Left-behind children: the parents' struggle
- By Phoebe Wu
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 27, 2016
Although left-behind children face a huge number of difficulties, their parents also struggle with the situation.
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Li giving a massage to a client [Photo by Phoebe Wu/China.org.cn] |
Like 277 million other Chinese migrant workers, Li and his wife left their hometown and two children to seek work in Beijing last year.
Hailing from Lijiang City, Yunnan Province – a 60 hour train ride from Beijing – Li and his wife now work as massage therapists. It is not an easy job. Li gets no days off and works between 12 to 17 hours a day. But the job pays well.
"I could do the same job back in Yunnan, but it pays very little, only around 1,700 yuan per month," Li said. "Here, I can make up to 7,000 yuan a month."
Li and his wife, along with other workers in the massage parlor, live in a dorm near the shop. The inconspicuous dorm, which is located underground beneath a billiard club, is owned by their boss. In addition to housing, employees are provided meals from the dorm's small dining hall.
"I don't need to pay for rent or food and have only modest expenses, so I can send most of my money back home," Li said.
Before coming to Beijing, Li considered working as a hairstylist. But, after interning in a hair salon, his attempt to open his own salon failed. Later he heard about the job as a massage therapist from a friend and decided to study massage in Jiangxi.
"To be honest, it does not matter what kind of job I do, as long as I can earn enough money to support my family," he said.
Like other parents who migrate to big cities as migrant workers, Li had no choice but to leave his two sons, Li Yong and Li Dao, aged five and three respectively, to his parents. Even though Li says his mother only turned 52 this year and is healthy enough to take care of his sons, the children don't always obey their grandparents. For absent parents, disciplining a child can be tricky since they are afraid of further estranging the relationship with their children. And for Li, scolding his sons over the phone will definitely worsen the father-son relationship, especially as his sons already refuse to talk to him on the phone.
"I call my children once a day, but sometimes they do not even want to talk to me," he said. "When they refuse to talk, I tell them that I bought them new toys," he continued. It is a difficult situation for Li and his wife. They worry that their children might grow up being rebellious, especially without proper care and guidance.
The children's growth and nutrition are Li's other source of worry. He claims that his eldest son prefers snacking to eating proper meals.
"Snacks do not have enough nutrients, I worry about his growth," Li said. Li's worry is not unfounded: According to an Economist report, 12 percent of rural children under five in China are stunted or are short for their age – four times as many as in urban areas – and 13 percent of rural children under five are anemic, compared with 10 percent for urban children.
Bringing their children from the village is out of the question. With China's stringent hukou or registration system, the children will be denied education and healthcare outside of the place where they are registered at. And migrant workers like Li can't afford private school's expensive tuition fee.
"Everything is about money," Li said. "Sure, I would love to bring my boys to Beijing, but even if it's only for a short vacation, it can easily cost me a thousand yuan."
When asked about the possibility of working as a tour guide in Yunnan, Li pushed the idea aside.
"It does not pay well, and there are already too many tour guides," he said. "Yunnan is a popular tourism place, but we see the number of tourists declining every year," he said. As China's tourism industry grows, regions are competing with each other to attract as many local and international tourists as possible.
However, Li is determined to go back to his hometown and his sons. He and his wife are planning to open up a massage parlor back home once they've saved up enough money.
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