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By APD writer Alice
Instead of enjoying their old age, millions of elderly people in Asian countries such as Vietnam and China have to leave their homeland for cities to take care of their grandchildren.
Returning to her hometown after 6 months in the city to take care of her grandchildren, Le Thi Hoa, 67, from Hung Yen northern province of Vietnam, is so skinny that her neighbours are extremely worried.
Hoa gave birth to an only son named Thanh. After graduating from university, he stayed in Hanoi to start his career. Since his marriage, he were busy and did not visit his parents often as before. But when having babies, to save money, he and his wife did not hire a housekeeper but took turns looking after the children and doing housework.
Seeing Thanh and his wife were working hard to make money, and were busy with housework and taking care of their children, Hoa decided to leave her garden in the countryside to go to Hanoi to take care of her grandchildren.
She said that besides looking after the grandchildren, she had to clean several floors every day, making her so tired that she lost weight.
Thanh and his wife were busy all the day with their work at the companies, so taking care of the grandchildren, one 2 years old, one four years old, was only done by her.
Everyday, she had to get up early in the morning and went to the market to buy food, then returned home to feed her grandchildren. Next, she washed clothes and cleaned the 3-floor house. Without resting, she cooked lunch for the grandchildren. After lunch, she had to lull them to sleep. She had to hold them in her arms before they could sleep. Not to mention the times when the weather changed, they cried and forced her to carry them around to eat.
"Just looking after my grandchildren for a few months, my health has become weaker, my whole body is aching and tired. On Sundays, my daughter-in-law supported me but in other days during the week, I had to do all the housework on my own," Hoa said.
Hoa is not the only one who has to leave the homeland for the city to take care of the grandchildren in Vietnam.
After decades of working as a civil servant, Mr. Tam and his wife built a fairly spacious two-storey house in the countryside. A short time later, their son in the city came back to persuade them to sell the house to give him money to buy an apartment and pick them up with his family...
Having been in the city for a few months, Mr. Tam felt uncomfortable because most of the day, he had to live in the four walls, like a prison cell. In the morning, he walks to take his older grandchild to school, and pick him up when he finishes school in the afternoon. In the city, everyone is busy working, neighbors who meet in the elevator just nod and do not talk intimately like in the countryside. Some of the retired men in the same floor of the apartment building are at the same age as Mr. Tam but they find part-time jobs.
Mr. Tam only has a television as a friend. His wife takes care of the baby while cleaning the house, washing clothes and cooking. It is difficult to feed the boy so she feels very tired. Their son and his wife go out from morning until evening, and have lunch at the office.
Since Mr. Tam and his wife looked after the grandchildren, the daughter-in-law has often come home late, when Mrs. Tam already prepared the dinner, bathed the grandchildren,cleaned the house and put clothes in wardrope. So the daughter-in-law does not do anything but goes to the supermarket once a week to buy food stored in the refrigerator.
In the hometown, they used to eat fresh food and vegetables in the garden, so it's difficult for the old couple to have a bowl of vegetable soup in the city.
Sometimes, they wanted to remind their son of this, but they were afraid that the daughter-in-law would be unpleased. Whenever she missed the hometown, Mrs. Tam called and confided with her daughter. Knowing that her parents worked hard but were not happy, the daughter joked: "Now you are really servants without salary. During holidays, you can't go back to the hometown anymore”. Hearing her daughter saying that, Mrs. Tam was very sad, thinking: "Maybe she thinks I have no place in the hometown to go back". She told her husband, he sighed: "Now you cannot blame anyone. You also liked going to the city”.
Not only Vietnam, neighbouring China has seen an increasing wave of elderly people coming to cities to take care of their grandchildren, especially after the government allowed citizens to have the second child.
Since moving to Beijing, Fan Cuiyun (60 years old) has felt like an outsider in her own family.
Five years ago, Fan left Tianjin city for the capital to help her son and daughter-in-law raise their newborn child. She had to take care of her grandchild all the day.
However, Fan felt that she received very little gratitude. Every night when her son and daughter-in-law came home from work, they questioned her about their child's activities during the day. After that, the couple often ignored the old mother.
“They rarely talk to me about anything but my grandson. I'm like an unpaid servant,” Fan said.
Many Chinese old people have the same experience as Fan Cuiyun. There are an estimated 18 million laopiao, or “elderly drifters,” in the country. For many people, life away from home in the old age is very painful.
Five years ago, Sun Yulan's peaceful retirement plan suddenly changed after her grandson was born. Asked for help by their son and daughter-in-law, Sun and her husband eagerly gave up their free lives for years in a 120-square-meter apartment in Anshan city, Liaoning province, to go to Shanghai to clean the house, cook and take their grandson to school.
After three years, Sun and her husband planned to return to their old apartment and enjoy their old age in the hometown. However, the next grandson was born, making the old couple unable to leave and continue to stay as "unpaid servants".
"The daughter-in-law rarely talked to me, except when giving me dirty things. We are like unpaid servants, but what can we do? Hiring a babysitter in Shanghai is too expensive," Sun said.
Liu Xiumei, who left central Hubei province for Shanghai to look after her grandchildren. Sitting alone in her daughter’s apartment, she wondered what her life would be like if she hadn’t agreed to leave the homeland.
“Maybe I’d be traveling around China with my husband,” said the 55-year-old. She thought she’d only be in Shanghai for a few years — until her daughter is able to raise the child by herself.
But things didn’t quite work out that way.
Just a year later, China announced it was finally abandoning the one-child policy. And not long after, Liu’s daughter became one of millions of parents to take advantage of the new rules and have a second baby. Liu’s child care duties continued.
Nearly half of elderly migrants in major Chinese cities are sacrificing their retirement age to take care of their children and grandchildren. This trend points to changes in family and social structures that put older migrants at risk of isolation, researchers said.
Surely, leaving countryside for cities to care for children and grandchildren is not a good solution for old people who need a peaceful life, fresh air and food to enjoy the rest days of their life. So sons and daughters should create all possible conditions for their parents to do what they want in their old age. That’s the best they can do for their beloved parents.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
