Discussion keeps the world turning.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Fei Fei and Xing Yu.
Coming up on today's Soapbox.
A mother wants to protect her child from bullying, so she files a complaint.
Then she files another.
Then she goes after a university professor.
The problem, no one seems to agree with her bullying claim.
Court is in session and Judge Feifei will deliver her verdict.
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It's time for the soapbox.
It is indeed time for the Soapbox once again.
It's our segment where we take a story from the internet that has elicited an emotional response from us in some fashion.
On Friday, actually, I had my own impromptu Soapbox, but today Feifei takes center stage.
Yeah, because it's International Children's Day.
We just talked about digital babysitting, but now another topic when it comes to parenting.
So today's story centered around a professor called Shen Yifei.
This is happening, right?
This happened recently.
Very, very recently and very prominent on China's internet.
So this Shen Yifei.
She is an associate professor at Fudan University and she is recognized in China as a very prominent public intellectual on family relationships marriage, gender dynamics, family education.
And because of her fame.
She not only published a lot of books and articles as a professor at a university, but also she held live streams on social media regularly.
And she also have classes, online classes, teaching children, especially parents, how to handle a lot of relationships in families, with their children, with their partners.
So she is quite well known.
And the story surrounding this professor erupted during one of her live streams.
So what happened?
So you know, in a lot of live streams on China's social media, Any users or the public can call in to this live stream and communicate with that person directly.
Like have a Q&A session.
Yeah, kind of having a Q&A session.
And Professor Shen's live streams also have this function.
So a parent connected to that live stream and seeking advice, saying that her elementary school aged child were bullied at school.
And so Professor Shen, of course, asked for a lot of details when it comes to the bullying, and she gave out two examples.
The first one is the child had shared snacks with a classmate, but the classmate later refused to share their own snacks in return.
That's example number one.
Okay.
And the second example is that the child got into a verbal argument with a peer and they resulted in some mutual pushing and shoving.
And that's example number two.
Mutual pushing and shoving.
Yes.
And it's only also pushing and shoving.
No injuries.
No punches or kicks.
No.
And then the parent got really defensive and she filed complaints first of all to the teachers and didn't get any support from the teachers and then to the schools.
And again, the school also didn't support her. claims of being bullied.
So the parent filed complaints to the teachers and the school didn't get any support.
So I guess then the parent turned to this professor's live stream hoping to find some support there.
Yes.
And then this is also when Professor Shen saying that there is something wrong with your claim.
She said, based on these incidents it doesn't really constitute as bullying, but instead it's very normal and social frictions typical for children, and it's also something children need to learn in their own development to handle this kind of friction.
And that got the mother... Raged.
Yes.
Because also Professor Shen pointed out to that mother she was operating under quote unquote victim mentality.
It means it's all other people's fault.
It's not my fault or my child's fault.
Yes.
And so she keeps escalating some minor social friction moments into assaults, into bigger issues like bullying and malicious assault.
How did the parent respond to that?
That is where this story got more interesting.
She launched multi-tiered complaints about this professor.
She first filed complaints with Fudan University, where this professor worked, and then to various government departments for different reasons.
First of all, she filed complaints saying that this professor violated her privacy.
Or another example would be she neglected her teaching duties or she engaged in misconduct.
Okay.
And you know, in China, when government departments and also when the university got a complaint like this, There's an investigation.
Yeah, there needs to be an investigation.
After a very thorough investigation, the Fudan University said...
They cleared Professor Shen of all charges, concluding that her comments to that mother was professional, objective and well within the boundaries of laws and education.
And so there is no consequences coming for this professor.
But it doesn't mean that there is no cost.
You know, the professor need to go through rounds of investigations and talks and discussions.
I think some reports saying that this rounds of investigation dragged on for two months.
Wow.
So for two months this Professor Shen needs to slow down on her daily work, on her other academic responsibilities and also personal life.
Yeah, exactly.
It's totally disruptive to your normal life.
Yes.
But what's more coming out of this story is about teachers from all over China coming down under Professor Shen's videos, claiming they have similar experiences.
Suffer the same.
Yes, with a lot of parents.
And the professor said she got more than 1000 comments about frontline educators sharing very similar encounters with their parents.
Some of them even suffered issues like insomnia because of this kind of unreasonable complaints coming from parents.
Others say they had to turn a blind eye to a lot of student misbehavior simply to avoid similar trouble happening again.
Okay, so it's not an isolated issue then.
Yes.
And according to a report by a magazine in China called Banyuetan.
They cited data from a local educational bureau in southwest China.
And they said between January and August in 2024, the bureau received 128 complaints targeting at teachers.
And upon their investigation, they found only seven of those reports are true.
And the rest 121 were completely false.
So as a mom, this had you feeling something.
Yes.
And that brings me to my today's soapbox.
You know, as a parent myself, I look at this storm surrounding Professor Shen and I honestly don't see malice.
I see anxiety.
And I think all of us parents carry, because underneath that victim mentality is a very heartbreaking truth.
We are terrified that our kids aren't equipped to handle this world.
When we see their face, a tiny piece of friction like a classmate not sharing a snack, we got a panic button pushed inside us.
