In the blink of an eye, it's time for the Post-90s to start worrying about their parents' retirement, not to mention the Post-70s and Post-80s, who have to support their parents as well as start thinking about how to support themselves.
The oldest of the post-90s is already 27 years old, and their parents have also reached the age of 50+ or 60+, in which they have already faced or will soon face the "421" (three generations under the same roof), "2421" or even "4421" (three generations under the same roof). "4421" (four generations under the same roof) family structure, old age is a big problem.
This is also the reason why the program "Odd Man Out" made people in the audience "cry like ghosts" (in the words of the host Ma Dong) and the viewers in front of the screen cry like ghosts when discussing whether or not they should send their parents to a nursing home. Because there were so many heart-stopping points.
For example, Huang Jizhong said that we are not very good at communicating with our parents, and parents are not very good at communicating with their children. We don't have the habit of telling the truth, we are all being polite, polite to strangers and polite to our parents.
Marvell said: "When I was a child, I asked myself to be the best child; when I was a parent, I asked myself to be the best parent. So I will never expect my parents to do anything for me when I am a son or daughter."
A statistic quoted by Zhang Quanling: by 2030, 90 percent of the elderly in China will be empty nesters. By then, more than 200 million elderly people will die alone.
The problem is that as long as you are a child, and as long as you love your parents, you can't help but reflect: am I good enough as a child? What should I do as a child to be qualified?
The problem of children is actually the problem of parents
In his Letter to My Daughter, Wang Shuo wrote: "I don't remember loving my parents. When I was small, I was afraid of them; when I was a little older, I began to annoy them; then I was a pinhead, and I quarreled when I met them; then I couldn't look down on them, and I avoided them; on the one hand, I felt that I had a responsibility to them, and that I should be nicer to them, but I just couldn't do it, and I couldn't pretend to be nice to them; and then I was sad in my heart as soon as I thought of them."
This is how the generation represented by Wang Shuo views and feels about their parents.
Wang Shuo's first impression of his father was one of fear -- he and his older brother lived in a nursery from the age of one and a half, returning home once a fortnight or once a month until they left the nursery at the age of 10. When they returned home, Wang Shuo still lived with his brother on his own, eating in the cafeteria with the key around his neck and hardly ever seeing his parents. His father, too, almost never expressed paternal love, and the way he occasionally showed it was by going to the window of the nursery to watch his sons after dinner from work, and once, when he saw that an aunt was not feeding Wang Shuo, he rushed in and made a scene.
Wang Shuo's feelings toward his mother were more complicated. In A Letter to My Daughter, he writes of an argument with his mother in which he asked her, "Have you ever been nice to me? When I needed someone to be nice to me the most, where were you?" His mother calmly said, "You were in the nursery." Wang Shuo was saddened and said, "Parents are just like teachers, so what do you need parents for?" He didn't know if he could trust his mother, let alone mention love - that was beyond her understanding, "She only recognized right and wrong, and by her standards, to have a child always right was her love."
In 2007, Wang Shuo took his then 79-year-old mother on the program "Psychological Interviews", where he asked his mother this question again: "Mom, do you love me?" This time his mother replied, "Of course I love you." Wang Shuo asked, "If I were a wanted criminal, a rapist, or a counter-revolutionary, would you still love me?" His mother was dumbfounded. Program guest Li Zixun said to Wang Shuo's mother, "He's actually asking you, is your love for your son gratuitous?" Parents are insecure and subconsciously pass on their fears to their children; family relationships are broken and everyone is still acting out. By the time Wang Shuo became a father himself and had a daughter, he was unwilling to replicate his parents' indifference to him, and was overly enthusiastic about his daughter, "You know why I loved to hug and kiss you when you were little, and always kissed you with drool on your face? I'm afraid you get skin hunger, get this disease grows up with the manifestation of indifference and shyness, afraid of intimate touch with others"
Cruel parent-child relationship
As Jiang Fangzhou said, "most of the relationship between parents and their children is very cruel". the problem of the post-50s and post-60s is the lack of love. Parents are mostly cold or reserved, not good at expressing love; while in the 70s and 80s, the problem can be drowning, with parents overflowing with suffocating love.
