My surname is Zhou, and I am 60 years old this year. Looking back, my wife and I have always been ordinary salarymen, diligent and hard-working all our lives, in addition to making money, we silently bear the responsibilities of the family, without regrets.
We only have one son, who has been naughty since he was a child, and he often worries us. Luckily, he was brilliant and excelled in his studies. I often tell my wife that as long as my child has the opportunity to receive a better education, we should support him no matter how difficult it is.
When my son was in college, we went through a difficult time. The tuition fees at the university weighed on us, and in order to save money, we didn't eat meat for almost the whole year, and I was embarrassed by the sight of being ridiculed by acquaintances at the wet market. Still, I understand that we have to persevere on my son's future path.
After my son graduated from college, our lives were a little easier. Although we no longer pay for his tuition, we still pay a lot to support him in his independent life. When the son fell in love, the woman put forward the conditions for buying a house, for which we had to take out all our savings of 250,000 yuan for a down payment. This is a sacrifice we made for the sake of our son's happiness, and although there are some worries in our hearts, we are also willing.
When naming the house, I specially gathered my son and daughter-in-law. I said to my son that this is all we can do in this life. I plan to write the name of the property directly in the name of your young couple, and the rest of the loan will be repaid by you slowly. Both the son and daughter-in-law nodded in agreement.
This is the result of repeated discussions between me and my wife. If our name is written on the house, the daughter-in-law will definitely not be willing to share the responsibility of repaying the loan. In this way, the remaining loan becomes the responsibility of our old couple. Instead of this, it is better to be generous and write the children's names directly on the house. In this way, the burden of future repayments is irrelevant to us.
Thinking that my son's lifelong event has also been completed, for the old man, a mission has been completed, and I finally breathe a sigh of relief in my heart. In fact, I still have my own wish over the years, which is to walk around and see the world.
Originally, I agreed with my sisters that I would go out on a trip with everyone after I retired. However, my son came to the door and told me that my daughter-in-law was pregnant and hoped that I could go over and take care of my daughter-in-law with the child. Although I didn't really want to go, I couldn't resist my son's repeated requests, and I finally agreed.
When I came to my son's house, I established several principles with my son and daughter-in-law. I said that I have reached retirement age and am now coming to take care of you, but you cannot shift all the blame to me. I can help with the kids, but that doesn't mean I have to do all the housework.
I put forward several conditions at once. I take care of the children during the day, and I don't care about it at night. On Saturdays and Sundays, I will go back to my own house and will not take my children with me. As for grocery shopping and cooking, I hope you can try to take care of yourself as much as possible. Besides, since I'm here, you're going to have to give me some hard money.
I asked my son to give me 2,000 yuan a month for hard work. The daughter-in-law was not very happy when she heard this, saying that being a grandmother still needs hard work to take care of the child, which is unheard of. I replied unhappily: You haven't heard it before, but now you hear it, right?If you think I want a lot of money, you can find a nanny to bring it yourself, and the nanny outside will cost 5,000 at every turn.
Eventually, they all agreed to these conditions. In the years when my son was at my son's house with my grandson, although I didn't have to cook and wash clothes, my children needed me to watch them all day long, especially when they were learning to walk. I felt very hard, but luckily I didn't have to worry about it at night, and I would go home at the end of the week.
In recent years, although I have been taking care of my children, my daughter-in-law's attitude towards me has not been satisfactory. She was always cold to me, neither kind nor polite. Sometimes at the dinner table, she would complain and complain that the food *** life was stressful, not only to raise children, but also to repay the loan, and to pay me some expenses, but after a year she still couldn't save.
I listened silently, wondering who has a life without twists and turns?And the down payment for the original purchase was made by us. However, since my grandson went to kindergarten, I still haven't asked to go home, and my daughter-in-law immediately asked me to go back.
I knew she was worried about the money and worried that I would have to pay for an extra day if I stayed for an extra day. In fact, I am quite happy to go home, in the past few years, I have eaten and lived at my son's house, my wife has eaten in the canteen of the unit, and our salary has saved less than 300,000 savings, and I have a better plan for this money.
The year after I returned home, my wife also went through the formalities of retirement. We began a wonderful travel life, and spent more than three years traveling all over the great rivers and mountains of the motherland. Because we didn't have much to worry about at home, we stayed in the places we liked as we liked, and before we knew it, we had walked through dozens of cities.
People are like this, when they climb a mountain, they always want to see higher and farther. When we found that there was no more desirable place in the country, we embarked on an international trip. We have traveled long distances to 11 countries in Europe, experiencing exotic landscapes and being amazed by the beauty along the way. Again and again, we immersed ourselves in it, thinking that this was the time when we had come to the end of our hard work and had a good time.
In the past six years, almost all of our savings have been spent on travel. I made a rough estimate and spent less than 300,000 before and after. But I think this life is worth it, despite the constant complaints from my son and daughter-in-law. In their opinion, we are too extravagant, and if we have money on hand, we should use it to help them repay their loans as soon as possible, instead of traveling around.
But we have our own ideas, and we don't want to live a life of grievances for the rest of our lives. Because we chose to travel, we rarely had contact with our son and daughter-in-law, and to be honest, I didn't really want to meet them. Every time we eat together, my son always complains that we spend too much money on travel, and although my daughter-in-law doesn't say it, she is dissatisfied, and this emotion can be seen even if she is a fool.
I thought that traveling would make us feel good and keep us healthy. However, in the first half of this year, my wife was found to have stomach cancer during a routine physical examination. It takes $80,000, and that $80,000 puts us in a bind.
When I got home, I searched every corner of the house, rummaging through boxes and cabinets to scrape together some money. After some calculations, I found that there were only more than 30,000, and my heart couldn't help but be heavy. I had to face the reality that I had to ask my son for help.
Unexpectedly, as soon as I opened my mouth, my son responded to me with disdain. He actually said that seeing our old couple traveling so chicly, he thought we had plenty of money. However, now we can't even raise 80,000 yuan for medical treatment, and he blamed me for saying that it is ridiculous that we still have to go on a poor trip knowing that my family is short of money.
In the end, my son told me that they had been living a tight life, and their wages had to be used to pay off the mortgage, maintain a car, raise their children, and have all kinds of living expenses. He said he could only contribute a maximum of 30,000 yuan.
Faced with the current situation of 20,000 yuan in ** fee, I was anxious, and my son accused me of not leaving a way back for myself. Am I really wrong?We've been frugal and hard for decades, and now that we're getting older, shouldn't we go out once in a while and relax?