To think this is cruel and genuinely unfathomable?

[StormCloud52]

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?

There is no racism. Racist to whom?

“THeY aRE nOt bRItish” about born bred Britons because they happen to have some immigrant ancestors is what I called it.

I knew someone from the Philippines, and it's quite common there for the kids to be looked after the grandparents and the parents may have to live somewhere else for work. Not too dissimilar from children who go to nursery at a young age for long hours? At least they are in a home and being cared for by family that love them. A year does seem like a long time though, although I'm assuming the parents will make lots of trips?

Don't be stupid. Just because something is "from a different culture" doesn't preclude us having feelings about it!

Would you say the same about FGM for instance?

You can be born in another country and not be from that country and not be a citizen of that country even if you are living there. If I was working overseas and had a baby in mexico, does that make my baby Mexican, with mexican heritage?
I was talking about the people specifically in OPs post and similar people who are overseas for work and have children then send them to live in their home country with live actual family members, who possibly have current citizenship of another country (although we dont know all the facts of the exact child in question)
There is a whole global economy of people moving overseas for work, and most people will continue to follow their cultural norms and customs when living in another country.
I myself have lived in several countries for work and I have never turned up and proclaimed I am for example, now an arab or Spanish or Indian.
Theres nothing racist about acknowledging people like to keep their own heritage and customs going.

I don't think @Strangeworldtodayis meaning to sound racist, they're just saying people like to also keep their culture strong even if they've immigrated. Even throughout many generations born in Britain. It's a good thing to want to retain all of the cultures that are important to you

I don’t think the poster was being racist.

It sounds horrible to me so I'm with you.

However, I believe in some other cultures, the mother (and/or father) don't so strongly have the primary relationship with their child like we're used to. So a child staying with the grandparents or aunt/uncle is far more typical.

When I read your post, I also wondered if maybe there was more to the situation than the acquaintance was saying. A few things I can think of are that she, the mother, is ill. Or she wants to get her child away from her child's father for some reason, if he's in the US. Or another reason she doesn't want to disclose.

This post is absolutely dripping with racist stereotypes.

'theyre obviously not British'
'people are working here for the money'
'they want to live here to work and earn'.

Plenty of migrants have moved here for more than just work and immerse themselves and their children in British culture. You can be BOTH British and Chinese...

It wasn't a specific point though.

It was in reply to "It's not your culture so it's not up to you to judge" written by @POTC .

Which is a blanket statement with zero point.
I was coming from the angle of replies regarding FGM or stoning women to death, which absolutely needs to be raised and judged.

Many people were raising opinions and their feelings, but this was the only post that stood out as such in this instance.

All this 'it's from another culture so you can't judge' is just bollocks tbh.

DH is from another country, as the youngest (surprise?) addition to a family of 5 his parents decided they couldn't cope and farmed him out as a baby to an older woman, a distant relative.
Perhaps she loved him in her way, but one of his brothers has let slip that he 'wasn't allowed to play'. He didn't return home until about 10, when his oldest brother (teenager at the time) protested to his parents that it wasn't right.

I see first hand how his upbringing has affected him, the lack of confidence etc and always feeling his is on the edge of his family. He doesn't like it if I say anything about it though, as criticising the family is a big no no apparently. So I don't. But it's fairly obvious.

I think it's cruel. And yes the English upperclasses sending their kids off to boarding school at 7 is also a terrible thing, a lot of upper class men are emotionally repressed and completely messed up because of it. This happened as a child to Stephen Fry and I noted that in his autobiography he defends his parents' decision, saying that's just what they did in their social circle. He had a lot of unhappiness at school, was seriously sexually assaulted by an older boy, again he glosses over it and says he's fine. I doubt it though.

I also had an Eastern European friend living in the UK, she was pregnant with no 2 and had health complications. So she sent her 2 year old back to the home country to be cared for by the paternal grandparents for a while. The child ended up in hospital over there, meningitis. I do wonder if the shock of separation from his parents caused his resistance to disease to be lowered. Afterwards my friend bitterly regretted her decision.

We have known for decades how separation from the parents especially at a very young age affects a child, it's in the Psychology A level syllabus FGS. So why is this to be dismissed just because 'it's a different culture'?

I would have to say something to your friend OP, even if it means the end of the friendship. Perhaps she has never been challenged on this before, so never questioned the thinking.

Not something that we would do but I think it is parents who convince themselves they dont have seperation anxiety not the children

This western obession of the end of the world will end if a mother is not glued to the child is just as weird

Just how fluent in any language is a 2 or 3 year old. This is ridiculous and I find it hard to believe that this is the real reason these young children are sent over there.

I think this is dreadful. I remember going to a piece of training on attachment disorder, where the message was that if a child has a stable background until they’re five, they’ll be OK, but if they are separated from a parent or primary carer before that age, they may well end up with attachment disorders. I raised the issue of foster children being taken away from foster carers at three, and the lady giving the training said yes, and we know that isn’t in the best interests of the child. I sincerely hope that the Chinese family this poor child has been sent to are loving and nurturing - I agree with the OP that the child will be confused and distressed. I think it’s a terrible thing to do to a child, no matter how good the motives.

Yeap, all my Chinese neighbours do that, though ay different ages. One poor girl sent her year old baby back and was never the same again

It also teach some that you can't trust anyone, not even your parents, which sets up the stakes for future relationships. Some people refer to it as resilience.

The three year old isn’t flying solo - so who is taking her and who is she staying with?

There is clearly more to it than you have said.

I used to rent out a room to lodgers and one was a nurse from overseas who was working to provide for her son being cared for by grandparents. She spent every hour working and every penny went back for him.

Some people I knew were quite judgemental about her, but seeing how hard she worked and the sacrifices she made I thought she was amazing. She met a nice man and married him and brought her son over eventually.

Some of the UK population seems to have a complete inability to be able to understand that other cultures have different approaches to parenting. Anything we don’t understand is deemed damaging and that’s not always the case. I would imagine our style of parenting is judged as well, we assume the way we do things is amazing but sometimes I think some of the approaches I’ve seen are damaging and will leave kids with long term damage. It’s an opinion though and it doesn’t make me right. We can’t apply our standards in every situation and decide someone else’s are plan wrong.

It's not normal to send a 3 year old to the other side of the world for a year and have them live with out their own mother.

Don't be ridiculous.

There's not being glued and on the other side of the planet...

Ok then, send your kid to the other side of the world for a year. See how that goes.

Yes I'm sure you had a wonderful magical time going through your formative years without your family near by and naturally you never ever had any separation, anxiety, confidence and self worth issues ever and definitely always made great choices and never once resented your parents and have a wonderful open honest and close relationship with them and others in your life, always and forever 👍

Oh dear. If this is the attitude we're all suppose to have then nothing will ever change, or would have changed. I hate the 'it's their culture' bullshit.

We had Spanish neighbours who did this many years ago, sent their little boy to live with the GPs in Spain for a year or more at about 4 years old, he spoke no English when he came back. It was a custom then for them, they said the first son was virtually the GPs son. He was fine afterwards, grew up perfectly normally apart from having to re-learn English initially!