Filial piety-- the duty to care for one's elders-- is a very strong value in China. Confucius considered it one of the highest moral values. Support of aging parents is mandated by law here. There are no governmental programs to assist the elderly. The expectation that one must care for aging parents is drummed into young people's heads here from the time they are small.
At first, I imagined the young people here actually WANTED to build their lives around their aging parents. Perhaps it was a cultural difference, I reasoned; in contrast to America where our children want to lead their own lives. People will say things to an outsider they won't admit to other Chinese. Many of the young people I talk to find care of their elders burdensome-- especially so in one child families where there are no siblings to share the load. Some young people smolder with resentment over the expectation that they care for their aging parents. But in today's China, there is no way out.
Elderly Chinese do not have the option of working and are thus very dependent on their children. Men must retire at 55 and women at 50, though exceptions are made in some fields, and some aging people find opportunities to work. Once, when I taught at a Chinese university, an official questioned whether a person of such advanced age as myself could possibly handle the workload
Above: An aging subsistence farmer.
Here's a link to an excellent article on this subject Bo Howell posted on his blog. http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourworld/family/articles/the_aging_of_china.html
5 comments:
Modern reality may require that filial piety be revised.
I guess I would make a good Chinese, since my choice was to take care of elderly parents. I do not recommend doing it as an only child, way to overwhelming, but sometimes you don't have a choice.
Since China has mandated a one child policy...I would imagine that this tradition is not working as well as it did in the past. Korean people also take care of their elderly parents, but due to their westernization, this is changing very quickly.
I personally think it's a great tradition and wish more people would desire to bless and honor their parents in this way.
In the real world, many adult Chinese children support aged parents, not because they want to, but because society expects this. They resent it.
Would you want your kids to take care of you on this basis? I certainly don't. I'm going to great lengths to make sure they don't have to. The adult Chinese children I speak to are intrigued that an older adult feels this way.
Law is ill-equipped to form a virtuous people. It is one thing to outlaw vice in its outward manifestation of conduct; how can legislation mandate virtuous conduct, or even instill virtue within a human soul? Mandating virtuous conduct, such as in Massachusetts’ “Good Samaritan” law, may be possible where the conduct is in public and thus readily enforceable. Virtue within the home is far more difficult for the law to reach and thus foster. Even vice behind closed doors, such as incest as well as physical and emotional abuse more generally, is difficult for police to catch. To an extent, property rights enable such vice and allow people the option of not being virtuous in a family context. Yet in countries in which an authoritarian state trumps even property rights, as in China, the question becomes whether legislation is the sort of thing that can foster or mandate virtuous conduct and even a virtuous character. See “China: Mandating the Virtue of Filial Piety by Law,” at http://thewordenreport.blogspot.com/2013/07/china-mandating-virtue-of-filial-piety.html
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