He Zeng, former media person
The Spring Festival is coming.
Lu Yonghao had not seen his wife for a long time.
After graduating from college, the son and daughter both stayed in Shanghai, and the wife rushed over to help with the baby, and in the blink of an eye, the two had been separated for seven or eight years. The last time my wife came home was three years ago.
"She can't come back, she can't go — she's busy, I'm helping the old." Lu Yonghao looked helpless.
Lu Yonghao is an authentic Henan farmer, but his family has made many villagers envious - two children are more contentious than each other, and they have taken root in big cities; the old father once participated in the War of Aid to Korea, retired from the army in the 1950s and returned to his hometown, and now with a monthly preferential care of more than 1,000 yuan, the village can hardly find a second old man, can enjoy such a high treatment.
"There is an old family, such as a treasure." Whenever leaders at the city, district, and other levels visited the door to visit and offer condolences on new year's day, Lu Yonghao "followed the rubbing" with a glorious face, nodded his head and promised to keep the "precious spiritual wealth" and let the elderly enjoy their old age in peace, but when everyone left, Lu Yonghao would quietly follow the village cadres to hand out cigarettes and talk, inquiring whether the surrounding enterprises needed manpower recently.
In early 2020, Lu Yonghao's 95-year-old father fractured his femur and spent nearly 37,000 days in the county hospital.
"After the reimbursement, we paid 7,000 yuan, and we can still bear it financially, and my father recovered well, but after this toss, I didn't dare to go to a distant place to find a job." Lu Yonghao said.
Helping his son repay the mortgage is the biggest economic burden in front of Lu Yonghao's eyes, and it is also an "unshirkable responsibility", in addition, he has to save some pension money for himself, in recent years, he has been relying on going out to work to increase his income.
Lu Yonghao is the child born to his father's second wife, and the burden of taking care of his father has been carried by him alone for many years. His father is already old, he can't do without people around him, he can only find work at the doorstep of his home, although the salary is low and the money is unstable, but there is no way.
▲ The day care center in the village is mostly for the elderly in their 80s and 90s. © Wang Li Photography
Working outside during the day and unable to return home, Lu Yonghao asked a woman from his village to help take care of his father, and by the way, he made a lunch for the old man, according to the hard work of 50 yuan a day.
This one in and one out, busy surviving every month, can not earn a few dollars, and the pain that makes it more difficult for Lu Yonghao to say is that he is 62 years old, but he is separated from his wife. "She's working so hard over there that she can't even say a few words on the phone; my body is also going downhill."
Two generations of elderly people in a family, four generations in the same house, there are elderly parents who need to be supported, and there are young grandchildren who need to be cared for, which is the current situation of Lu Yonghao's family, and it is also a true portrayal of many families under the continuous deepening of the aging of the social population. Lu Yonghao's village is a village with a population of more than 2,000, 60 to early 70 years old, but they have to take care of their old parents and grandchildren, and there are many "old second generations" trapped between multiple responsibilities. Like Lu Yonghao, a family that has to live separately from his wife for many years due to various practical factors needs to bear more life pressure and mental pressure.
Chen Xiaoqiang, who is not far from the Lu family, and his wife have been separated for nearly three years.
"66 years old, still working as a free nanny." Whenever someone asked about his wife, Chen Xiaoqiang added half-jokingly.
In the spring of 2019, the younger son's family added a new second child, Chen Xiaoqiang's wife left her hometown, took an overnight train to Changsha, and then took care of almost all the housework of her son's family: buying vegetables, cooking, and taking care of her little grandson.
"I'm old and I'm living a bare-knuckle life." Idle in winter, squatting in front of the house to bask in the sun, Chen Xiaoqiang chatted and joked with the old guys in the village.
Everyone in the village knows that Chen Xiaoqiang can't go, and his family has an old mother in her 80s. Chen Xiaoqiang, who had only been busy working in the field and almost never cooked, since his wife went to Changsha to take care of his son's family, in addition to fooling himself with a bite to eat every day, he was more racking his brains and doing everything possible to make delicious meals for his mother. It's so hard to be human!
Last year, the village opened a new day care center, equivalent to the "nursery for the elderly", only 260 yuan per month, for the elderly to provide meal assistance, medical assistance, emergency services, the village over 70 years old, life can take care of their own elderly can sign up, Chen Xiaoqiang's mother also set up a partner, three meals a day no longer need him to bother to do, saving a lot of heart. Since then, in addition to picking up the elderly in the morning and evening, Chen Xiaoqiang has spent most of his time in the field and planted a new peach tree. Nearly 5 acres of land, all rely on him alone to be busy before and after.
"I have a rural pension of more than 100 yuan per month, I don't farm land, what do I eat and drink?" Chen Xiaoqiang said: "At my age, if I want to find a short-term job, no one is willing to ask for it, so I can only plan food from the ground." ”
In Chen Xiaoqiang's mind, by their generation, "raising children and preventing the elderly" has long become a luxury, and a self-deprecating word.
