This year's Spring Festival, my parents and I "reverse reunion"

The moment she pushed open the door of the rental house after work, Chen Yi, a 26-year-old "Shanghai drift" girl, was surprised by the aroma of the long-lost "mother brand" meal.

Chen Yi just videoed with his parents last weekend to "complain", this year he will stick to his post on Chinese New Year's Eve night, who knows that three days later, his mother "raided" to Shanghai, and also brought his favorite homemade sausage.

The Spring Festival means reunion, and returning home for the New Year has also become a "must-do list" for young people working outside the country every year. However, due to the tight "Spring Festival" tickets, coupled with the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in recent years, the homeland has become a distant place to go back. The potential social distress of visiting relatives during the Spring Festival has also become a stumbling block for young people to return home. As a result, a new form of reunion has emerged: under the premise of meeting the requirements of epidemic prevention and control, parents go to visit their children in their children's cities, support each other, and "reverse reunion".

What does "reverse reunion" mean? Chen Wu, a teacher at the Institute of Development and Educational Psychology of Wuhan University, pointed out that in addition to the emotional companionship between parents and young people, it also means the transformation and transcendence of traditional concepts by parents. So, how do parents and children who leave their homeland get along? What can a "reverse reunion" in the name of love really bring to parents and young people?

Courtesy of Visual China

Parents accompany young people with love and begin the "battle of life in a foreign country"

Celebrating the New Year in Beijing with his parents this year was something that Huang Min had not expected. She quickly married in 2021 and became pregnant at the end of the year, and her life progress bar is like pressing the accelerator button.

Huang Minmin's parents came to Beijing from their hometown and rented a two-bedroom apartment in the same community to take care of her. Less than a month after coming to Beijing, they have already touched the surrounding vegetable market supermarkets very clearly, which fish is the freshest, which fruit is sweet, and it is the first to say. Because her husband is from the northeast, Huang Minmin's father began to learn Northeast cuisine; when her husband was busy, her parents accompanied Huang Minmin to the maternity examination.

"Parents love their children, and they have far-reaching plans for them." Huang Min Min sighed: "With the help of my parents, life is much easier. Eating the meals they make at noon can ensure the nutrition of pregnancy; emotionally, we will meet every day, and the little things in life can be shared at any time. ”

"Before I went out in the morning, I saw my mother wearing a pink down jacket and said, 'Mom, you're a good girl in this dress.'" The little girl's mouth is so sweet. Seeing the "parent-child daily small fragment" sent by her mother in the family group, Zhang Ting, a post-85 girl who works in a state-owned enterprise, was surprised to find that this matter was not taken to heart, but the old man wrote it down.

On New Year's Day 2022, because she had not seen her daughter's family for too long, Zhang Ting's mother came to Chengdu from her hometown county and stayed for two months, taking care of her granddaughter during the winter vacation. Usually, Zhang Ting and his wife have a stable pace of life, can take into account the work and the baby, and do not need the elderly to take care of the children. But the arrival of her mother made Zhang Ting feel that the help her parents gave to young people in big cities could surpass the material needs of life such as chai, rice, oil and salt, and bring more spiritual increments.

"Dual-career families can do a good job of living security, but the growth of children cannot only focus on food, clothing, shelter and transportation." Zhang Ting found that the mother will record the details of the child's growth process, "her arrival helped us expand the joy of life, is the icing on the cake."

Zhang Ting also found that mothers have many luminous "skill points" that young people do not have, such as gardening. "She has a lot of flowers, her home is like a small garden, and she herself is very happy." Mom is also good at expanding the neighborhood social circle, "the older generation knows better how to communicate with the neighbors, although I am very extroverted, but I am not familiar with the neighbors, after all, contemporary young people are used to 'atomic socialization'." But my mother will help me and the neighbors to nag, make a good relationship, she feels that in the future she will go back to her hometown, and she can still have neighbors help me with something. ”

In the name of reunion, help your family to accept new things

After three days of sharing her bed alone with her post-operative mother in the hospital ward, Li Chang, a post-90s girl, felt that she had grown up overnight.

Li Chang's mother is not in good health, but she is always used to dragging on for the disease. Li Chang then said to his mother: "I can't go home during the Spring Festival this year, so you might as well come to Shanghai to see me earlier." Under Li Chang's petite attack, her mother promised to come to Shanghai to accompany her for the New Year, and the treatment became logical.

In Li Chang's view, the "reverse reunion" is actually a clever excuse. After arriving, Li Chang immediately found a friend to complete the process of hospital registration and appointment for expert surgery. "When she was coaxed by me to the magic capital, she could only obey."

"My mom has always been very dependent on my dad's image of a little woman, and every Spring Festival is like a portrait carved on a wooden board, always running the whole big family reunion dinner." This time, when her mother came to Shanghai alone, Li Chang felt that the fixed plank was broken, "That painting can be repainted by her mother."

