Growing Strawberries in Taiwan

A majority of Taiwanese children are spoiled. They audaciously address their parents, in public. Their behavior is unrestricted, running in the street, the supermarket, the mall, and yelling. Taiwanese, from their 20’s through their 80’s have criticized this piece of their culture. “Strawberry Generation,” is how they address the younger generations: they look and taste delicious, but spoil easily.

But why?

Children are spoiled by their parents. We have to rewind time, and look at what Taiwan was like when today’s parents were growing up (post World War II Taiwan).

Following the war, Taiwan was recovering from a taxing Japanese rule. As if the national idea wasn’t already vague, there was a large migration of mainland Chinese with the KMT party and Chiang Kai-Shek. Taiwan was not a developed country and they were not a well established Democratic-Republic. Taiwan would only get around to abolishing martial law in 1987. Its economy was just starting out and, although it would become the successful capitalist economy and tech island that it is today, this seemed far off. People were not able to live the kinds of lives they are able to now.

Children raised at this time had parents who experienced rough times – the Japanese occupation and the World War that brought it to an end. They didn’t have much to give their children. Families had to work hard to get by, most parents had no means of spoiling their children.

These children are the parents of today. They view their children as precious treasures and do for their children what their parents had done for them: give them everything they could. These parents also transformed Taiwan from a cheap labor island in Asia, to a “tech island” and an economic leader on the world stage. They have worked very hard to make all this happen and want to enjoy the fruits of their labor – and share them with their children.

But raising children in a prosperous economy is nothing like raising them during hardship. The parenting practices they learned from their parents were not applicable in this new age. This is parallel with the concept of “New Money.” The result is the “Strawberry Generation.”

What can be done? Even those self-aware parents are spoiling their children. Knowing is not enough.