 in 4 or 5?).

This is a cultural norm.

This child will grow up knowing their language and culture and family and all the things that comes with living in and being immersed in one's own culture. They will have shared experience of being Chinese rather than just British Chinese. This is a positive thing.

Maybe they have plans to move back to china later, maybe they don't have btisih citizenship.
I do understand your points when looking through your lens, but I disagree with you that it is cruel and unfathomable when looking through the lens of a culture where this is the norm

"British cultural superiority complex"- what utter nonsense! Generations of British children were sent to boarding school at seven years old- some still are. It's an abhorrent practise. Meanwhile, China has never had the same culture of sending your children to boarding school, so the only Chinese people who are sending their children away are the ones who no longer live in China! And it's certainly not all of them- I know several parents who grew up in China and now live in the UK, and none of them have done this.

There's a lot more to both British and Chinese culture than whether or not you send your young children away to live with relatives in another country. There is much to criticise British culture for, but keeping your children living in the same country as you is not one of them.

If only the little girl had parents who could speak a Chinese language and therefore teach it to her...

My mum used to visit my kids regularly but she has a very different relationship with my boys than she does with my sister's son who she childminds for. It's different.

My grandmother was Greek, by dad was brought up speaking ONLY Greek until he went to school. If the mother is Chinese (yes I'm aware there's many different dialects etc. Chinese for ease) then I'm not sure I understand why it's necessary for the child to go to China for a year without her to learn it? Lots of people are bilingual without doing that? ESPECIALLY at three!

But you're right, I'd no more send a three year old child to go and live with anyone else, family or not, than I would practice FGM on my daughters, so I guess even if it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, the answer is "culture" and I couldn't possible understand.