NANNING, May 29  -- Two days till Children's Day, and Pan Wenfeng still doesn't know what to buy for his six-year-old daughter.

Snacks, toys and dresses are nothing special. A trip to the zoo or cinema is a weekly occurrence. The only thing she truly enjoys is playing with her friends from kindergarten. "They can play until bedtime and it feels cruel to separate them," said Pan.

Pan knows all too well that in most urban families children's material needs are well met. What kids really want is a companion. He and his wife Li Xuehong have vacillated for years over a second child.

Both are single children themselves, born in the late 1970s, just as family planning policy limited most urban families to one child.

Pan, 35, claims he had no childhood: "My parents were government employees and were often posted to different places. We moved from one city to another. I had barely made new friends when we moved again."

He spent his early years in solitude. "I read to myself and watched TV alone, and I became quite independent and self-centered."

After he was married, he faced a crisis of egoism. Li is an only child too, and the center of her family. "She was so spoiled that she came to the table only after her parents had set the table and served her helping of food," said Pan.

Li's parents insisted the couple live with them, saying they were still young and ignorant. The elderly couple also took care of their daughter, while Pan and Li often quarreled over such trifles as who was to clean the floor or wash the dishes. They played stone, paper, scissors to decide who would keep an eye on the child and who would play computer games.

Pan works for a busy animal feed supplier in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He took it for granted that his wife, a government employee, was less stressed at work and would take on a bigger share of the housework. When he got home at the end of the day, Li would stare at him and say: "Don't give me that 'I'm too tired from work to do the cooking' look."

Pan and Li know their daughter needs a sibling. "I don't want my daughter to grow up alone like me, under the watchful eyes and high expectations of my parents, with no companion and no fun. I never even even played house, you know," said Li.

When she was a teenager, Li dreamed of the countryside. "I wanted to be a rural school teacher, but my parents insisted I attend university, major in accounting and get a stable job near my home."

Li feels her dreams were strangled by her parents. "With a brother or sister, things would have been different."

They dread the burden that a second child would bring. Their parents are getting too old to babysit, and with a combined monthly income of only 8,000 yuan, raising two children may be beyond their means.

"Living expenses are not too high in Nanning, but as our daughter comes of school age, there will be English and dance classes, which cost about one fifth of our income," said Li.

Staggering home prices, educations costs and medical expenses are major obstacles for couples who wish to have a second child, said Zhang Chewei of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics. "Besides the financial pressure, couples may be stressed out physically and mentally, with four ageing parents and two children to care for," said Zhang.