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I am very thankful to Silvia for her thought-provoking presentation, and for sharing her evocative vignettes.
When the topic of siblinghood was included in the conference programme, I felt it was really very important. Having visited Beijing several years ago with David Scharff, I was able to learn about the one-child policy in more depth. The need to control population growth through this policy caused different social effects such as freeing sex from procreation and enhancing the possibility of sexual enjoyment, giving women a more equal-to-men place. The weight, the meaning of a baby girl or a baby boy when they were born were certainly different in those days. In fact, as far as I have read, Chinese families changed radically, especially middle class and urban ones. On another side, penalties were a terrible threat, and we cannot disavow that there have also been very painful decisions that were taken by many parents around the one-child policy, whether they respected the rule or not.
As reported by Scharff:
Chinese families have traditionally favored sons, looking to their sons, and especially the oldest son, to carry on the family name, the family farm or the family business. There is also an emotional investment in this tradition. Only children and especially sons carry the family's future with them endowing a sense of immortality … Emotionally, the One Child Policy amputated the branches of the family tree …. (2021, p. 43)
It thinned the whole family kinship structure, insofar as families were smaller, having fewer cousins in the extended family which is so significant in Chinese society.
In 2015, the Chinese government turned to a two-child policy and recently a three-child policy. However, we need to be aware that a big part of consultation for psychotherapy comes from clients/patients who might be an only child or a parent who was an only child.
I am introducing this sociocultural context because Silvia's presentation highlights a very important idea that I wi