As the plane started to roll down the runway in Portland, I felt the tug at my heartstrings and the tears came pouring out. My seat-mate for the 10 and a half hour flight to Tokyo, a pretty and petite Chinese woman, turned to me and asked if I was okay. I nodded and tried to explain through my tears that I was leaving my eldest daughter there to attend college, and that it was just hard for me, as she was my first to leave the nest. She gently patted my forearm and said she could understand, because her son was three years old and this business trip was her first time away from him. I told her not to blink, because before she knew it, she would be taking him to college.

When I calmed down, we started to talk. I had read articles about how China’s one-child policy was producing an entire generation of very self-centered men, but this woman’s story confirmed that fact firsthand.

She had married a successful businessman, in part because he had an older sister. An only child herself, she liked the fact that he came from a larger family. She is a college graduate and works for a large exercise equipment company. In China, boys are prized much more than girls, apparently because they carry on the family name. So you would think that her husband would be deliriously happy with his young, attractive wife who is gainfully employed and has produced a son for him to boot. Not so.

She opened up about how her husband just does not engage with her or their son. I asked her if she had tried all the tricks – get him involved in building things with his son, or reading books to him at night – you know – daddy’s special time with his boy, but she just shook her head. Apparently, hubby is not interested in any of that. He spends a lot of time on the computer, and according to her, no matter what she does, it’s not enough. She says that he is very spoiled by his mother and sister. I guess when you have been waited on hand and foot for your entire life within your own family unit, you would probably expect your wife to do the same.

The problem seems to be that the generation of women that corresponds to these spoiled Chinese men has to go out and get an education to support their aging parents. Many of them are also only children because the financial and economic penalty for having more than one child in China is huge (she explained that if you work for the government, you can lose your job). Educated women tend to look at marriage as more of a partnership. Or at least they want to engage in some conversation with their husbands once in a while.

Divorce for her is out of the question, because her husband would never leave his son, even though she says he doesn’t pay him much attention. “At least I have my baby,” she said to me. He makes her extremely happy, but she is worried about him growing up to be like his father. Her parents, who are in their 70’s, dote on him, as do her in-laws. She already sees the effect. He doesn’t know how to share, even though he goes to pre-school. If he wants something, he just takes it. She is thinking of putting him in a special boarding school during the week because that is supposed to help this upcoming generation of sibling-less children to not grow up to be so self-centered. I could only reply that I thought it would be very difficult for her to leave him all week, but she feels like it is the only way.

As we each settled in for a nap at one point in the flight, I couldn’t help thinking about how people affect each other’s lives. She started out comforting me, but she was really the one who needed the shoulder to cry on.

I though about how lucky I am in my own relationship. My better half’s faults are miniscule compared to those of her husband. Taking off his socks inside out and leaving them in the bottom of his closet, and every time he gets a new shirt, getting motor oil or fish blood on it are minor irritations compared to what she has to deal with. Then I thought about women in worse situations: Afghanistan, where women are imprisoned in burqas and men are legally allowed to beat their wives; or places in Africa where female genital mutilation is still the order of the day.

I take my daughter to college, and I am the one who learns.