An American fashion designer who lived in Shanghai for 16 years has written an editorial for the New York Times praising the benefits of parenting her children under the watchful and totalitarian eye of China.
Heather Kaye, 49, moved to Shanghai with her husband George in 2006 with the intention of staying for a year. However, the couple stayed and raised their two daughters there.
China Co-Parenting System
However, after two years of living under the country’s oppressive COVID-19 policies, the family was forced to return to the United States in 2022.
She has since described her return to Washington DC as a “cultural shock” that made her miss the way the Chinese government “co-parented” her children.
However, her views may come as a surprise to many who are concerned about the Chinese government’s imminent danger to the local as well as the global economy, technology, and enterprises.
It was revealed in October of last year that the Communist Party employs secret police stations in New York City to track down dissidents and deport them to China, while those protesting the country’s zero-COVID policy have been known to vanish without explanation.
Kaye saw how the Chinese Communist Party would infiltrate family life, whether by monitoring what her children ate or dictating how many hours they should sleep at night.
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Chinese Government’s Rules For Children, Parent
“In China, government co-parenting begins in the womb,” she said, referring to the previous restrictions on the number of children parents may have, which have since been lifted.
She went on to say that not long after enrolling her children in state-run schools, it began to dictate how they should live.
“Chinese kindergarten lectured us on everything, including how many hours our daughters should sleep, what they should eat, and what their ideal weight should be,” she explained.
She did, however, express gratitude for the discipline imparted to her two kids, born in 2008 and 2010. Despite her claim that her children were “on loan” from the Chinese government, the mother quickly found “benefits” to the arrangement.
Kaye praised the CCP for instilling in her daughter virtues such as “self-discipline, integrity, and respect for elders,” as well as a “strong work ethic.”
“Constantly served up moral, history, and culture lessons on pulling together for the sake of the Chinese nation, our girls came home discussing self-discipline, integrity, and respect for elders. With school instilling a solid work ethic and a total drive for academic excellence, my husband and I didn’t need to push the girls to complete homework; the shame of letting their teachers and classmates down was enough to light their fires,” she wrote.
Kaye concluded her essay by expressing optimism that the United States government will learn from China’s example.
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