It’s a tough job being the parents of China’s “little emperors”, the sons and daughters of China’s one-child families. No one understands this better than the parents who just sent their children off to the Shenyang Aerospace University in China’s northeastern Liaoning Province before the start of the new semester.

After labouring all day, lugging heavy luggage that their precious little emperors were too cool to carry, the parents who weren’t able to book return tickets back home curled up on sleeping mats and slept through the night on the floor in the university’s stadium on August 30, China News reported.

According to the university, more than 400 sleeping mats were distributed to parents to temporarily accommodate them in the stadium. From the images shown in the report, parents were scattered around the floor, using their backpacks or bags as pillows.

The story has drawn a lot of sympathy online; most empathize with parents’ willingness to sacrifice for their children, quoting the Chinese phrase “nothing is as touching as parents’ love (可怜天下父母心)”.

But for the little emperors sleeping soundly in their comfortable beds, the phrase might be something they fail to fully comprehend.

Photos: CFP