Do you remember Liu Xuehua?
For the post-60s and post-70s, she is the heroine of Qiongyao.
He has played Yi Ping in "Smoke and Rain", and Xia Menghan in "Smoke Lock Heavy Building".
For the post-80s and post-90s, she is a professional household of the empress. The empress dowager in "The Biography of Zhen Huan", "New Returning Pearls", and "Palace Lock Bead Curtain" are all her.
From the girlhood to the grandmother, Most of Liu Xuehua's life has been recorded on the wonderful screen.
However, behind the screen, her private life is particularly simple and low-key.
Recently, 62-year-old Liu Xuehua was on a show that accidentally exposed her life of living alone for nine years.
Since the unexpected death of her husband ten years ago, she has been living alone, staying at home when she is not working.
There used to be friends who worried that she would be autistic without anyone to accompany her, but ten years later, she was still doing well.
She has a quieter personality and doesn't like what young people like.
Play with your dog at home and play mahjong on your phone.
The living relationship is also relatively simple, and he will call his eldest sister every day, and occasionally relatives will come to play at home.
It seems comfortable, but there are also some moments that seem bleak to outsiders.
For example, perhaps to escape loneliness, the TV in her home is on 24 hours a day and she does not sleep.
If there are any happy things in daily life, the objects of sharing are limited to their own sisters, agents and nannies.
She also laughed at herself that she was a boring person and that life was too bland.
Especially now that she is 62 years old, she is beginning to worry that she will fall at home when she is older and no one will find out.
So she hired a nanny and a driver, but lived alone.
In another ten years, she plans to live in a nursing home.
With nursing staff there, you won't be too lonely.
After Liu Xuehua's life alone was exposed on the Internet, it caused a lot of discussion, and the main comments were divided into two kinds.
One is to think she is so pitiful, so lonely.
Living alone for ten years, not many friends, no husband and no children.
So the 24-hour TV is also to dispel loneliness.
Now I have to worry about falling down in the future and no one will find out, and it is indeed very miserable to be lonely.
But another voice thinks that Liu Xuehua is quite comfortable living alone.
In particular, she has good financial ability, and has money to hire a nanny and driver, and usually has contacts with her sister.
Without taking care of the old man's husband and children, a person wants to do what he wants, and life is quite comfortable.
Liu Xuehua's status and netizens' comments are thought-provoking.
In the traditional concept of "raising children to prevent the elderly, the joy of heaven" still deeply affects our times, the lives of the elderly living alone are particularly miserable, and the elderly who live alone without children are even more pitiful.
But if you look at it too much, you will find that this is not always the case.
What really determines the quality of life in our old age is not how many children we have, but ourselves.
Many people have come to a conclusion after watching Liu Xuehua's life:
Without children, life in old age was indeed very miserable.
This conclusion may be true in traditional agricultural societies, but it is not necessarily true today.
In the traditional agricultural society, raising children and preventing the elderly is almost the only way to provide for the elderly, and it is not so difficult to achieve.
The relocated agricultural culture allows parents and children to live in the same place for the rest of their lives.
At the same time, in the period of relative material scarcity, the requirements for the elderly are not high.
It is enough to be able to maintain food and clothing, and to be taken care of when you are sick.
However, in modern times, the situation of pension has changed.
Urbanization has facilitated population movement, and it is extremely common for parents and children to be separated.
In this case, even if you have children, you may not be able to avoid being lonely in old age.
There is a data that may allow you to understand this loneliness more intuitively:
According to the recently released statistics on the living of the elderly in urban and rural Areas of China, there are currently about 260 million elderly people over the age of 60 in China, of which the proportion of empty nesters accounts for half, and by 2020 it has exceeded 120 million.
That is to say, nearly half of the elderly inevitably experience a period of solitude.
If you don't talk about anyone else, just talk about my own grandmother.
My grandmother is almost 90 years old, and in the twenty years since my grandfather passed away, although she has four sons and a daughter, because of the early death of her daughter, the sons blame each other, and she has been living alone.
She has a retirement salary and is not short of food and clothing, and her spirit is very good in her early years, and in recent years she has rarely gone out due to leg and foot inconvenience. Except for the occasional visit to her by her sons, she was still alone most of the time.
I once called her and asked her what she had done today.
She said:
"I didn't do anything, I just sat down from one end of the couch to the other end of the couch, watching TV and dozing off."
Hearing this, I was suddenly sad and blamed myself for not being able to be with her.
I often wonder if she had her own hobbies and interests and had her own circle of friends around, would she have a better life?
Or, she is not so stubborn, conceptually do not think that the elderly in the nursing home are very pitiful, willing to go to a better nursing home, accompanied by peers and professional escorts, the quality of life of the elderly can be much better?
Looking at my grandmother, looking at the many elderly people who lived alone like her, I realized that my children did not ensure that they were not alone in their later years.
How to have a relatively high-quality old age without completely relying on children will be a problem that everyone in modern society will face.
Nowadays, there are already some different pension cases in front of us.
Wu Yanshu, an 83-year-old "national grandmother", is a very vivid old man living alone.
She was a drama actress when she was young and lived with her wife for many years after retirement.
Later, when her wife died of illness, she moved to Beijing, the city where her daughter lived, but still insisted on living alone.
By chance, she entered the film and television circle and began to play some grandmother roles.
