Parents Claim "Our Own Educational Method"
Children Excluded from Compulsory Education Due to Lack of Household Registration
A Chinese couple has sparked controversy after leaving their three-year-old child naked and unattended on the street for educational purposes. Authorities, suspecting child abuse, have intervened. However, the highly educated parents have insisted that they are "teaching about nature." On October 21, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that a video filmed on October 15 at a highway rest stop in Ya'an, Sichuan Province, has been spreading on social media, fueling debate. The footage shows a young boy lying on the ground without clothes, licking food off the pavement.
The child, with tanned skin and disheveled hair, was crawling on the ground on his hands and feet, and when eating, he bent down to lick food with his mouth, imitating animal behavior. The social media user who recorded the video told police, "The 'wild child' eats and crawls like a dog," and added, "The child made sounds with his mouth, but they were closer to animal noises than human language." As a result, some have called him a real-life version of "Mowgli," the boy raised by wolves in the novel "The Jungle Book." As the video spread, authorities launched an investigation to determine whether the child was a victim of trafficking or abuse, and to assess his health condition.
It was none other than the child's parents who raised him as a "modern-day Mowgli." According to local media reports, the child is three years old, and the parents also have another son who is one year old. The fact that both parents are university and graduate school graduates has caused further shock. Authorities found that the parents do not have regular jobs, but with financial support from the grandparents, they have been living a nomadic lifestyle, traveling in a camper van.
Because the couple has not yet registered their two children in the household registry, the children have been excluded from medical coverage and compulsory education. The parents rarely communicated with neighbors and even blocked access from the grandparents who provided financial support. They did not dress the child, even in winter. One neighbor said, "Even in the middle of winter when it was snowing, the parents wore warm clothes, but the child remained undressed and made animal noises."
The parents claimed that this method of child-rearing is a "return to nature" and a "way to become closer to nature," describing it as a "nature-based educational method." They also told authorities, "This is our way of life. You have no right to interfere." Authorities warned that this style of parenting constitutes child abuse. As the controversy grew, the family ultimately decided to go to Beijing, the mother's hometown, to register the children. Authorities pointed out, "Abuse is not limited to physical violence. Concealing anti-civilized parenting as 'family privacy' is a serious violation of children's rights."
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