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?

Respectfully, you’re imposing western cultural norms on a family from a different culture.

In parts of Asia, it’s quite common for children to live with grandparents while their parents live and work in other countries and send money back. This has happened for generations.

I know a Vietnamese couple who did the same with their 3 year old - sent him back to live with her mother for 6 months so her could acquire language before starting school. He went to nursery out there, was with his cousins etc. But not with his parents. I can't imagine it neither. The kid adapted quickly, but why should he have to...
I always questioned, surely there is another way you can make sure your kid picks up your native language fluently. He would spend a long day in nursery speaking English as they ran a business working 6 days a week. But there must have been a way. Anything but that.

Beginning at age 5 I spent all summer and every summer with my grandparents high up in the mountains, away from the rest of my family. My siblings and parents worked and couldn’t look after me.
At first, I thought I was being punished. I was extremely homesick.
My grandparents were very loving and caring and I soon got preoccupied with the activities of the goings-on of the retired set who also lived in the mountains during the summer.
I had the pleasure and privilege of being raised by two generations of people who loved me.
When I told my sister recently that I felt that I was being punished - while she was home with our parents working in the fields, she looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. She simply couldn’t comprehend that being in the mountains fancy free would feel like punishment.
I hope this little girl will grow up and look back and see this as an enriching and joyful experience and an opportunity for broadening her horizons and only take positive things from it.
I wish her and her family well and safe journey.

This.

I'm not commenting on the specific case herein but the idea that we can't criticise anything from another culture is preposterous. I have criticised and will continue to criticise many things from other cultures, from FGM to foot binding to stoning adulterers.

"You're not in that group so you can't have an opinion on it" will never wash with me, personally.

I would never do it myself, but...

People in the west overstate the "damage". I lived in china for 10 years and worked with hundreds of university students who grew up in all sorts of mixes of family situations. It's very common here. All grandparents, one parent, family split between countries etc.

I don't think it is ideal, but neither do I think it always ruins a child's life or always does lasting damage. The students I worked with were great, generally happy and well rounded individuals.

I work pretty much globally spend a lot of time a lot of cultures such as middle east, india, phillipines etc. It is really not unusual for parents to work overseas and leave their children with grandparents or family for years at a time and/or send children to boarding schools overseas from age 7. Like it happens a lot, millions of people doing it.
Just because our culture expects mothers to be there 24/7 and work and look after the house and have limited help, other cultures do not.

In other cultures kids are more of a family affair, as in the whole family, and working age parents work, while non working age family members look after the kids. Often work is overseas. So the mother you are speaking about is just doing what millions of chinese, indian, philipino etc people are doing by working overseas while her children are looked after in her home country.

The parents have messed up though by not establishing bilingual communication in the home until now. No need to spend a year abroad to make your kid bilingual. Perfectly possible as long as you have two attentive parents, one speaking each language. Regular trips are fine, without needing a whole year.

I raised my child in an environment where all the families were bilingual, and it was very obvious that the families who struggled to establish both languages were the ones who had one parent who wouldn't put the work in to keeping a language going. (And it is a lot of work, especially if you are establishing a language that isn't the majority language of the place you live).

Why should the fact it’s not the OP’s culture stop her from judging?

A 3 year old child is being sent away to another country for a year, just to learn a language.

Plenty of parents from all different cultures would judge that.

From all the people I have met that did a similar thing as I said in my previous post I work globally and reguarly travel and spend my life speaking to people from cultures that do this, no they are not traumatised as it is as usual for them as being asked to attend school. And the family bond is different and children are expected to be more independant, often the parenting style is much more strict and authoritarian and tbh they get on with it.
They don't have the luxuries of coming from a country with a high currency value, welfare state, nhs etc. It is often imperative that the working age people in the families are enabled to bring as much money as they can into the family as a whole from whichever country will pay them the most. The grandparents will look after the kids.
Its a totally different mentality.

That was just one post. I think the majority of us have had an opinion regardless of culture. Okay, not regardless of, but without stating that it's not for anyone to discuss because that's not our culture.

Hopefully this little girl is very loved, will be cared for in China and come back having learned what her parents wished for her.
Maybe she won't want to come home.