The author Green Demon's short story "Nezha, the Young Girl" describes a young girl who "wishes she were an orphan, fatherless and motherless, and owed no one any love. The girl, Wang Xiaobing, has a single mother, who on the surface appears to be an ideal mother - "civilized like the mothers in TV dramas, never shouting" - but Wang Xiaobing does not want to be her mother's only goal in life: her mother is always spying on her, wanting to know what she is thinking, even in the shower, and she does not know what she is thinking. know what she was thinking, even in the shower, making sure to rub her back.
Wang Xiaobing went on to attend medical school, where her mother spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to find her a job. Wang Xiaobing secretly took the self-test and got into a medical university, not choosing the path her mother had paved. Her mother was so angry that she put her under house arrest and called three uncles to come together to criticize her. What her mother didn't understand was why her daughter had to leave herself, so mercilessly, like an enemy. Later, Wang Xiaobing kept running away, "she was like Nezha, picking out her bones and returning them to her mother, completely birthing herself."
Toward the end of the story, Wang Xiaobing's best friend, Li Xiaolu, meets Xiaobing's mother when she returns to her hometown, and is called to Wang's house as a guest. Xiaobing's mother showed the dowry she had prepared for her daughter: "Look, this red color, now I can't find such a positive red, this is the quilt cover for her wedding ...... I even have the child's clothes from one year old to three years old, bibs, cotton-padded jackets, and shoes are ready, one for the boy, and one for the girl, and as long as she gives birth to a child. Everything is ready-made, and nothing is necessary for her to worry about." Seeing this scene, most people will have a cold heart and numb scalp.
Why can't you tell your parents plainly what you are thinking and what you don't want? As Deacon Huang said in the program, in the Oriental parent-child relationship, there is just no way to do a good job of communicating. When it comes to affection, both parents and children can't be rational. Both sides have scruples and feel the need to think about each other. Both sides are sincere, but the result is that two hearts can never come together.
The new era of "raising children to prevent them from growing old"
Some psychologists say that Chinese parents and children are accustomed to a mode of coexistence based on filial piety and a hierarchical system, which is no longer applicable in today's environment. The younger generation is better adapted to the modern world, and their relationship with their parents needs to change accordingly.
Just as writer Yang Zhao understands "raising children to protect them from old age" -- "young people turn around and protect their parents, so that they don't get eroded by time and forget or lose themselves, and that's what 'raising children to protect old age' is all about. In the past, it was the parents who led their children to learn how to walk and taught them how to behave; now, as the parents become older and weaker, and show fear and overwhelm to the new changes of the times (which will lead them to become stubborn), it is the children's turn to lead them and help them to adapt to the new changes. changes.
For example, parents urge their children to get married and have babies, more because they feel the pressure from their circle of friends. As children, one would think that there is nothing to worry about. But it's not realistic to let your parents give up the circle of friends they've been with all their lives, and we all know what it's like to be isolated. So, why don't you use the strategy of "saving the day" and help your parents develop a new circle of friends, such as other people who are anxious about their children's marriages, so that they can find the same way.
Then again, what about the parents' addiction to square dancing? It's a matter of self-worth and life goal realization, and they need to find their meaning of living in square dancing. Then, we need to help them develop opportunities and ways to realize their personal values - how about joining an old people's symphony orchestra?In the Japanese movie "Old People's Symphony Orchestra," released in 2016, the old people who initially played the "Mighty Hall March" disastrously have a great dream: to go to a concert hall to They have a great dream: to go to a concert hall and play it in a dignified manner. It is their spirit of defying old age and not admitting defeat that impresses the audience.
As children, this is what we should do. I hope everyone will never have the chance to say with regret, "As a child, I'm sorry." By Samantha Tan