BEIJING - Since the 1980s, grandparents in China had to grudgingly accept that there'd be only one grandchild. Now they have hope of expanding their family trees despite the possible reluctance of their children.

The country's population-control policies have been relaxed in recent years, but the current generation of parents, who were born during the "single-child" era, are not embracing the changing policies.

Li Kuan has a four-year-old son, and now he and his wife are planning to have another baby -- not of their own wishes, just because his parents demand it.

"We have to obey my parents as they want so much to have one more grandchild," said Li, who lives in Harbin, capital city of northeastern Heilongjiang province.

"They promise they will take care of everything after we have one more baby," Li said, adding that simply raising their first child was exhausting for him and his wife.

The couple was born during the 1980s when the country practiced family planning -- ordering each family to have only one child -- amid the pressures of a rapidly expanding population.

The single-child policy jolted the older generations who had grown up in a culture that equated more offspring with more bliss.

But hope emerged around 2000 when local governments began to allow an additional child for parents who both came from single-child families.

Today, all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland have loosened their policies. The last province to do so is also the most populous, Henan, which announced Friday it will allow parents from single-child families to have another child.

Grandparents have celebrated the news, yet the reaction of some young parents has been tepid.

According to a survey in August by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the Women's Federation of Shanghai Municipality, 45 percent of Shanghai families have decided not to have a second child because of the significant costs.

The survey, which covered 2,000 respondents, showed that a family from Shanghai spent nearly 100,000 yuan ($15,69) on average to raise a child from pregnancy to age 12.

Nearly ten percent of the respondents spent over half of their family income on children, according to the survey.

Yuan Ming, a mother of a ten-month-old in Harbin, has to rely on financial assistance from her parents and in-laws, as milk powder, diapers and babysitting cost nearly 3,000 yuan per month.

"For me and my husband, one more child is a luxury. One is already enough," said Yuan.

Apart from the economic burden, Yuan also complains that parenting occupies too much of her time and demands too much energy. "My life is all about my son now. It's hard to imagine how I could survive if I had another child," she said.

Dong Hongyang, a researcher with Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said young couples who are single children themselves are more self-centered and don't like to be overburdened with parenting.

"They tend to find themselves under greater pressure than their parents used to be as they try to provide a high-quality life and education to their own children."