On the one hand, it continues the work of youth, on the other hand, it also adds color to life.
The acting is good, and her life is also wonderful.
She has a very open mind and is curious about new things and things that young people love to play.
Therefore, the use of smart phones is very skilled, and I usually love online shopping and playing games.
When you go out, you can use your mobile phone to book your own hotel and take a plane.
Her body is also very tough, often going out to walk around, exercise, and go out to play basketball when she has time.
In her opinion, when you are old, you still have to maintain a curiosity, keep up with this era, and you will not be abandoned by the times.
A few years ago, a popular online game for raising frogs, Wu Yanshu was happy about it, often sharing the dynamics of her frogs on the Internet, and discussing with young netizens.
Wu Yanshu not only raises frogs online, but also likes to "raise babies" in real life, she buys a lot of dolls, names them, takes them out to play, and takes pictures of them.
The relationship with his daughter is also very good, both in Beijing, and when they have free time, they will go out to have a cup of coffee or arrange flowers together, just like a girlfriend.
Wu Yanshu said:
I have the ability to live a good life alone, and I also have my own career and hobbies, so we have family affection but do not interfere with each other.
I think that as long as there is love and what they want to do, a person can live a good life.
Her 83-year-old life alone doesn't look so miserable, on the contrary, it is particularly exciting.
Therefore, what can determine the quality of our old age is not whether we have children or not, but ourselves.
Have your own money, have an open mind, have a healthy body, have no hobbies that can bring you pleasure.
These are much more important than simply relying on children for the elderly.
If you can't live with your children and don't like to live alone, you can also choose to live together for the elderly.
In the nursing home in Hangzhou, there is such a group of grandmothers. They are all about 90 years old, some of them have been dead for many years, and some have simply lived in a nursing home with their wives.
In the nursing home, there are days when there are sisters and friends, and they have a good time.
For example, in an interview with reporters, Wang Yanlin's label was: "89-year-old health enthusiast and online shopping master".
At most, you can go to get three couriers a day in a wheelchair.
She likes to buy things, and her children can't control them, because they use their own money.
She also has a friend who is also keen on online shopping, named Yang Hana, who is also an online shopping expert.
The cabinets, small toys, and furnishings around her were all purchased online by her.
But her favorite dress is still a beautiful dress, and the collection of dresses is so many that she can wear it from no. 1 to no. 31 without repeating the sample:
"I just like to be pretty!" Now that there are conditions, why not wear it? ”
Their other girlfriend, Grandma Jiangbin, is even more legendary.
After retiring, he sold his house and traveled around, and now at the age of 91, he lives with his sisters in a nursing home.
Her warm and lively personality still makes her live in the nursing home.
She became good friends with her neighbors who lived in the nursing home, and she was the "pistachio" in everyone's eyes.
Where she is, it will be full of laughter.
Energetic, she also ran for the director of the nursing home, and every Thursday, she actively organized everyone to sing and dance together;
Sometimes, even pull everyone to form a round to Sing to KTV;
She never felt that age was a restriction, smart phones, WeChat, online shopping, ordering takeaway, she played handy;
Every morning, Grandma Jiang Bin would also make breakfast and send it to Wang Yanlin next door.
After the two of them eat well, they go out for a walk and chat together to start a healthy and leisurely day.
The three girlfriends plus Yang Ana's wife often gathered at a table to play mahjong.
Buy what you want, watch whatever drama you want.
Don't worry about the trivialities of life, don't have to work hard to raise grandchildren.
There are also girlfriends around to accompany themselves every day, eating, walking, chatting, and playing mahjong.
The life of Jiangbin grandmothers is not as lonely and bitter as the elderly in the nursing home imagined, but is full of vitality and fun.
Compared with sitting at home and waiting for their children to come home to visit, the days of each other's companionship may be a higher quality of old-age life.
Whether it is Grandma Wu who is in good spirits, or Grandma Hangzhou who lives together for the elderly, many people are envious.
Human nature is common, we will all be afraid of loneliness, afraid of being old and helpless, afraid that one day we will fall to the ground in poor health and no one will find out.
Therefore, seeing such a warm, interesting, healthy and fulfilling pension life, I will be very envious.
From them, we can also see that whether there are children around or not is not a necessary condition for determining the happiness of the pension life.
What we can do on our own is far more important than what our children can give.
First, when you are young, when you are rich and powerful, prepare a pension money for yourself, which is very important for a high-quality pension life.
Second, cherish your health, maintain a healthy routine all year round, and do not give up exercise because of old age.
Third, maintain some hobbies, no matter what age, have the ability to enjoy themselves.
Fourth, keep an open mind, maintain good interpersonal relationships, whether it is with children or friends with the elderly, kind and interesting personality can always make their lives more colorful.
Aging is a sad thing, and everyone will have a day when they can't move their legs and feet and need to face death.
Whether it is full of children and grandchildren or the family wealth, it is impossible to avoid the arrival of that day.
However, life cannot be lived just for the day when you are "too old to move and lie in bed".
Instead of always fearing that day, I think we should grasp this day.
When you are young, you should make more financial, physical, and mental preparations.
After entering the old age, try to enjoy the happiness of the moment when your body is still healthy.
Give it a thumbs up and hope that both our parents and ourselves can have a beautiful and fulfilling old age.
*Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from the Internet, if there is any infringement, please contact.