Under the traditional concept, children are an important guarantee for the elderly's later life, but nowadays, children are going out to work and employment early, unable to provide regular care and care for parents, especially in large cities, the cost of living is high, after buying a house, every month to repay thousands of yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan of loans, the pressure is very large, not to bite the old can be among the "inspirational youth". What is even more distressing is that now, even the wife has to leave her hometown and go to a distant and unfamiliar city to dedicate her residual heat to the children's family. "Old wife, old companion", but it is difficult to see each other in the twilight years.
In fact, Chen Xiaoqiang's wife also talked to him about the feasibility of staying in Changsha together after a few years. But when I went to Changsha, where did the old couple live? Are they all huddled and mixed with their sons and daughters-in-law's family? Free nannies are also very demanding, many, and the days are long and smokey, and they are prone to suspicion. The family in the village, after all, is a root and cannot be abandoned.
"I haven't seen my daughter-in-law in three years. If her son had three more children, she would not be able to come back. Chen Xiaoqiang had a complicated expression and sighed deeply: "This year's Spring Festival, I am alone with the old woman for the New Year." ”
Children who can't be put down, can't go home. Compared with the "old second generation" in the rural areas where the two places are separated, the "old second generation" in the city has also been separated from the two places for many years. Data from the China Geriatric Social Tracking Survey in 2014 showed that 73.29% of the elderly provided intergenerational care. One is the grandchildren, the other is the elderly parents, already shouldering a heavy burden, if for the sake of the family, the "second generation" is forced to live in two places, it is even more physically and mentally exhausting.
Wu Hanliang and his wife are both section-level cadres in a prefecture-level city, and his wife has been a leader in the unit for many years, and once she retired to Shanghai, she helped her only daughter with children, and in the next five years, if there were no special circumstances, she rarely returned home.
Wu Hanliang also retired early, but there are 90-year-old mothers who cannot be separated from people. Although there are brothers and sisters who can help, in recent years, the burden of taking care of the old mother is basically carried by Wu Hanliang alone. His life is more delicate, and his self-confidence can make his mother's life comfortable and at ease. If he let his mother take turns living in each house every few months, just familiarize himself with the environment and leave, he really can't bear to look at it.
Wu Hanliang's daughter has always had a good academic performance, her son-in-law is also a bully, and the two children's work units in Shanghai are good, but when they get married and buy a house, Wu Hanliang and his wife still support more than 1.5 million yuan back and forth. "We borrowed some money from relatives and friends, and sold two of our own apartments to raise the money." Wu Hanliang smiled bitterly: "Now I don't dare to look back and think about how so much cash was made up in the first place." ”
Every Spring Festival, or May Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, Wu Hanliang settled his mother and bought a sleeper ticket to run to Shanghai. But in that city, he never stayed much, and he didn't want to stay much longer.
In Shanghai, living under the same roof as my daughter and son-in-law, it is too inconvenient to come in and out every morning and evening. He and his wife were crammed into a tiny second bedroom, and the children were noisy every day. Wu Hanliang couldn't figure out how his wife, who had always been pampered and well-treated, had survived all these years?
Gathering with friends at the dinner table, Wu Hanliang also met old friends in the same situation, patted each other's shoulders, and felt sorry for each other. They were all born in the 1960s, influenced by the family planning policy, most of them are only children, if the children take root in distant cities, and there are elderly parents in the family, almost all wives go to help bring grandchildren, and husbands stay at home and accompany the elderly.
"In the matter of intergenerational care, those of us who are grandfathers, in addition to providing some financial support, basically have no other use value, and we are also disliked by our children." Wu Hanliang said. In his view, the "old second generation" may be the last maintainer of the "filial piety" culture. Many only children today do not know how to be grateful to their parents who have worked hard for themselves, because they get too much and too easily.
In 2021, Wu Hanliang's old mother fell, was bedridden, and it was difficult to take care of it by relying on the family's hands alone, so she had to be sent to a nursing home. Not long after, Wu Hanliang found a job to do in a city less than 100 kilometers away from the nursing home. Although the pension is enough to have no worries, the daughter and son-in-law want to change into a larger school district house in Shanghai, and the economy will definitely need to continue to support.
In addition, Wu Hanliang's heart also buried a plan early, hoping that in the city not too far from Shanghai, in the future to buy a set of houses belonging to himself and his wife, "Shanghai houses can not afford to buy, can only see if the nearby cities are possible, even if it is fifty or sixty square meters, and the daughter's family, can move around more conveniently." ”
▲ The wife can't be together, and the sky is different. © Pixabay
On his 61st birthday, Wu Hanliang ordered a takeaway and quietly enjoyed dinner alone.
The years are hurried, unconsciously entering the year of the flower armor, but never thought that the old companion is difficult to accompany. Seeing that the epidemic is endless, chasing nucleic acids and isolation everywhere, it is difficult to go to Shanghai for a reunion during this year's Spring Festival.
When he was young, Wu Hanliang envisioned a variety of good life after his retirement, planting flowers, playing chess, fishing, and walking birds, but he did not expect today.
(The character in the text is a pseudonym)