Gu Ailing poses after winning the women’s freeski Big Air final at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Feb 8. (FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY)
The success of 18-year-old Olympic freestyle skiing champion Gu Ailing has prompted many Chinese parents to consider how to better raise their children.
Gu captivated China on Feb 8 with victory in the women’s freeski Big Air event, performing a stunning final jump she had never attempted before.
Moreover, her admission to Stanford University, along with a successful modeling career and mastering of many nonacademic skills have led to many parents wondering if their children can follow in Gu’s footsteps.
Chinese netizens strongly approve of the parenting skills of Gu Yan, the mother of Gu Ailing, and many suggest that she should write a book on child-raising.
Hashtags on Gu Yan’s parenting have trended on China’s Sina Weibo social media platform. The hashtags “Gu Ailing’s mother says she doesn’t need her daughter to go to Stanford” and “The number one tip from Gu Ailing’s mother is to sleep more” have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.
A poll of nearly 150,000 netizens on Sina Weibo on Feb 9 showed that considerable talent, effort and self-discipline, as well as family background, have contributed to Gu Ailing’s success.
According to media reports, Gu Yan received a bachelor’s degree from Peking University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Gu Ailing was raised by her single mother, who worked as a Wall Street investor in the 1990s and is also a skier. The mother had her daughter skiing at a young age.
Education is a high priority for Chinese families, and since ancient times success in academic subjects has been needed to progress. In modern-day China, a good performance in the all-important national college entrance exam, or gaokao, is the main path to attending a good university and improving socioeconomic status.
In recent years, several popular Chinese television series, including
A Little Reunion, have vividly depicted the way Chinese parents micromanage their children’s lives and sign them up for many tutoring courses to earn high scores in the gaokao.
However, children facing intense academic competition and stress in living up to the high hopes resting on their shoulders may have trouble understanding their parents’ good intentions, which can lead to conflicts.
Gu cheers for athletes during the women’s snowboard U-shaped field skills final on Feb 10. (DING TING / XINHUA)
Since last year, the Chinese government has taken strong measures to ease students’ excessive academic burden by asking schools to assign less homework and conduct a comprehensive crackdown on the private tutoring industry.
Gu Ailing, asked whether her mother is a “tiger mom” pushing her to high levels of achievement, told China Central Television that her parent is actually a “rabbit mom”, who respects every decision her daughter makes and helps her attain her goals.
“I know every kid thinks their mother is the best — but no offense, I have the world’s best mom,” she said.
Gu Yan said she has respected her daughter’s choices since childhood by supporting her once she makes a decision.
When Gu Ailing asked her mother whether she should attempt the 1620 performance, which she had never tried before, Gu Yan first told her to go for the safer 1440, but later gave in to the teenager.
Gu Yan said: “I told her, ‘It’s your choice and your competition, I hope you can enjoy it.’”
The confidence shown by Gu Ailing is evident from the way in which she contradicted a Chinese blogger who posted footage on the Douyin short-video platform in December analyzing the hurdles the teenager faced in winning gold in the women’s freeski Big Air competition.
“Why don’t you trust me? Can you have some faith in me?” Gu Ailing commented under the post.
Tian Bingbing, principal of Chunhui Primary School in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, said Gu Yan and other such mothers offer their children great companionship and care. In particular, Gu Yan gives her daughter sufficient room to make her own choices in important life decisions.
However, it is common for ambitious parents to force their children to take the path they have planned for them and to become frustrated when they do not follow such routes or fail to live up to their expectations, Tian said.
Wang Junjie, father of a fifth-grade student in Beijing, said Gu Yan’s parenting style resonates with so many Chinese parents because they have taken similar approaches themselves, or aim to do so.
The fact that Gu Ailing sleeps more than 10 hours a day and still achieves so much shows the importance of sufficient sleep for young people’s healthy development, Wang said.
He added that in his family, the lights go out after 10 pm, and his son is asked to go to bed at that time and leave anything unfinished to the next day.
“Sufficient sleep ensures he can recover and helps him to better develop his intelligence,” Wang added.
He said Gu Ailing’s success has less to do with her family background or resources, but is more about Gu Yan’s parenting — helping her child find a hobby she is passionate about, setting clear targets and making plans to help her daughter realize these goals.
Gu greets fellow competitors after her victory on Feb 8. (FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY)
Deng Hongwei, the father of two primary school students in Hangzhou, said Gu Ailing’s success has reaffirmed his parenting standards of placing equal emphasis on academic study and developing hobbies.
He said that although he has faced considerable pressure from other parents who have focused greatly on improving their children’s grades, he has rarely signed his children up for tutoring courses.
Deng’s daughter, who is in the fifth grade, spends a lot of time painting and canoeing, while his son, a first grade student, loves to play tennis, basketball and soccer.
The father said he also agrees with Gu Ailing’s thoughts about beauty. In one interview, the star said beauty “is strength, confidence and power”, adding that girls who lack exposure to the sun, cannot run 3-kilometer or 5-km races, or do not follow a diet to remain in shape, are not considered beautiful.
Some people have told Deng to stop sending his daughter to canoeing lessons, as it is a male-dominated sport and the girl has become excessively tanned from exposure to the sun.
However, he said he has not followed their advice, as the daughter really likes canoeing and it makes her very happy.
“I am more than satisfied with my two children, and although they do not have the best scores in their class, they are optimistic, confident and healthy,” he said.
He added that he wants to develop his children’s interest in learning and to help them obtain independent learning skills.
“Not everyone can be as successful as Gu Ailing, and not everyone can be admitted to prestigious universities. I only want my children to be the best they can be,” Deng said.
Qi Yitong, the mother of a third-grade student in Hangzhou, said she is deeply impressed by Gu Ailing’s wide smile, optimistic attitude and healthy body, which is what most parents hope for when their children are born.
However, as their children grow older and face pressure from society, it is hard for parents to remain true to the original aims for their offspring and to avoid placing higher expectations on them, she said.
“We need to constantly tell ourselves that apart from being our children, they are independent human beings,” Qi added.
Children are born to be different and useful in their own way, and parents need to respect their choices and give them the freedom to innovate, she said.
Gu Ailing’s final jump on Feb 8 also showed that progress is more important than results, she said, adding that if the athlete only cared about such results, she might have been too afraid to choose a jump she had never attempted before.
Parents need to focus less attention on competition between their children and others, which places a heavy burden on their offspring and themselves.
“Children themselves are their biggest competitors. All parents need to do is offer them enough love and support,” Qi added.
In Sichuan province, Li Zhenxi, retired principal of Chengdu Wuhou Experimental Middle School, said the best education for children is to follow their parents’ examples with words and deeds.
To put it more simply, parents first need to become the kind of people they want their children to be, he said in a WeChat post.
However, in reality, many Chinese parents have ambitions for their children to be “perfect”, while not reaching such heights themselves, he said.
Not every child has the talent, environment and a mother like Gu Yan, so parents should not aim for their children to become the next Gu Ailing, Li said.
They need to acknowledge the reality that Gu Ailing is “one in a million”, and they should be satisfied with having ordinary and happy children, he added.
