My wife and I were married in 1997, with a son and a daughter, the eldest son, who has been married for two years, and our grandson was born again in October last year. Daughter, who graduated from college last year, talked about a boyfriend, but is not yet married. Plus, my father and mother, so our family is now not only a family of eight, but also a veritable four-generation family.
But please don't misunderstand what I mean, I don't have any intention of showing off here, but I want to talk to you about my sour, sweet, bitter and bitter experience along the way as a person who has come here.
Of course, as a post-70s, grandfather, first of all, I must admit that my age is still relatively old, and it does not represent the mainstream of society, although there is no machismo, but the thinking is still a little biased towards tradition.
Therefore, here, it is necessary for me to make a statement in advance, the views I have expressed today can only represent me personally, and I do not expect everyone to accept it, but if it is possible, I still hope to be able to arouse everyone's discussion and attention as a reasonable voice.
First of all, I think that at least 2,000 years of Chinese culture has existed based on family culture for at least 2,000 years. Therefore, I especially agree with one of Teacher Wei Lan's views: In fact, China's family culture, from a certain point of view, is the greatest productive force of China's social development!
It is precisely for this reason that the Party Central Committee and state leaders also attach great importance to the construction of our people's family style. Why? Because the foundation of our society is in the family. As long as we build the family well, no matter how big the social problems are, they will become very small. At the same time, even the smallest progress and goodness will be accumulated into a majestic force in society.
Secondly, based on my decades of observation and my own personal life experience, I feel that a truly happy family is that two generations or mother-in-law and daughter-in-law live together, and can cooperate and coexist harmoniously with each other.
I know that when I say this, many people will object, at least the common contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is a big practical obstacle. Moreover, the discord between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law has long formed an unquestionable social consensus, and even with the development of society, people are more and more tolerant and pluralistic to look at and accept this problem.
I certainly wouldn't object to that. But I still need to emphasize that those children and parents live separately, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law live separately, no matter how comfortable and beautiful they seem to be living, in fact, it is difficult to have true happiness. Or, just a kind of happiness that falls back.
Because the concept of home is indifferent, the heart is not so full, the two generations do not have good mutual assistance and division of labor, and even many important practical problems cannot be well solved, including the increasingly important social pension problems and children's education problems, and so on.
That is, on the one hand, children will because there is no old man with children, no one to help with housework, a busy day every day, back home or cold pot cold stove, so that there is no more time and energy to work, and educate their next generation. Moreover, no matter how much money they can actually make, the family effectiveness they can really produce is significantly reduced, and the internal friction generated is not only economic, but also time and mental.
On the other hand, the elderly living alone for a long time will also be extremely lonely, empty nest elderly, and a series of pension problems. Although for some children who are not conditional to be together because their children are going to work abroad, it is naturally another matter, but it is obvious that their parents are alive, but because of the artificial contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and other internal contradictions in the family, they cannot live together and realize an effective division of labor within the family.
I have also seen views and articles on the Internet before, and some people have listed this aspect of the data, saying that the loss and waste of this piece alone accounts for at least more than 40% of a household and a country's GDP (the specific figures and contents I can't remember).
Therefore, because of family conflicts, or the most important mother-in-law contradictions, the two generations cannot live together, which is really an objective loss in the subjective sense, whether we admit it or not, but it really greatly reduces our objective feelings about happiness.
From this point of view, although two generations living together is not necessarily suitable for most families, and even according to this trend, it is increasingly unsuitable for future families, as long as the conditions are available, it is still obvious that two generations or mother-in-law and daughter-in-law can live together, but it is still obviously more happy than those who live separately.
Taking a step back, it may be easier to live separately to make more small families happy, but it is also happiness, and the happiness of the former and the latter is certainly an order of magnitude difference.
Take our family, with my son and daughter-in-law as the main body. My daughter-in-law has told her own mother many times that she feels that the most correct choice in her life is to choose a family like ours, to choose a family that is old and young, and can get along so well.
Why does she feel this way? The reason is very simple, because the difficulties that those who are her age have to bear and should encounter are not difficult for her. For example, eating problems, housework problems and childbirth problems, and even financial pressure problems will make her have no more pressure because of the existence of our big family.
On the other hand, my parents felt the same way. Take the feelings of my nearly 80-year-old father, who is also a pension, and his cousins and other old friends who are still alive can hardly find a person like him and my mother, who has children and grandchildren around their knees, sharing the world, having fun in old age, and still having a high quality of life.
My mother has a cousin, my name is cousin, 72 years old this year, has been a teacher for a lifetime, in our hometown is a well-known person, gave birth to a son and a daughter, both of them were admitted to prestigious universities, of which the son is the doctoral supervisor of Beihang Airlines, and then his own retirement salary is also particularly high, but his son and daughter, but often two or three years to come back once, grandson he has only met a few times.
Then, his wife was paralyzed in bed five years ago, never being well cared for, and finally died so "naturally". Now he is the only one left, his health is also very bad, every time I accompany my mother to see him, he is holding our hands and not letting go, the expression in the eyes, really can't bear to look at it directly.
But no way, this is real life, the real difference between him and my parents. In fact, my mother had a cerebral infarction as early as 10 years ago, just because she found it in time, and then my wife was more filial and took good care of her, so instead of being more serious, now walking and living independently are not a big problem.
Therefore, we are a big family living together, if it is difficult, at present, it is more difficult for me and my wife, there are old people, there are young people, and every day is very hard.
However, speaking from the heart, we still feel that it is worth it. Because they are all our dearest people, who gave birth to me and raised me, who I raised and what I expect, there is nothing to suffer, at least we can see the future.
I believe that when I am old, my children and juniors will certainly be filial to me as I do to my parents today. Instead of waiting for old age, the body can no longer move, but also to live alone, or to be sent to a nursing home, or even dead body rot, no one knows.
Isn't that how people come from generation to generation? How nice it is for a family to live together, to help each other, to keep the whole family running, to make everyone feel good about their own value and security! I would like to ask, what in the world is happier than this?