And we harbor this very deep mistrust in our children's own social skills, doubting their innate ability to navigate the natural bumps of life.
Because we love them so deeply.
And we try to do the impossible.
We try to engineer a perfectly stress-free, friction-free universe for them.
So we rush in, we overanalyze, we look for that institutional villains to fight, thinking we are the heroes protecting them.
But here is the problem.
A frictionless life doesn't exist.
When we try to remove every obstacle, we're actually taking something away the very experiences kids need to grow.
The frustration, failure, rejection, These are not things to eliminate.
They are the raw materials to build resilience.
And if we want our children to be strong tomorrow, we have to let them face the world today.
And that means sitting with our own discomfort, stepping back, watching them fall and watching them learn to stand up on their own again.
It's not easy watching your children go through rounds of heartbreaks.
And the harder part is learning to tell ourselves, let go.
It is what it is.
Well said.
Hmm.
Is that easy to do?
No, it's not easy at all.
But I feel like it's easier for parents, you know, to make these complaints, because sometimes it's just a phone call away, you know to file to the education bureau to say that the teacher is mistreating your child and everything.
But children, they cannot live in a vacuum.
They have these all kinds of frictions, frustrations like Fei-Fei mentioned.
These are their process of learning.
Yeah, and for that mom who complained to the teacher or about the teacher, and then to the school board and then about the professor and registering complaints with the university and then with the government, I think it's easy for us to look at what she did and say whatever.
What's wrong with her?
What's wrong with her?
But instead of looking at what she did, maybe we should look at why she did it.
And I think Feifei touched upon the things that are probably the reasons why she did that.
There's insecurity there.
She kept going to different people looking for someone to support her.
And all she was trying to do right or wrong way, I think we can agree it was the wrong way was try to protect her kid.
That's what she was trying to do, right?
So I get that.
Your kid comes home from school, they're really upset.
Maybe they're crying.
They're visibly distraught.
You want to make them feel better.
But I guess there's a line Fei-Fei, because you got to make them feel better, but you can't go to the point where you're not allowing them to deal with difficulties on their own.
Yeah, and I have to say it is much harder to sit back and watch them go through this kind of friction.
The easier option could be going out and blaming this on somebody else.
But I think as a parent, sometimes you have to do the harder part.
You have to make the harder choice even though you know there is an easier, even though it's not right, but it's an easier option out there.
Can you remember any examples of your childhood where you had to kind of deal with your own issues and where your parents stepped back?
I remember this conversation with my mom when I was a kid and I was young.
My mom said, listen to me, Steve.
I'm going to tell you something right now.
You have a problem with your teachers at school.
I'm taking their side.
Mm hmm.
My dad was a high school vice principal, and my dad said, mm-hmm.
That's what my dad always said, mm-hmm.
So I thought, oh, okay, that's fine.
Then a little later on in life, mom said this to me.
Steve, let me tell you something.
You ever have a problem with the police, I'm going to come to that jail and lock the cell myself.
Don't come looking to me.
I won't be helpful.
And I was like, I don't plan on having any jail time in my life.
But I think what she was saying to me was, stay out of trouble.
And if you do happen to find yourself in some sort of conflict with your friends or whatever, Try your best to deal with it on your own.
Of course, my parents were always very supportive of me and always had my back.
But I remember that.
And the reason why I remember it is because the message that I took away was basically very clear to me is that if you cause trouble, you are going to deal with it.
Yeah.
And I start to think I didn't really have this kind of problem when I was in elementary school.
But when I went to boarding school for junior highs and because at that time we don't have mobile phones, we don't have a very convenient communication back home and I can only go back home on the weekends.
So during the weekdays, everything is on myself.
And that is when I realized, you know, a bunch of teenagers get together all day, 24, 5.
There are a lot of frictions happening and also I live with five other girls in the dorm and of course there will be fights, there will be disagreements.
And that is the moment I start to learn that yeah, when you get you know, when you are socializing with other people, you need first of all set your own boundaries.
If somebody crossed that boundaries, there will be consequences.
And that's my first lesson from living in a group.
And the second thing is a lot of things I have to do it on myself independently, because my mom won't be there during weekdays to help me.
She won't be there to make plans for me, to make any preparations to notify me.
You know it's the time that you clean something or you need to keep yourself.
You know, in a certain schedule, things like this.
And that is a very I think when it comes to development.
Now thinking about it is one of the fastest ways, fastest development that I have when I was as a smaller myself.
So I think you know teaching having your kid having that space and independence, even though of course, I made a lot of mistakes.
I crossed a lot of people out of no bad intentions.
It's just because of ignorance.
But I learned, you know, there's something you shouldn't be doing again next time.
Yeah.
And especially for today's teachers too.
I feel like they have this fear and also anxiety of being reported by these parents and how to deal with the children as well as their parents.
It's a big issue for them as well.
But in my opinion, I feel like teachers and parents, they are allies.
They should work together to protect these children.
Yes.
So happy Children's Day.
Don't cross any lines today, but also have fun because it's your day.
That'll do it for today's roundtable.
For Feifei and Xinyu, I'm Steve.
We thank you so much for being with us today and ask you to come back again next time.