No easier way to learn a language than being in a country where it's spoken.

Although I remember being offered Mandarin as a GCSE in the late 90s as it would be an "invaluable business language" in the next 5-10 years. It still isn't.

I get it as a cultural thing, but I know plenty of bi-lingual people who grew up learning and speaking two languages in the just fine. Their mother tongue at home and English at school.

Seems very extreme.

That was just one post.

No it wasn't. But even if it was, so what? What's the problem with picking up on one specific point and responding to it?

"It's not your culture so not up to you to judge."

Yes, footbinding is fine.

This is a child born in Britain.

Extremely common here but for childcare vs language purposes. A significant portion of the Chinese community, give birth and between 6-12mths, take the baby over to China and leave with grandparents. They either visit China once a year or grandparents bring child back to visit. The child comes back to start school. Many got caught out in COVID when borders were closed and cried foul that their kids couldn’t get back in.

I don’t understand it myself and couldn’t have done it as a parent, but it’s a pretty common thing.

Surely we can recognise that this is hard on tender young children while simultaneously acknowledging the difference in material conditions as the reason?

Would I personally send my DC away for that long? No. But I do not judge the mother for her decision. I spent prolonged periods of my childhood living with extended family and I retained a secure, loving relationship with my parents who I knew were doing the best for me.

In addition to learning language the child will be immersed in the culture/way of life/heritage and get to bond with grandparents and extended family. All of that is invaluable and, I’m sorry, can’t be picked up anywhere as easily if living in the UK.

Going at age 3 means not disrupting primary school education. If the child knows they’re loved eg has frequent video chats with the mum, is it really that terrible? I really do not see it as cruel, but pragmatic.

A different situation but feels relevant to mention: so many Pakistani, Indian, Thai, Indonesian, Filipino etc expat workers (construction workers, hospitality sector staff, security staff, housemaids, etc) across eg the Middle East and the higher GDP countries in Asia go for months but sometimes two or even three years without seeing their kids, who they’ve left back home in the care of grandparents.

Would these parents rather see their kids in person everyday? Yes. Are they making enormous sacrifices in order to earn a higher wage to try to improve their kids’ chances in life? Also yes.

A lot of cultures value education far more highly than British culture does and are prepared to sacrifice for it. Learning another language fluently (something that is harder with Mandarin after the age of 5 because of some of the tonal aspects of the language) is a gift. And a language that connects you to your heritage and has the potential to open up opportunities when you are older is particularly valuable. Some cultures put far more emphasis on the need to stretch yourself (and as a good parent that means stretching your children) in order to secure your future - I don't think the reasoning behind that is cruel and the results generally less cruel than letting children grow up without the wherewithal to support themselves in a decent lifestyle. British culture could do with a little more of it.

I think it will distress the child for a short time, but she's presumably sending her to be with family where she'll be loved and cared for? In which case, the distress should be temporary and the child will get much stronger bonds with her extended family - which is another huge boon.

If it's not family but some sort of paid experience I think there are a lot more risks and while I don't think it's cruel in an intentional sense, I don't think it's at all wise and would judge it negatively.

I was sent away to boarding school on a different continent at aged 11, as were many others. It didn't do me any harm and taught me great resilience and independence

It's very normal and accepted in China for grandparents (usually paternal) to raise children while parents return to work (not unusually in a city while grandparents and child remain in suburbs or countryside)

This is so much the norm that people see me and my husband (raising our daughter without his parents help by ourselves in the city) as the strange ones (Northeastern China).

So, it probably feels very usual to your acquaintance and her family.

I don’t see the issue. I am used to other familiy members looking after various kids in the family for various reasons and kids spending time abroad living with other family.

It just seems odd because it’s not an English cultural thing.

My dad and his sisters were sent overseas to stay with rellies. They’re fine.

But they are obviously not british. Just because you are born in britain you don't suddenly lose all culture and heritage. Even if you have a british passport. Lets face facts, people are working here for the money, not because they like pie and mash and want desparetly to become english. They will keep doing what is culturally and economically the way to do things in their culture, they want children that do not lose their culture and language, but they want to live here to work and earn.

But Indon't think itbis as hard as OP is saying, as they expect it as a fact of life.

The racism in this post….