New Chinese law demands adults take care of aging parents

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A new national law introduced this week requires the offspring of parents older than 60 to visit their parents frequently and make sure their financial and spiritual needs are met. The law stipulates that children cannot give up their inheritance rights in attempt to evade their duty to take care of their parents. It adds that children should pay a monthly allowance to their parents if they refuse to take care of them.

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We Chinese people raise children to take care of us when we are old.

As if there wasn't enough cultural and societal pressure on Chinese adults to be their elderly parents' slaves! The articles that came out these last few days also sound quite ignorant - it is obvious the reporters don't know much about Chinese society. It's really a nightmare - parents still choose their children's spouses, make demands on how their children will live and what major they will study in which university and what job they will do in which company. Don't get me started on the pressure to give them grandchildren whether the young married couples are ready or not! I find the behavior of the Chinese elderly despicable. The same problem exists in Korea, India, Kazakhstan and the surrounding countries.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2352227/Visit-parents--risk-sued-New-Chinese-law-demands-offspring-touch-elderly.html

Wow, are the Chinese happy about this, or is it a burden? I sure hope that never happens in the U.S.

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"[GFG's pregnancy is] kind of like at the stables where that one dumb, ugly-ass mare broke out of her corral one day and got herself screwed by the equally fugly colt that was due to be gelded the same afternoon."- Shiny

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Miss_Hannigan
Wow, are the Chinese happy about this, or is it a burden? I sure hope that never happens in the U.S.

They don't know any other way to live. They do what their parents say even if it means making themselves miserable - a good example would be gay men who stay in the closet forever, marry a woman and have a child with her (which is what nearly all Chinese gays do) while running around like a criminal behind her back in order to have affairs with men. They are fine with being miserable for the sake of their parents because they know someday it will be their turn to have adult children who blindly obey them and wipe their wrinkly asses. This is the ultimate ideal of happiness for the Chinese.

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voodoodarling

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Miss_Hannigan
Wow, are the Chinese happy about this, or is it a burden? I sure hope that never happens in the U.S.

They don't know any other way to live. They do what their parents say even if it means making themselves miserable - a good example would be gay men who stay in the closet forever, marry a woman and have a child with her (which is what nearly all Chinese gays do) while running around like a criminal behind her back in order to have affairs with men. They are fine with being miserable for the sake of their parents because they know someday it will be their turn to have adult children who blindly obey them and wipe their wrinkly asses. This is the ultimate ideal of happiness for the Chinese.

That's insane. That is not living. I can't imagine obeying blindly my mother as long as she lives. I started 'rebelling' at the age of 13 when I wanted to pick my clothes and from then on I did things by myself. I still don't ask her opinion for my major life decisions although she imagines I'll marry the typical man with a nice job and have babies. She can sit and wait because I have other plans for me.

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"Don't you know how to deal with children?!"
"I don't like animals who act on instinct."
I think you're on to something Akihiko.

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Miss_Hannigan
Wow, are the Chinese happy about this, or is it a burden? I sure hope that never happens in the U.S.

There are states with filial responsibility laws but they're rarely enforced and not this extreme: grown children are only forced to pay for their parents' living expenses if the parents themselves can't (they have to prove they're too poor, not just claim it). I'd never heard of these laws until I read about a man being taken to court over his moo's bills. She abandoned him as a loaf and he was raised by her parents. He never had any contact with her but because of filial laws she was able to foist her bills on him.

K-Man sees an ulterior motive in this new Chinese law. In that culture the burden and responsibility of elderly parents has fallen exclusively on the sons, not the daughters, which is one reason for gender-selective abortions of female fetuses and discrimination against girls in the face of the one-child law. Girls have been seen as useless because they "belong" to their husband's family after marriage and are not expected to care for their own older parents. They normally received no inheritance; only the sons did.

This law as described seems aimed at making women potentially just as liable as men for caring for their own parents, even if the language concerns prohibiting (a son, unstated) ducking out by not receiving an inheritance. The change is potentially earth shattering for that culture if this is the true intent.

