None-married Parents & Married Parents / Family Problems in Taiwan

     This is my German and literature teacher, Jens who comes from Germany and marries a Taiwanese. I really like to talk or discuss about some controversial issues with him.
Today’s German course, he asked us to guess the percentages of children in Berlin having none-married parents. Some guessed 10%, 15%, 30%, etc. and the answer which shocked me a lot was 52%. Right! 52% of children in Berlin have none-married parents! And the number wasn’t compiled this year, meaning the number’s getting higher and higher. Through the discussions I found that generally speaking, Europeans think it's extremely normal to have babies without marriage. European countries, in my impression, were relatively more conventional and most of countries there are Christian countries. However, the values seem to change rapidly not only in Europe but in all countries around the world. In a nutshell, my opinion, probably not along with the mainstream thinking, is strongly against having children without signing the contract of marriage. Don’t tell me that’s just a piece of paper. One iece of paper could mean a lot. What about having an 1 billion US dollar deal with someone without any written contracts? Come on? That’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it?

We also discussed about the children-raising problems in Taiwan, and we finally came to a consensus that the growing environment for children in Taiwan is TERRIBLE. How so? Since young people in Taiwan (maybe not just young people..) appear to have to work all day long otherwise they die, they usually ask their parents to look after their children till they call it a day. Nevertheless, children are usually on the beds after their parents get back. The importance of accompanying with children seems to be neglected. What about when the parents get some day-offs? Oh…That would even be worse. Once the parents don’t have to work, they will probably sleep till lunch time, sitting in front of TV all day long. How could children be happy and have correct values when they don’t even have opportunity to be educated and get the company they NEED? Family absolutely plays the most vital role during kids’ growing stages. Then what are the problems if children are always together with their grandparents? Try to think this way. First, their grandparents seldom (or are not able to) update their values or the latest information; as a result, there will undoubtedly be some gaps in between and those gaps might lead to some communicational difficulties. (Even you may have difficulty communicating with your parents occasionally, not to mention your grandparents) Moreover, they’re old. They should have the right to enjoy the rest of their lives, shouldn’t they? Taking care of children before they're independent is, no doubt, the resposibility of parents. But being slaves of children may not be the responsiblity of parents at all. To sum up, I think people should have babies on the premise that they have enough time and adequate ability to raise them. You scholars! Educating is to solve people’s problems but to show-off your knowledge. We should never be too obstinate; however, we should not follow the crowd BLINDLY either.