Chinese tradition to send away baby at 1 year?

[AshleyR]

Just curious if anyone can shed some light on this "chinese tradition"...

I live in a small town in Northern Ontario, Canada. There is a chinese couple in town that moved here a couple of years ago straight from China. When they had a baby, they were "allowed" to keep her here for the first year, but then had to send her back to China and won't get her back until she is 4. The baby is living with the mothers sister in China.

The woman is now pregnant again and people are already talking about whether or not she will send this baby to China, too. Apparently "this is what they do"...

Can anyone that knows anything about this tradition tell me why they do this? I am very curious!

 

[Florance]

I'm Chinese and I was never sent away. @_@ China is huge though and "traditions" vary from one place to another. I'm from Southern China and sending baby away at 1 year old is definitely not a tradition in that part of the country!

 

[Blah11]

odd. i work with a few fillipino girls whos children are still back home and they send money over. must be terribly hard.

 

[Mynxie]

Never heard of this, but a friend of mine is Chinese. Well, his parents are, he was born here so his terminology is something like "British but Chinese decent" I think he says... anyway, back to the point, he says that traditions vary from place to place too and there are a lot of traditions that in the Western World we would probably frown upon, like after a death, no one was allowed to visit his family (including each other) until the funeral.

 

[Whisper]

I worked with a guy from Zimbabwe and that was the tradition for him and his family to send their children from aged 1 to live with the grandmother for 1 year.

 

[LucyHF]

I've never heard of this, but must be awfully hard for the parents and of course the child.

 

[smokey]

I dont know if its realy an actual tradition as such or just they way alot of people end up doing it.
My nephew was sent back to china to be raised by his grandfather while his mother and grandmother lived here, if that wasnt hard enough for my family the mother waited till 2 days after her divorce and then sent him back without even telling the boys father (the boys father is actualy my cousin but he was raised by my parents so he is more a brother to me hence why I call his son my nephew)

Took my cousin years of trying to fight it but he jst didnt have the funds to do much in court and no one realy wanted to know because no one knew for sure where the boy actualy was.
Alex is finaly coming to live back over here in 2 months, he is now 8 years old sadly though my cousin barly knows him and they barely speak the same language.
In this case though it was alot to do with the mother couldnt be bothered to raise him.

 

[flubdub]

Ah no, thats really sad! I'd die if someone took my lo away

 

[cherryglitter]

odd. i work with a few fillipino girls whos children are still back home and they send money over. must be terribly hard.

same.