Where Are All The Children In Bangkok?

[Livinginexile]

Walking around Bangkok pushing my 3 year old son around in his pram I can't help but notice almost ZERO Thai kids about under say 5 years old.

Now I realise most Thai's in Bangkok working from the country areas leave their kids with relatives in the villages, but what about the Bangkokites?

I mean seriously, I get around Bangkok a lot and it is very rare you see a family out and about with their toddlers! Sometimes on weekends you may see a few...but not many, maybe in a shopping centre somewhere but that's it!

My wife tells me that they are all at home all day, locked up untill they are old enough to go to school. She says it is a Chinese thing!! is this right?

I lived and worked in Saigon for a few years and the kids are everywhere.

So where are they? are they really locked inside for the first 5 years?

[phaethon]

Speaking to a lady just today who has a 3-year-old. She mentioned he wanted a water pistol and I asked if she would take him out somewhere to see some Songkran water fun, but she said the old lady (not a relative) who looks after him while she's at work "won't let" her take him anywhere far from home.

[MidoriApple]

My little monkeys (4y/o niece and 5y/o nephew) are forced to help doing houseworks at home... they are performing slaves...

Nahh..of course..joke...though they are petit but so powerful !!!

I agree with your wife.... I think Thai parents are quite too careful of little kids to get sunny hot weather, pollution's, bad people contacting..

also too worry preparing their own little kids to be ready to school, provide them so many activities.. Karate, Ballet, Art, Aikido, Swimming...

Don't you have to be busy get your son ready to do modelling since he is look-kreung?

Also...a so modern-trend for career woman (that's me !!) avoid marriage and having kids...

(I am exaggerated.... I want to get married,a actually... but..waaa...)

[PattayaParent]

Simple.

The kids are at home with the nanny / maid while the parents are out shopping.

[harrry]

After returning from an absence of 30 years from Thailand I was asking the same question about the whole of Thailand. When my daughter was little here there were allways lots of kids for her to play with and was never alone. Now you have the same situation as in Australia where the young son of the condo receptionist has to come and sit and watch TV all day at her work for the whole of the school holidays. It makes me sad to see this as it was one of my enduring memories of Thailand how much the kids were part of it.

[G54]

Not just in BKK.

Up here you rarely see children out 'playing' and I live in a quiet area. Odd times you see them out in the street with a grandfather/mother playing with a ball.

Shops and markets you rarely see that many kids considering how many there must be.

Seems more akin to a prison sentence than anything as they do seem to be kept indoors for whatever reason.

[mrt273nva]

They are all at YoYo Land. I was there last week with my son and it is crowded with little kids.

[Steele404]

It's a hidden secret

When I was younger myself in Thailand... You don't usually bump into another 5 year old

or younger just like that. You need family introduction first, like if my parents know their

parents or a friend of someone.

Then I would hang around their only in their house or vice versa. Usually the kids would live

in town houses or guarded communities (like a village house).

It's still fun though, I mean, it's not like they are being held captive, they are just locked naturally

within hidden boundaries.

[Pushit]

All to many kidnap gangs cruising around in vans looking for kids to sell. A lot of kids disappear this way.

[dominique355]

I don't know where in Bangkok you have been looking around, but in the Soi where I am living, there is plenty of small kids and when our kids come home from school the party starts. Every day we have between 5 and 10 kids in our house and garden in the age range of 4 to 10. Some kids are too shy to come inside, in some cases I guess the parents don't allow them, but we have a lot of kids around our house.

Thai kids have their vacation now and our kids, who go to an International school also have 2 weeks off. So it's a bit quiet right now. Most went to see the family up country and will be back by Wednesday.

But in a few days all will be back to normal.

So don't worry, Thais are not becoming extinct.

[think_too_mut]

Walking around Bangkok pushing my 3 year old son around in his pram I can't help but notice almost ZERO Thai kids about under say 5 years old.

Now I realise most Thai's in Bangkok working from the country areas leave their kids with relatives in the villages, but what about the Bangkokites?

I mean seriously, I get around Bangkok a lot and it is very rare you see a family out and about with their toddlers! Sometimes on weekends you may see a few...but not many, maybe in a shopping centre somewhere but that's it!

My wife tells me that they are all at home all day, locked up untill they are old enough to go to school. She says it is a Chinese thing!! is this right?

I lived and worked in Saigon for a few years and the kids are everywhere.

So where are they? are they really locked inside for the first 5 years?

They are at school, 3 years +.

Those who can not afford (private schooling, however cheap it may be), just carry them around wherever they go.

Crazy driving and motorbikes make parents worried and they rather keep the kids at home.

