During the past few weeks, my son, 13, has been suffering from considerable sleep deprivation.

One symptom of this is that immediately after getting home, he would drop his 10-kg schoolbag, head to his room, and plunge onto his bed, begging for "two minutes of respite" — two minutes because a longer break would mean he would have to burn more midnight oil (sometimes literally) to finish his homework.

It is hard to believe he is the same boy who, ten years ago, used to hate sleep so much that he would grow mutinous at the slightest suggestion of going to bed, though he was otherwise unusually mild and good-natured. One reason I do not like this super-busy state is that it's all much ado about nothing. For instance, he has to spend so much time memorizing scripted, standardized analyses of compositions, often by authors of dubious distinction, that he has virtually no time for reading better writers.

But I also derived some secrete consolation from my son's new schedule. As his class has been so busy with their routine homework, he and his classmates now have no time for additional private cramming or tutorial sessions.

This has enforced a level playing field in terms of academic results.

Recently one of my wife's cousins paid us a weekend visit. Her only son is now a first-grader, thus the conversation quickly turned to education. Like many parents today, the family sold their old flat, and with mortgage loans, managed to purchase a new apartment that ensured their son's admittance to a "good school." Now, again like other parents, they are paying more than they'd like for private tutoring that promise to help their son shine academically, athletically and artistically. The trouble is, these sessions seem to be compromising the son's performance at school. His teacher complained that the boy has difficulty concentrating during his routine class work.

Quick retort

I chose to be silent through most of the conversation, but at this point mumbled something about the danger of the boy being so over-scheduled and burdened that he might lose interest in study altogether. This remark drew a quick retort from the cousin, who observed that, on the contrary, failure to give him the necessary edge might erode his confidence and lead him to neglect his studies.

This is probably true when all parents are busy dragging their kids from one tutorial to the next. Only once did the cousin betray a degree of remorse that she should have been more patient in giving birth to the child. To ensure that her son could attend school one year early, she chose to have delivery by Caesarian section.

The over-crammed childhood also made the young boy reflective, the cousin claimed. He began to realize that childhood is far from the idyllic, carefree years he reads about. His middle-aged parents, too, are busy with their professional engagements. This led the boy to conclude one day that "It's rather good being elderly." He obviously had in his mind the example of his maternal grandparents, who are now retired and live with him.

To steer him along correct ideological lines, he was told that these elderly people have come a long way, having survived their own competitive childhoods and youthful years to arrive at their good old age. As the mother observed, as the son grows older and wiser, keeping him in harness requires dexterity, threats of punishment, coaxing, and a fair bit of encouragement. This exploitation of our children in their childhood is a phenomenon we have learnt to live with. We fume at occasional exposures of child labor, but if we send our children to two or three crammers over a weekend, we do this only "for their own good."

Oriental Morning Post reported on November 25 of a seven-year-old boy in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, who had to attend seven "interest" classes within a space of 14 hours every weekends, at a cost of over 20,000 yuan (US$2,940) for one semester. "Since everyone else is running, you cannot well stand still, can you?" The boy's mother justified herself to the Post. These classes range from soccer, go (a kind of chess), painting, calisthenics, music, to rhetoric — training meant to improve the child's public speaking skills.

Brick-and-mortar stores are shutting down, Huaihai Lu is renovating, but "educational facilities" are cropping up everywhere, taking up prime locations, expanding, thriving. Businessmen are clearly aware of the amount of money to be made by fueling and tapping into the pervading parental fear and anxiety about giving their children a "head-start."

When I was young, I was told that study provided one way to contest the circumstances of one's birth. That's probably true, but at that time private tutorials and "head-starts" were unheard of. When study performance becomes hinged on private tutorials, it is more about money, about prenatal reincarnation into distinct socio-economic classes.

But I find more deplorable the sheer waste of human life — of childhood years that could be better spent shouting in the play ground, in standing and staring, in fighting each other on the streets, or in reading books of one's own choice.