The dilemma of family pension Zhang Baotong 2018.6.18

When I went back to my hometown in the past two years, I met an old classmate I hadn't seen for many years, and she told me that she had been in Miluo for 10 years to take care of her father, and that her own home was in Wuhu, Anhui Province. Her father, who is in his 90s, likes her baby daughter the most, so he wants her to stay by her side when she is sick, because she is a nurse herself. It stands to reason that taking care of the elderly is the common responsibility of the children, and everyone should take turns on duty together. However, her father only wanted her to stay around, so every time she had just left a few days, he would call and ask her to come back immediately. Therefore, in the past 10 years, she has almost always stayed by the side of her parents in Miluo. I asked her if her family had a problem. She said with tears that there was no way, her father was old and called her to come, she couldn't help but come, but she couldn't be with her family if she took care of her father. Therefore, her husband and daughter have a lot of opinions about her. My mother's neighbor is also a lonely old man, and he is almost 90 years old. In order to take care of her, her daughter who lives in Changsha has been living with her for five or six years, and in fact has moved her family here, leaving her husband alone in Changsha.

I'm talking about lucky old men, with children waiting around to take care of them. However, the real pity is for the elderly who have no one to take care of them. My mom also has a neighbor who is almost 90 years old. My son is in Changsha and can only drive over to see her once a week, then spend the night and leave the next day. Because the old man was lonely, he raised a large group of cats to keep him company. So, every morning, she has to go to the vegetable market to get some fish intestines for the cat, and cook them to feed the cat. Therefore, the house was full of fishy smells and noises, so that the son and daughter-in-law did not want to enter the house when they came back.

In the summer of the year before last, I went to the mountains of Danfeng in southern Shaanxi and stayed at an acquaintance's house for a few days, which gave me some understanding of the pension situation in the poor mountainous areas. The family I live in is surnamed Li, he is the second in the family, he has an older brother and a younger brother, and there are two younger sisters below. My mother was gone many years ago, and my father lived alone. But everyone lives together, so it's okay to take care of anything. Only two younger sisters married elsewhere. According to local customs, the daughter is the water that is spilled, and the person who marries can not bear any responsibility for the care of the elderly. Therefore, there are only three children to bear the pension for the elderly. However, because the second child's children went to college two years ago, they needed a lot of money, and the old man happened to have 8,000 yuan in his hand. The second child wanted to get the 8,000 yuan in an emergency, but the eldest and the third child quit, worried that the second child would not pay it back if he borrowed the old man's money. Therefore, for the 8,000 yuan, the three sons and the old man made an agreement together, that is, whoever takes the money will provide for the old man to die. The second child was in urgent need of money, so he should accept it. So, the eldest and the third took the opportunity to push the old man to the second. The old man is 73 years old, and he was in good condition, but two months ago, the old man had an illness, and people felt that something was wrong, maybe there was a problem with his lungs, and he didn't eat well. The second child sent the old man to the county hospital. After staying in the county hospital for a week, the doctor said to the second child, don't spend this unjust money, go back and prepare for the old man's funeral. So, the second child took the old man home, threw a small bed in the small room where the miscellaneous items were piled up, and settled the old man.

When I went to his house, the old man had been in the hut for half a month. I've been to the cottage twice to see the old man. The old man was lying on the small bed in a long coat and trousers, the man was already thin to a handful of bones, his face was painful, his eyes were wide, and he was panting and moaning weakly. At that time, it was the season of walnut and corn harvesting in the mountains, and the second couple were busy beating walnuts and smashing walnuts all day long (walnuts were dried and sold for money), and they had almost no time to take care of the elderly. After everyone had eaten, the second child served half a bowl of rice soup to feed the old man. But the old man didn't know if it was because of the blockage or his lack of appetite, so he didn't eat. If you don't eat it, forget it, the second child put the half bowl of rice aside, so that he can feed him when he wants to eat it. Moreover, there are many toads (a type of mosquito) in the mountains at night, and we have to light mosquito coils when we sleep at night, but no one cares about the old man. The old man saw that he couldn't do it, the coffin and the aftermath were ready, but the eldest and third son were still working in Xi'an City, and they hadn't come back yet. Moreover, the two daughters have not seen to visit. Therefore, I felt that the old man was really pitiful. Later, I told the second daughter-in-law about this, and the second daughter-in-law said that it was like this in the mountains, and that the old man was hopeless anyway, and there was no need to spend all that unjust money. I only stayed at their house for three days, and on the third day after I left, the second child called me and told me that his father had died in the morning.

In this regard, I thought, if the old man is in the city, the situation may be very different, and the family will try some way to keep the old man alive, but the rural people do not have that much money, so they do not want to spend that much money and time on a person who is dying.

Not long ago, a golfer told me that his father-in-law was 100 years old. I was amazed to hear it. Because I know that there are many people who have lived past the age of 100, but they have seen it in the news, and they have not seen it in their own side. It's a miracle that a person can live to be 100 years old, because it really makes the dream of "living a long life" come true. We all want to live a long life, and we want our parents to live a long life. However, even if we live a long life, we may not live happily. Not to mention living to be 100 years old, even when you are 80 or 90 years old, you will already be in the last years of life, and you will be dying of old age. Either suffering from cancer, or having old age and desolation, either let the children hold their urine and urinate, or lie on the hospital bed, with a skin tube inserted in the dying struggle. That quality of life and state of life is really painful and detrimental to dignity.

Aging is an incurable disease. The older we get, the worse our physical strength becomes, and when we were forty years old, we picked up a gas canister and went up to the sixth floor in one go. However, when he was 60 years old, he had to change his gas twice when he carried a bag of 10 kilograms of rice up to the sixth floor. At the age of 80, it will be very difficult to go up to the sixth floor empty-handed. Because of the decline in physical strength, our ability to resist diseases is also plummeting. For every 10 years we age, the incidence of cancer increases several times over. At the age of 75, the incidence of deferred old age is 1 in 5, and by the age of 85, the incidence of debilitation in old age is 1 in 2. In other words, when we reach the age of eighty-five, I am afraid that one of the two husbands and wives will be old and desiccated. And there is no cure for these diseases. If a person has no resistance, the drug will not have much effect.

Caring for the elderly is not only a huge investment of time and energy, but also a huge financial effort. Sometimes it costs thousands of dollars for a day of hospitalization, and tens of thousands of dollars for an operation. Spending money is really faster than running water. Among the cost of hospitalization, there are many drugs and items that are not covered by Medicare. So, when you get hospitalized, you realize that you don't have enough money.

Now, an old man has several children to take care of him, and he has tossed his children enough. Think about it, what would happen if we were to be in our eighties or nineties? Our children are almost all only children, and they are often too busy to take care of themselves financially and energetically, so how can we afford to take care of a few old people? So, we are now worried about our parents' old age, but when we think about it, when we reach that age, we really don't know what kind of situation our children will be like when they provide for us.