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Mothers ask for c-sections to send their children to school earlyPosted by Eric Mu on Friday, August 21, 2009 at 6:25 PM
 City Evening News August 21, 2009 Most primary schools in China follow a rigid standard of admitting only students who are at least six years old. A child who has missed the September 1 cutoff (national back-to-school day) by just a few days may have to wait a full year to be admitted. Newspapers in Chongqing recently observed that some local mothers-to-be were demanding c-sections so they could give birth before the deadline. To those parents, pushing up their child's date of birth even a few days earlier means an extra advantage in future competition. The Changchun-based City Evening News performed an investigation of its own. According to its report, although there is a regulation that specifies a minimum age for a child to go to school, the schools themselves are usually the ones decide the strict age cutoff. However, a number of good primary schools in Changchun are very strict about the age: they don't even take six-year-old children who happened to be born precisely on September 1. Unlike the hospitals in Chongqing, which confirmed a birth boom in August, a gynecologist in Changchun who was interviewed by the newspaper said that there has been no obvious increase in the number of newborns in the hospital. But the report did meet a mother-to-be whose due date is on September 20. She had been to the hospital to consult about a c-section: "Even if the baby is born on September 1, that's not good enough for some schools. That means tens of thousands of yuan, and you have to find the right person, too. That's a lot of trouble." Links and Sources
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Comments on Mothers ask for c-sections to send their children to school early
I read the Chinese article cited here, but I still don't understand why these mothers want their kids to start school early? Won't this mean they will always be the youngest, smallest, weakest, least mature in their class? Wouldn't it be better to wait a year and have them be the oldest, most mature, most ready to compete against other students?
I must be missing something here... what advantage do they gain by shipping their kids off to school a year earlier? The goal isn't just to save the cost of a year of pre-school childcare, is it?
It's the same anxiety about being left behind on anything and everything, as the kind that drives the guy waiting for the lift to tap the "Up" button 5 times.
Choudofu is absolutely right. The link between relative age and performance is real and observable all over the world. Children born right after the cutoff are older and farther along their development and will perform much better in sports and on tests than their peers. Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in Ouliers.
Those parents are putting their kids at a serious disadvantage by making them the youngest in their class. I doubt they have any idea what they are doing.
Maybe they're just afraid their kids will lose out and having them earlier will give them time to catch up? link Isn't it more ridiculous that there are some wanting C-sections so that their babies will be born on 090909 which we all know that the Chinese think it's a super auspicious date.