Edited to add: China doesn't have any welfare state as we would recognize it. The elderly get little there, unlike in most Western nations. The state doesn't want to step up if it doesn't have to. This really is a Chinese "filial responsibility" law as we have here.

Which is why I am pioneering the idea of "mail order parents"-lonely Chinese people who lost their natural parents can look at photos of qualifying parents in America and pick some to have as their own to take care of....

I think moos and duhs here in the U.S would LOVE this idea. They already go on and on about how we CF are stupid for not sprogging because we won't have anyone to take care of us in our old age. They all just assume that their kyds WILL take care of them; though many will not. I'm sure they would love the idea of forcing their kyds to have to take care of them, whether they want to or not; and they can gloat even more that we have no kyds to force to provide for our care.

My mother pulled this shit on me.

Right before I was taken away and put in foster care at the age of 15 mom demanded I take care of her because I "belonged to her." She told me I was her retirement plan. Since she was a druggie with a felon boyfriend her health was bad and, at 15, she expected me to give up my life and cater to her.

Years later as an adult, after her felon boyfriend left her high and dry, the state put her in a home for the disabled. She hated it there. She wanted to go somewhere posh. She got an attorney to sue me to pay for another home and some of her other bills. I brought my emancipation papers and the documents destroying her parental rights to court and that is the only reason I saved my bank account.

I couldn't even afford my own lawyer.

This shit is real.

Germany has similar laws about providing support for parents who are low on money, although there's no obligation to visit that I'm aware of. It's pretty fucked to think that people can be bound to some sort of contract like this through no choice of their own.

I can't understand why someone would want to support or enforce a law that mandated their kids take care of and/or visit them. It does, however, expose the fact that kids will, "take care of you in your old age" is by and large a huge lie because even a culture steeped in a strong sense of familial obligation doesn't always want to "take care of" their parents in their old age. Judging by the millions of elderly childed people living in nursing homes in The United States, when they don't need 24 hour medical care, is a PRIME example.

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

I can understand their thinking, though I don't agree with binding people to care this way. But, they -- government officials -- don't want the government to have to provide care for the elderly. Now, I don't see why it matters since government money all comes from taxpayers anyways.

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milenascarlet

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voodoodarling

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Miss_Hannigan
Wow, are the Chinese happy about this, or is it a burden? I sure hope that never happens in the U.S.

They don't know any other way to live. They do what their parents say even if it means making themselves miserable - a good example would be gay men who stay in the closet forever, marry a woman and have a child with her (which is what nearly all Chinese gays do) while running around like a criminal behind her back in order to have affairs with men. They are fine with being miserable for the sake of their parents because they know someday it will be their turn to have adult children who blindly obey them and wipe their wrinkly asses. This is the ultimate ideal of happiness for the Chinese.

I cannot imagine this. My last parent, who is my stepfather, share a deep bond as my mother died. Before, my mother, stepfather, and I were deeply bonded as we three have been through heavy shit together. I had a childhood that was atypical.

That's insane. That is not living. I can't imagine obeying blindly my mother as long as she lives. I started 'rebelling' at the age of 13 when I wanted to pick my clothes and from then on I did things by myself. I still don't ask her opinion for my major life decisions although she imagines I'll marry the typical man with a nice job and have babies. She can sit and wait because I have other plans for me.

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Passive Aggressive
Master Of Anti-brat
Excuses!

The concept of children being the retirement package stems from a time when:

-families had larger broods. You expected at least some to make it to adulthood and they shared tending to mom and dad.

-there was no social security, IRAs, 401ks or Medicare. The government assistance on much of this was originally supposed temporary, but as expected, once in place, it became a permanent fixture.

-people only lived to 65 on the average. The kids only had to deal with you for what? 10-15 years past their "retirement" age? You now have two things going on-people living longer, and some people having children later in life. My great aunt lived into her 90's, outliving one of her sons. The other son was in his 70's when he had to care for her-already in limited income and having health concerns of his own. With kids coming later in life, you have established parents, but they may not be financially able to care for their parents due to lack of employment and student debt.

-families often had a legacy business to hand their kids, so there was already a steady income waiting for the kids.