The Paper's special commentator Jiang Cheng
The pictures in this article are all Qilu Evening News pictures
When "Our Genius Son" swept the screen across the Internet, the image of another pair of parents entered the public eye. Only this time, it makes people feel mixed.
On December 6, 2021, Liu Xuezhou, a 17-year-old teenager in Xingtai, Hebei Province, searched for relatives online. More than twenty days later, he met his biological parents. However, things did not go to a touching reunion, but on the contrary, it was a place of chicken feathers and Mars splashing around.
Liu Xuezhou said he was sold by his parents for money after he was born. His parents also admitted that the adopter had given them five or six thousand yuan. After the successful search for relatives, Liu Xuezhou proposed to his parents to buy or rent a house for him, but his birth mother refused and blocked Liu Xuezhou on WeChat. Subsequently, the two sides made accusations in the air. The latest development is that Liu Xuezhou said that because his biological parents "reversed black and white", he decided to "meet in court" with them.
This family search story has come to this point, and we can no longer feel the warmth between parents and children. Compared with the recent incident of Sun Haiyang looking for Sun Zhuo, it is even more regrettable. Sun Haiyang's decades of searching for a day finally paid off. When Sun Zhuo wavered, almost everyone was advising him to "change his mind." In the end, Sun Zhuo decided to return to Shenzhen, which was also excited by the whole network and was pleased with this happy ending.
And Liu Xuezhou's story is chilling. The search for relatives is initiated by the child; after finding it, it is not possible to see how much joy the parents have, and the communication between them also has a sense of distance and strangeness; and from the current situation, the child hopes to make up for it, but the parents still seem to regard him as an "accident" and a "burden".
This kind of plot is somewhat surprising, but perhaps this is closer to the truth of life: and every family search can go to consummation. Parent-child love and parent-child grace are not natural, and those cruel and cold realities will eventually exist.
Objectively speaking, Liu Xuezhou's move to ask for a house is indeed not "considerate" enough to "understand" the birth parents of ordinary living conditions and other children. But how can a child who has been abandoned since childhood and is now really living in distress be thoughtful, well-behaved, and extra understanding? On the contrary, if the parents really "raise" their children for money, their behavior is suspected of the crime of abandonment and child abduction.
If Liu Xuezhou's demands are unreasonable and unrealistic, then the behavior of his biological parents is even more illegal, inhumane, contrary to morality and difficult to forgive.
It is very likely that the incident will enter the legal channels and finally be handed over to the judicial adjudication to clarify the merits and demerits. But returning to the atmosphere of family affection that is happy and harmonious seems to be impossible. Liu Xuezhou was unfortunate, but for him at this time, he must also accept this misfortune. This is the real life, there are not so many perfect fairy tales, many times can only rely on self-strength, self-redemption.
For the public, it is also a profound lesson in "human observation". The natures and ethics we think of are not taken for granted. On the contrary, these value consensuses are the result of the repeated beating, tempering, and discipline of countless testaments throughout the ages, and are the truths that human civilization has told us.
It can be said that after the success of many "family searches", it is still a probabilistic event that both parties (especially children) have a happy family.
Therefore, to this day, we still have to emphasize the value of the family, emphasize how to become parents, and build the foundation of the family. Society should defend this bottom-line value, minimize human tragedies, avoid the collapse of family order, and prevent every child from being forced to "understand things" prematurely.
Some netizens shouted Liu Xuezhou, asking him to "turn the page" as soon as possible and don't get tangled. This is naturally the most suitable rational option for Liu Xuezhou, to reinvigorate and start a new life. But as a person in it, some entanglements must always be sorted out; some knots must always be unraveled. Otherwise, without reconciliation with the past, how will the road ahead go?
This kind of real human attitude also makes us who are watching more determined, what kind of people should be encouraged to become individuals, and what kind of values and concepts should be maintained by society.
Responsible Editor: Gan Qiongfang Photo Editor: Le YuFeng