The only child, has been the "only favorite" in the family since childhood.
As time goes by, parents are over sixty years old, and the pressure of the only child is becoming more and more prominent.
On Douban, there is a group called "Only-Child Parents' Pension Exchange", in which more than 80,000 only-children are helping each other and caring for each other.
"Should I give up my dream to support my parents?" "What should I do if my parents reject the nursing home?" Trick to answer.
Of course, there are also people who simply want to vent their emotions and release pressure, and are eager to seek resonance and psychological comfort.
In order to further understand the plight of the only-child parents, a reporter from the Beijing Youth Daily combed through the "help-seeking" information in the group and found that the "only generation" generally faces four major pain points for the elderly.
care problems
After the holiday "overdraft", she faces a choice
Among the help-seeking information in the "Only Child Parents' Elderly Care Exchange" group, the most common and the highest proportion are care problems.
Among them, it can be subdivided into daily care and sick care for parents.
Among the many posts, words such as "don't know", "what to do" and "how" deeply reveal the powerlessness of the help-seekers.
"My parents are sick at the same time, this is my Spring Festival in 2023." On January 18, netizen momo posted a post in the group.
Since working, momo has been away from her parents, and the year is approaching. She wanted to rush home early to reunite with her parents. Unexpectedly, the first stop when returning home was the hospital.
Years ago, momo's mother suffered a sudden illness, and momo's father was also stimulated by it.
Paying bills, consulting with doctors, and prescribing medicines...momo's small figure shuttled back and forth in the huge hospital alone. Looking at the pain-ridden mother in the hospital bed and the emotional father in front of her, she felt physically and mentally exhausted.
"I am still waiting for my mother's physical examination report. The doctor said that there is a growth in a certain part of the esophagus. I am really scared." momo wrote in the post.
At that moment, momo felt as if she was the only one left in the whole world. This heavy responsibility suddenly came, and momo was a little at a loss.
She doesn't know how long she can last, and she doesn't know whether she should go back to work in a big city after the New Year's holiday "overdraft", or stay in a small county with her parents.
Support for the four elders
Whether or not to send parents to a nursing home has become an unresolved question
According to the survey, most of the first-generation only children have entered the stage of marriage and childbearing, and the families formed by them also present a typical "double-only" family structure, which means that they need to travel between the four elderly people, children and work. How to support parents when time and energy are not allowed?
Nursing homes are undoubtedly an option.
However, to this day, the idea of "raising children for old age" is still taking root in the hearts of some elderly people, and misunderstandings and prejudices about nursing homes still exist.
Two years ago, Dick's mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
At first, the condition was manageable, and the mother's daily life was taken care of by the father alone.
But in recent weeks, my mother's condition began to deteriorate, and her hands and feet became more and more ineffective. Dick's father was so anxious that he couldn't sleep all night, and even "awakened" the old root cause of 20 years ago-depression.
Both Dick's parents were admitted to the hospital, but the father went to a psychiatric hospital and could no longer care for his mother.
Dick and his wife are both only children. They have to work and take care of their two children at the same time. Dick's father-in-law and mother-in-law are not in good health. Helpless, the mother can only temporarily ask relatives to accompany her.
Seeing that his mother's condition did not improve much during the hospitalization, Dick began to plan early on who would take care of his mother after he was discharged from the hospital.
"We only thought of the most hated term for the elderly—nursing home." Just thinking about it for a while, Dick's heart was filled with an infinitely magnified sense of guilt.
Dick felt that it was unrealistic to keep his job while taking the children to and from school, tutoring with homework, and going to the hospital to take care of his parents at the same time.
Even if you invite relatives, you can only ask them to help you in a short time, and you are worried about asking a nanny. No matter how you think about it, there is no way for the nursing home.
But when Dick calmly told his mother that he wanted to send her to a nursing home, his mother's attitude was firm and tough, "If you don't go, you won't live long." Dick felt extremely uncomfortable. He didn't know what to do next. Into a state of incomprehension...
