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When my son was not quite half a year old, I received a curious (tò mò) telemarketing call. The person on the other end of the line was selling classes for teaching infants how to crawl (bò, trườn). Stressing the importance of crawling early for an infant’s brain development (phát triển trí não), she proudly informed me that every child in their program — which cost 10,000 yuan ($1,400) — had learned the skill within two months of starting class.

As someone with a Ph.D. in child development and education, I felt confident passing on the opportunity — children naturally learn to crawl between five and nine months of age. But the calls kept coming. In the two years since, I’ve fielded calls selling classes on everything from swimming to “sensory integration therapy” and even a compliance class.

Chinese parents take their children’s educations seriously. For all the public anxiety about “involution,” (sự dính dáng, sự mắc míu; điều rắc rối, điều phức tạp) “chicken blood” parenting (quá sốt sắng với thành công của con cái), and black-market tutoring, the market for educational services remains huge. But there’s a big gap between an afterschool tutoring class and one claiming to teach infants how to crawl.

Bài trước: Coi trọng vai trò giáo dục của gia đình trong xã hội hiện đại