Zhou Xiaohong, a senior professor of humanities and social sciences at Nanjing University, once proposed the concept of "cultural feedback". He pointed out that in the era of rapid cultural change, the adaptability of the two generations of parents and children is different, and the speed of understanding and absorption of new things is different. When faced with a new situation, the father is no longer the absolute authority, and the absorption and innovation ability of young people makes the fathers consciously or unconsciously affected, and they learn from the younger generations and accept new things in a subtle way.

As young people gain a foothold in big cities, they gradually find that everyone's concept and way of life in their hometowns are limited, such as weak health concepts, and diseases will not be treated in time; for example, excessive frugality cannot meet the needs of the quality of life of everyone in the family in time. When they are influenced by new ways of life in big cities, they naturally want to inject these new ideas or technologies into their original families.

"Passing on new ideas to families in the form of 'reverse reunions' is, to some extent, an exchange of roles." Chen Wu believes that with the growth and maturity of young people, children gradually become the role of "caregivers", just like their parents in those days. "Directly convincing parents to accept may not work well, and guiding parents to experience new things in a reunion way can break the stereotypes and help them 'be young again.'"

Li Chang said that this "reverse reunion" gave a different definition to the Spring Festival, and it was more meaningful than simply going home for a meal and walking relatives. "We are helping our families embrace new ideas in new ways in the name of love and reunion."

How can parents and young people get along with each other after leaving their homeland?

Compared with returning to the hometown for the Chinese New Year, "reverse reunion" is a new attempt to stay away from the familiar environment of parents. While satisfying the emotional connection between loved ones, it also faces some challenges: how do parents and children live with themselves in a space dominated by young people?

Liu Ying, a post-90s girl, is engaged in the entertainment industry and leaves early and returns late every day. Mom and Dad have been coming to Beijing from Jiangsu for a week and will spend the Spring Festival with Liu Ying.

The arrival of her parents made Liu Ying particularly happy, and her family was finally no longer the thin screen in her hand, but an entity that could be hugged and touched. But as we get along longer, the problems that used to arise when we return to our hometown are presented in another form.

On the first day, her mother complained that Liu Ying did not like to clean, while picking up tools and starting to do the cleaning of the whole house, even Liu Ying persuaded her to rest for two days before doing it. The next day at work, Liu Ying found that the clothes she often wore could not be found, and when she asked carefully, she knew that it was her mother who put it away when she sorted it out, but her mother could not remember where it was for a while, and Liu Ying, who was rushing to work, had to grab a piece of hurried out the door at random.

When I came home from work, I found that the toothbrush was placed in a centralized position, and there was a dirty brush next to it. For a while, Liu Ying was a little angry, and her mother was not happy: I sorted out the messy home for you, and you still didn't appreciate it?

Psychologist Yuko once proposed the concept of Family Jetlag (family jet lag syndrome), describing a situation in which people will have a situation where "jet lag" is generally unable to adapt when they are reunited with their families during the holidays. Whether it is "from a foreign land to hometown" or a "reverse reunion" of parents, when the space shifts, two different rhythms of life and interpersonal modes also collide. "Even though you have a whole new life when you are separated from your loved ones, they will still treat you the same way they treat you in the old way – it's not a special case for your parents, but people will be used to treating each other in familiar patterns." In the first two days, because you can control yourself and give the best side to each other, after a few days you will not be able to fight the habit, so the situation germinates. ”

"Conflict is inevitable." Chen Wu pointed out that young people should be mentally prepared, try to communicate in advance, and inform themselves of the rhythm of life, such as making a phone call before their parents come: "Parents, we are usually used to sleeping lazily. "Avoid turning conflict resolution into emotional venting, and express your thoughts sincerely and truthfully to your parents in a way that is not intense as possible." Parents should also recognize that children are independent individuals, learn to understand rather than guide their lives, while respecting personal habits, truly feel the rhythm of children's work and life, feel the atmosphere and people around them, and update existing cognition.

When parents and children have been separated for a long time, they will prefer to participate in their children's lives and to be familiar with the space in which their children are located. But without meeting for a long time, the strangeness of their children's living space will make them unaccustomed and can't help but change a lot of patterns. Chen Wu believes that when parents "reverse reunion", the difficulty and pressure they bear are greater, and they will also face the "sense of exclusion" brought about by the unfamiliar environment. "Whichever side rushes, the person who greets you should be ready. Children can make some intimate arrangements, such as asking them in advance what they need, and preparing the room, which will make parents more at ease. ”

Liu Ying also realized that when her parents came to live in the city where she was, unaccustomed and boredom also plagued them at all times, but they were covered up by their love for themselves. Therefore, Liu Ying taught her mother to learn to use the projector to watch the film and television dramas she wanted to watch, and took her parents to the outskirts of Beijing as much as possible on weekends to relax, "What they need most is companionship, and when they are arranged by me, they will be very at ease."

In fact, whether it is to help young people live better in a foreign country, or to "let parents accept new concepts and cognitions in the name of love", the origin of "reverse reunion" is the simplest emotional satisfaction of parents and children. The emotional connection with parents is a "two-way rush", the reunion is not divided into "positive" or "reverse", and the place where there is a family is home.

Source: China Youth Daily client