Do people in the West let their toddlers roam the streets?

In addition, farang places do not attract many Thai family people, that could be yet another reason.

Upcountry, other than small kids with their idling mothers, hardly any other to see weekdays, school hours.

If the mothers have a foodstall or a stand in the market, the kids are there.

[think_too_mut]

Walking around Bangkok pushing my 3 year old son around in his pram I can't help but notice almost ZERO Thai kids about under say 5 years old.

Just to acknowledge movement of this topic - for my countryman - I can say - my place at Victoria Street , Potts Point, Sydney, has 3 x 176 condos and probably 3-4 kids althogether. No elementary schools, expensive kindergardens, people in Sydney rearing kids do not settle into that (premium) area with their families.

I wonder if I have ever saw any kids there, any time, even after school hours.

Across the road is some high school, but those students come from elsewhere and don't dwell more that 10-15 mins.

[kannon99]

All to many kidnap gangs cruising around in vans looking for kids to sell. A lot of kids disappear this way.

I've recently heard this from a Thai friend here. Where can I read more about this? Where did you get your information?

[kalaminsa]

At home watching Tv.

[VitalGirl]

Walking around Bangkok pushing my 3 year old son around in his pram I can't help but notice almost ZERO Thai kids about under say 5 years old.

Now I realise most Thai's in Bangkok working from the country areas leave their kids with relatives in the villages, but what about the Bangkokites?

I mean seriously, I get around Bangkok a lot and it is very rare you see a family out and about with their toddlers! Sometimes on weekends you may see a few...but not many, maybe in a shopping centre somewhere but that's it!

My wife tells me that they are all at home all day, locked up untill they are old enough to go to school. She says it is a Chinese thing!! is this right?

I lived and worked in Saigon for a few years and the kids are everywhere.

So where are they? are they really locked inside for the first 5 years?

Most "regular" Thais who can't afford a private school put their kids in a government school - they will mostly take the kids form age 2 and Thais think this is normal and good. We were regularly chastised by Thai people for not putting our little one into kindergarten till she was 3! And let's face it, BKK is NOT an easy place to stroll anytime, let alone with little ones!

[Raesum]

Two of my nieces here in Bangkok have each got 18 month olds.

In both cases the grandparents look after the children.These children rarely go out.If the grandparents go out its usually just one of them so the other one looks after the child.As for the parents-they work.When they go out shopping they certainly don't take their child with them!There doesn't seem to be a social network where,say, friends come around for coffee with their children so the kids can mix and play

[Texpat]

Somebody's cruising the sois in a caged-up Vigo, trading them for plastic buckets.

Ice cream, Lolipops, chocolates, it's all free!

[coventry]

All to many kidnap gangs cruising around in vans looking for kids to sell. A lot of kids disappear this way.

It happens in the rural areas also.

[scorecard]

1. Please take the comments about kidnap seriously. We watch our four year old girl like a hawk. One staff member in my office has had a kidnap case in distant family, 4 year old girl, taken about 3 years ago, no trace, police have apparently never taken much action.

2. There have been some long-term professional research studies re the effect on children sent upcountry for the grand-parents to raise.

- The overall findings regarding the long-term effect on the children are pretty negative.

- Longer-term the evidence is that children brought up in this process become poor parents themselves, often because they have no role model of what a typical mother / father does.

- Educational achievement also suffers, for many reasons, often because schools up-country lacking in quality of teaching, resources, etc. Also because many grand-parents have little to zero understanding of what the childen do at school, are simply unable to assist with homework/ reinforce lessons /reinforce the importance of education (I have seen one example of this in my extended family. Grand-mother doesn't take/send the children to school (3 kilometres away from the house) because "children just go to school to play, they can do the same thing at home, free". Result is two kide now 8 and 9 nine years old, can't read either Thai or English, can't do very basic arithmatic, and have become isolated from other village children beacuse they are so embarrased when they see the other children reading etc.)

- The research also looked at the parents and it shows that many parents who despatch their babies are slow to develop full adult maturity.

- High rate of cases where parents have stopped sending money home for child / education support.

- Also, poor to very poor bonds with the actual parents and there are trends showing that at least 50% of children raised in these circumstances become too independant (nobody takes care of me, so I learn to take care of everything myself, often at a very young age).

[oldsparrow]

I have been grown up in BKK.

Except at the park in the evening outdoor BKK is too hot/wet/dusty so departmentstores are city park. If you go to any big ones you will see so many babies. I think many more babies are out in town now, before the late '80 there was no baby cart sell in Thailand. Last year when my relative's baby was 6 months, she had been shopping at many malls