Family matters in China: Six children in Shanghai — and loving it
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SHANGHAI, CHINA
"One big, happy family" aptly describes the Gregory and Tracey Butters family — big as in one of the biggest families residing in the largest city in the world's most populous country, and happy to be among fellow expatriate Church members in the People's Republic of China.
The Butterses total eight — including Harrison, age 12; Benjamin, 11; Edison, 8; Molly, 7; Oscar, 4; and Dorothy, 2. Understandably, a number of families worldwide can top that count — some doubling it or more.
But the Butterses are Americans living in China, where the norm for a Chinese family is a single child. And in their half-dozen years in Shanghai, they've found one family larger — a Catholic family from the United States with seven children participating in their local Cub Scout pack.
Members of the Pudong Branch of the Shanghai China International District, the Butterses are a rarity among Church members holding foreign passports and comprising the Church's 11 international branches. Few LDS families — and even fewer with such a large number of young children — spend more than a couple of years in China before returning home.
The Butterses' China adventures began before the children arrived, with Brother and Sister Butters — both BYU law school graduates — working in the legal profession in Southern California.
"We looked at each other across the table one day and said, 'We're not having fun,' " he recalled.
Joining the BYU Kennedy Center's China Teachers Program in 1994, the Butterses — a contrast to the workforce of individuals and couples twice their age — went from enjoying a pair of lawyer incomes to earning $180 a month teaching English in Qingdao.
"Yet it was the best year of our life," Brother Butters said.
Added Sister Butters: "It changes your definitions of what your needs are and what your wants are."
They returned to work in Beijing the following year. After a two-year break back in the States, then came the children — three born in the U.S., the other three in China. After being based in Beijing since 1998, the family moved to Shanghai in 2002.
The children consider China home, enjoying the usual Church meetings, activities, ordinances and ordinations over the years as well as international school classes and extra-curricular activities. They relish the diversity of growing up in a foreign country and mingling with various cultures and backgrounds at schools and Church.
With their six children in tow, Brother and Sister Butters have learned to smile at the various reactions from the Chinese over the years — a common comment to Sister Butters being "you must be tired."
Whether it be an incredulous passerby needing to touch Harrison's bright-red hair, a fellow bus passenger patting Dorothy's porcelain-colored cheek or anyone gawking at six children piling into the family van, the Butterses realize their family collectively and their children individually are a matter of curiosity and interest.
In Chinese society, parenting can be time-consuming, with considerable focus given on the one child and his or her development. Chinese parents give that individual attention with care and abundance, doting on their child in parks, at shopping malls and in the home.
"With six, we're very past that," said Sister Butters, mindful of the challenges of one-on-one interactions. "There's a lot of independence."
That independence ranges from letting the younger children feed themselves at the table of the family's favorite local restaurant to giving the older boys free rein of the camcorder to document the family's regular "day adventures."
There are some things the family misses in Shanghai — affordable chocolate chips and Reese's peanut-butter cups are high on everyone's wish lists.
"Really, our kids don't know what to miss — this is home," said Brother Butters, as both he and his wife agree that the family is staying in China as much for the children's opportunities and benefits as for his current employment. "We'll stay as long as it's not a disadvantage for them."
