ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the pressures on families and their children are displayed in symptomatic vulnerabilities, and how many of these families that have seen respond with innate resilience that is a feature of Chinese character. The particular Chinese pressures on families include the way in which the ‘only children’ carry the hopes of their families solely on their shoulders, receiving some combination of pampered idealization and anxious harassment from a young age. Rural families were less subject to the strict One Child Policy, although forced abortions and severe social and economic penalties were often enforced. Once a couple has a child, the age-old tradition of grandparental care of the child is apt to take hold. While there is no longer the extended family of the old days, that both parents are likely to be working in the city, childcare from one or more grandparents is welcome.