Pension abroad
It is a win-win choice for her and her husband to decide to go back to China
It is not easy for the parents of an only child to provide for the elderly, but the extended distance in time and space makes the problem even more difficult. Whether it is to bring the parents to their side or to return to their parents, for the children living overseas, the relationship between family affection and responsibility, Choosing between future and dreams is a dilemma.
Annie is born in 1985.
In 2014, she went to Canada to complete her combined master's and doctoral studies. In 2021, Annie returned to China after completing her studies.
In recent years, due to her heavy studies and other factors, she has only returned to China to visit relatives four times.
And during the few visits to relatives, she obviously had a different feeling.
Going home for the first time is similar to the winter and summer vacations when I was an undergraduate. When I go home, I will be the little princess of my parents. Annie can invite friends to eat, drink and have fun without any scruples. "have a look".
After getting married in 2018, Annie went from being a daughter to a wife, and from a small family to a big family. Annie took on more responsibilities overnight.
Annie's husband is also an only child and has been working abroad for seven or eight years.
After getting married, they began to plan more seriously, how to support the four elderly people in the future?
They had considered letting their parents immigrate and taking them with them, but in reality, it was difficult for their parents to meet the immigration requirements of Canada. Moreover, the area where Annie is located is a second-tier city in Canada, and the urban infrastructure and social environment are not well developed. Due to the language barrier, Annie's parents have made it clear that they don't like this strange town.
"They prefer Vancouver, mainly because there are many Chinese-speaking people there and they have a sense of belonging." Annie said that in any case, letting parents immigrate is not the best solution.
At the same time, the experience of colleagues and friends around her also sounded the alarm for Annie.
She has two friends abroad. Their fathers died of car accidents and cancer respectively. Unfortunately, none of them came back to see their father for the last time.
"My parents are old, if I still stay abroad to develop, will I really not regret it in the future?" Annie asked herself repeatedly in her heart.
Annie calculated in her heart that if her parents had any emergencies, even if she immediately booked the earliest flight, plus a few connecting flights, it would take at least 20 hours to get to her parents.
This distance is too far for her.
After repeated weighing, Annie and her husband decided to return to China for development together.
Annie is a Ph.D. in biomedicine, and the domestic related industries are just in the booming stage. Therefore, returning to China is a win-win for her.
But her husband was different.
However, they have never regretted returning to China. "What we lose is what we gain. It is more convenient for us to take care of our parents now. At the same time, the elderly can also help us take care of our children. The happiness of life after returning to China is still very high."
reverse education
Gradually master the "password" to get along with mother
When parents become old urchins, old children, obsessed with short videos, love drinking, and can't quit smoking, what should children do to make them better?
Unknowingly, after reversing the educational roles of parents and parents, these "reverse" education problems have also begun to become a major "pain point" for the elderly care of the "only generation".
At the end of 2022, Melody accidentally discovered that her mother was obsessed with the game of "Xiao Xiao Le". She would play for several hours during the day, and would not take a break until her energy was exhausted.
One night, after one o'clock in the evening, Melody woke up to find that the lights in her mother's room were still on. When the sound of the game came from the crack in the door, Melody's heart suddenly tightened.
Her mother's blood sugar was high, and Melody thought she could no longer let her mother "play with the lights on at night". She immediately asked her mother why she didn't take a break quickly.
When the voice fell, the mother's self-esteem seemed to have been hit hard, and the mobile phone was thrown from the bed to the floor.
Melody also lost control of her emotions, and then lectured and accused her mother. When she left, she closed the door heavily.
Knowing that it is impossible to let her mother know her mind in the existing way, Melody pins her hopes on the advice of a third-party perspective.
In the early hours of that day, she posted a post about the incident in the Douban group. Unexpectedly, the popularity of the post rose very quickly.
"I thought that everyone would empathize with me more, but I didn't expect most people to stand on the side of my mother." Melody said.
Some netizens suggested that she replace her mother with an eye-friendly LED screen mobile phone, and some netizens suggested that she spend more time walking and shopping with her mother to divert her attention.
