It has been a long time since Liu Jinghu and his wife enjoyed a weekend to themselves. Saturdays and Sundays in smoggy Beijing are dedicated to their only child, 2-year-old son Xiaojing: there are early-childhood exercise classes; singing sessions with other families; Lego‑building sprees in a living room scattered with toys. Then there’s the specter of expensive tutoring to get their
5 – toddlerinto a good school and, furtherinto the future, the pressure to buy their son an apartment so he can persuade a woman to marry him. That property burden could cost Liu, a software‑development manager, and his wife, a human-resources specialist, two decades’ worth of salary. Such are the costs of raising a kid today in middle-class China.Liu Jinghu e sua esposa costumam divertir-se apenas nos fins de semana, quando seu único filho, Xiaojing,fica aos cuidados de amigos.
