that's a fair point. i haven't read anything about how children were treated in china in the past. i am more familiar with stories about treatment of children i

that's a fair point. i haven't read anything about how children were treated in china in the past. i am more familiar with stories about treatment of children in historical europe. in short, in europe children were seen as a necessary nuisance (someone mentioned cattle) but from that i want to draw a few observations: i think attitude towards children in europe either has improved or it hasn't changed. if it hasn't changed, then why should it have changed in china? but even if it has improved, on one hand it is still way behind china by comparison, but on the other hand we stopped depending on direct children a few decades earlier than china, so if there was a parallel development then china would have to be a few decades behind europe with their changing attitude towards children. that being not the case suggests that there was no change in attitude at all, or at least not one prompted by a modern pension system and therefore the chinese attitude towards children could not be a new thing.