Among the many replies, there was one that touched her deeply and even shocked her, leaving a message: "Don't take it for granted that you treat her the way your mother treated you in the past." Melody said, this short sentence tells the truth After breaking her psychological reality, that night, she conducted self-examination and reflection again.
The next day, when Melody walked into her mother's room again, she changed her usual domineering attitude and coaxed her mother in a coquettish tone: "If you're happy, I won't object to you playing games like before. But your blood sugar Gao, staying up late will definitely worry me, so I hope you go to bed as early as possible." Melody even praised her mother's ability to clear the customs all the way, and gave her a hug.
Melody felt her mother's surprise, but her mother did "eat this trick".
In the past few days, Melody was somewhat relieved to find that around 12 o'clock in the evening, the lights in her mother's room would be turned off on time.
She felt that maybe she was gradually mastering the pass code to get along with her mother.
follow up
Housekeeping upgrades, technological care
The combination of medical care and nursing care helps "only child care for the aged"
According to statistics, from 1980 to 2020, the number of only children in my country has exceeded 180 million.
The only child supporting the elderly may be an unprecedented dilemma faced by this generation.
In order to have a more thorough and in-depth understanding of the pension problems faced by the only child and the corresponding solutions, as well as the direction of future pension development, a reporter from Beiqing Daily interviewed Liu Yinuo, the content director of AgeClub, which focuses on innovative business research on middle-aged and elderly people.
Beiqing Daily: In your opinion, what are the main difficulties and pain points of the only child pension?
Liu Yinuo: Nowadays, one of the core issues for the only child to provide for the parents is actually the health issue.
In the past, everyone did not do enough to popularize dietary intervention and healthy lifestyle. In the absence of health reserves, many diseases broke out in the middle-aged and elderly, which will increase the pressure on many families to provide for the elderly.
Secondly, the development of the domestic pension market is still relatively lagging behind the demand.
Caring for the elderly is a long-term, complex and very changeable process.
In general, the current market maturity of the domestic service industry is still not enough.
The third is the mental health problems of the elderly, such as loneliness and depression.
These psychological problems can be solved by the elderly through social participation and social activities.
Beiqing Daily: What are the current solutions to the above problems?
Liu Yinuo: At the level of housekeeping, door-to-door nursing services such as bath assistance have begun to emerge slowly.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that products such as shower machines, oximeters, anti-lost devices, and anti-fall monitoring equipment are also entering household consumption. The inclusiveness brought by technology has not only made the care of the elderly more convenient, It also shared the anxiety of the only child.
In addition, some insurance companies will cooperate with gyms and other institutions to integrate home care products into insurance.
Some insurance companies sell insurance with a variety of care and health supervision services for the elderly. After the policy takes effect, customers can enjoy these supplementary services. This is also a solution that kills two birds with one stone.
Beiqing Daily: According to your understanding and observation, what kind of new pension trends may my country have in the future?
Liu Yinuo: In some ordinary nursing homes, under special circumstances, many elderly people may not have the opportunity to use medical equipment such as ventilators. However, in nursing homes with a background of combining medical care and nursing care, the elderly can still use them under the condition that the beds are relatively ample. Receive more professional medical care and health monitoring.
Therefore, in the future, there may be greater room for development of domestic nursing homes with medical and nursing backgrounds or medical resources.
In addition, many areas have already been counting the basic diseases of the local middle-aged and elderly people.
Based on this large-scale and extensive data statistics, it is possible to better sort out the health dimensions of the elderly, which means that a series of graded and more precise diagnosis and treatment may appear in the future.
Including hospital construction, last year many hospitals specially set up geriatric departments or geriatric medicine departments to carry out hierarchical diagnosis and treatment.
This initiative will not only enable better triage of patients and more accurate graded diagnosis and treatment, but also release more medical resources.
(The characters in the text are all pseudonyms)
Text/Reporter Wang Jingyi
Coordinator/Drawing by Lin Yan and Zhang Bin/Yuan Guoming