How absurd it is to see little children, aged not much more than 5 or 6, being treated as miniature adults. That is a common sight here in Hong Kong. Of course, everyone must respect the rights of children - but this is not about rights. These recent local experiences will give you a taste of what I mean.

A family of three, the two parents and a 6-year-old, are sitting on a crowded MTR train. There are no free seats, and many adults are standing - but little Johnny has got a seat to himself, and is in fact kneeling on it, with his dirty shoes soiling the seat. An especially old man boards the carriage, bent and leaning heavily on his stick. Father says to little Johnny: "Do you want to let that old man sit down here?" When little Johnny refuses, the old man moves away. He is eventually offered a seat by a middle-aged woman, who then remains standing for the remainder of the journey, while the child is seated. This is not right. It is the parents who should have had the courtesy to move their small child to a parental lap in the first place, when the train became crowded. Allowing small children their own seats while adults are standing is unacceptable - and will only encourage their precious little ones in the wrong direction.

Then there are the parents who feed their own vanity by buying the latest fashionable outfits for very young children - tiny versions of designer-style jeans and the like. It is a common sight to see a pre-school child with an adult bob haircut, a Mohican, or a pigtail. These are all patently absurd, in that the child (who is too young to decide such things for himself) is used rather like a doll, to be dressed up as a miniature adult at the whim of his doting parents.

Arriving to stay with friends at their country house in Europe recently, I was taken aback to be informed on arrival that their daughter, aged 5, would be the one to choose which bedroom I was to occupy (there were many). To task such a young child with decision-making, when the child is not yet old enough to possess the required level of judgment to make such a decision, is inappropriate.

At an outdoor restaurant the other day, a child of about 7 was sitting in between his parents. He was tasked with choosing the food and drink for all three of them, which he did. On the other hand, however doting this particular couple is, their queer priority is likely to kill their little emperor prematurely: Each was smoking a cigarette, inches from the child's head the whole time!

There was the case a while back of local parents, who left it to their 3-year-old daughter, to decide for them whether she wanted to have a sibling. Having declined, they followed her instructions. Don't such parents realize that a child of 3 is far from mature enough to make a sensible decision of such great importance? The infant's views might well be taken into consideration, but taken with a large dose of salt - as the toddler's opinion is likely to change on a whim. Surely the infant's preference should not be the decisive factor for the parents to take into account.

Pushing a very young child to take adult decisions is unfair to that child. Rather than deriving some benefit from such gross indulgence, the child may even grow up to be more self-centered, if not egotistic, since he has the experience of making decisions well beyond his true competence.

The only child is too often treated as a third adult, by the parents. Unless it is lucky enough to have much contact with the offspring of other families, it will interact more often with adults than with other children. This is not healthy: The child misses out on its own childhood, being treated as a miniature adult by its doting parents.

And of course the little emperor syndrome is a well-known phenomenon, where the only child is ruined by the wrong type of adult attention. All parents want what is best for their child. There is nothing wrong with that. But here in Hong Kong, of the very few children being born (we have one of the lowest birth rates in the entire World), most will end up as an only child.

So let's give children the chance to enjoy a carefree childhood, and let the parents decide what is best for their offspring. They may not always make the right decisions, as the examples quoted above will indicate. But at least there is a stronger chance of someone of 24 making a better decision than a tiny tot of 4!

By all means let children choose which flavor of ice-cream they would like, and so on. But delegating important decisions to the smallest members of our community is certainly not in the interests of everybody else. A growing child needs the security that only comes from having decisions made for him, rather than by him. Mummy really should know best.

The author is a Hong Kong-based university lecturer and commentator, who was raised in England.

(HK Edition 08/07/2014 page9)