At the end of the year, the eldest sister of room 202 left.
I was in a hurry, and I didn't have time to see my children for the last time.
I sat in front of the window, looking out the window at the plum blossoms that had not yet withered, and I wondered if I would be able to see the plum blossoms of the coming year.
In this cold, lifeless courtyard, I suddenly felt the hardships of the years.
When I was 70 years old, I was sent to a nursing home by my daughter.
She said that she didn't have time to take care of me, and it was most reliable to leave the care for the elderly to the caregivers.
On the day I entered the nursing home, she said that she would come to see me often, but in eight years, she had seen me twice.
My daughter always says that she is busy, but in the circle of friends, there is still a family of three playing in Sanya.
Everyone says that when people are old, they should be sensible old men and not cause trouble to their children.
But now, I regret it, if the years come again, I must not be a "great" mother.
Again, I won't enroll her in all kinds of high-cost interest classes.
In the past, I always thought that it was my blessing to raise an excellent daughter.
It is true that there is a blessing, but the root of the blessing is no longer in myself, but in my daughter.
At that time, the income of the husband and wife, in addition to the monthly mortgage, and the family's expenses, were also very poor.
But in order not to let my daughter lose at the starting line, I gritted my teeth and enrolled her in the Olympiad class.
In order to allow her to get into a good school, various tutoring classes from elementary school to high school have never been interrupted.
In total, tens of thousands of dollars are spent on counseling fees every year.
Once again, I won't do my best to pave the way for her life, her own life will have to go by herself.
What I can do for her is to let her have no worries about food and clothing, and give her spiritual love and care.
I want to use the money I saved from tutoring classes and interest classes to feel the breeze in the mountains and the sunshine in the ancient city.
In the past, I always thought that when I was old, I would have time to see the world, but the reality is that when my daughter grows up, your merits are complete, and you still have grandchildren who need you to take care of.
Once again, when my child reaches the age of eighteen, I will not raise her again.
At the age of 18, I have completed my mission to raise her and as an adult in the legal sense, she can support herself.
As I gradually entered the old age, my daughter always liked to talk to me about independence and equality.
When chatting about the issue of pension at one point, she even said that foreigners are all providing for the elderly by themselves.
But she forgot that parents abroad, they only raise their children to adulthood.
When children become adults, they will move out of their parents' homes, and the tuition fees and living expenses of the university will be solved by themselves, and they will no longer rely on their parents.
When my daughter was in college, I spent at least 200,000 yuan on her.
If I could do it all over again, I would tell her that she wanted to be independent, that she could apply for a student loan if she had no money, and that she would go to work part-time for her living expenses.
I shouldn't be carrying her life on my back.
With the money she saved from college, I will make some more stable investments to prevent aging.
After all, raising children does not prevent old age, so you can only rely on sufficient funds to prevent old age.
Again, I won't help her buy a house again.
Before our daughter got married, we used half of our life savings to buy her a house in the city.
Although the house was bought in full, it was so that if one day her marriage was unhappy, she could have a good way out.
It's a pity that I thought of a way out for her, but I didn't think of a way out for myself.
To this day, there are still a group of people shouting that your parents' hard work has nothing to do with you, and these are the result of countless choices they have made in the past.
Yes, it's a parent's choice. Without you, the ups and downs that should be encountered will always be encountered.
However, if I had been selfish and hadn't given her all my might, my life would have at least been a little easier.
So, when she opened her mouth and closed her mouth, she said that these were all my willingness and that she was willing, which was actually quite chilling.
Do it all over again, I won't dig out my heart and lungs again, and I won't pay with all my heart and soul again.
I will use the money from her house to buy a house as a pension** in case of emergency.
Do it all over again, I won't bring her another baby.
You have to admit that raising children is mentally and physically demanding.
In the year of retirement, my wife and I were also at ease, in addition to preparing three meals a day, raising flowers and dancing square dances.
But this comfortable day was interrupted by her daughter's second child.
At that time, I was in my 60s, and my body was quite strong, but I couldn't stop taking care of my grandson every day and night.
The child's crying made me often unable to sleep all night, and gradually suffered from cranial neurasthenia.
My health was getting worse and worse, but I still managed to reach the age when my grandson was in kindergarten.
I sighed that I was finally able to go home to my wife.
When I asked my daughter to go home, she said, "When you go home, who will pick up the child?" We're all busy.
And just like that, I started repeating the old days, and I was tired.
My body became more and more tired, and illnesses of all sizes followed.
In the hospital bed, my daughter said that she didn't have time to take care of me, so she found me a nanny.
At this moment, I really understand that there is no filial son in front of the bed for a long time, I understand her difficulties, but I also have my own grievances.
If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't want to bring her a baby.
People always say, "I'll take care of the children for you, and you will provide for me." ”
But the pension they talk about still can't change the ending of being sent to a nursing home.
Bringing a baby is definitely a matter of consuming your health in advance, and I won't help her take care of the baby again, that's her child, her responsibility.
On that day, I saw a particularly approving word:
Being able to take care of oneself is not to provide for the elderly, but to enjoy life, and when you are in bed and lose the ability to take care of yourself, the real pension will begin. ”
Yes, as long as you have the ability to take care of yourself and don't need to be taken care of by others, can it be called pension?
On the issue of pension for the elderly in the city, there are several "self-righteous" places:
For example, finding a person to marry can save you from being lonely and widowed in old age;
When you are old, you don't have to live at home, you can travel around and live;
If the child is not at home, you can hire a nurse or enter a high-quality nursing home, and you can also provide for the elderly well without relying on the child.
What is the essence of pension?
It is to be taken care of, and it is to wash the face, gargle, feed, wipe the body, take a bath, change diapers, turn over, help the patient get up and massage and other details of the elderly who have lost their ability to take care of themselves.
And this kind of care is the most energy-consuming and physically demanding, and the most test is people's patience and carefulness.
How many caregivers can be considerate and conscientious?
What you have to admit is that most of the caregivers in the country just can't.
It's not that it's unprofessional, it's that it's impatient. As soon as the family leaves, they sit down and play with their phones.
I once saw a blogger on the Internet who said that he had changed five nurses at home, and the first four were all lazy and tired. In the end, the blogger could only spend more expensive ** to hire an illiterate and simple rural nurse who took care of the elderly Jingyan was rich, and two people took turns and one person worked for twelve hours to ensure the dignified death of his mother.
In the end, the person will degenerate like a small baby, unable to speak, unable to feed on his own, and unable to control his bowel and bowel movements.
So taking care of these elderly people is like taking care of a small baby, but the old man is several times the size of a baby.
Like, you're taking care of a giant baby.
No matter how good the nursing home is, for the elderly who have lost their ability to take care of themselves, there are a few caregivers who can be meticulous.
Not to mention taking care of these elderly people, if they are their own parents, they may not be able to take good care of them.
Because it is very difficult for an adult to serve another disabled elderly person.
Not to mention one-to-one, two-to-one service is unrealistic.
Stop preaching the credibility of business credibility, the capitalists are only trying to make money.
Speaking of professionals, who are far more reliable than their own children, either they have not hired a nurse themselves, or they have not taken care of the seriously ill elderly.
Do you still remember the Henan woman Xiangxiang who couldn't crawl out of the nest?
For ten years, he took care of his demented father, cleaned up his feces and changed his clothes.
Every day, when I opened the door of my father's room, there was feces all over the floor, on the bed, and on my clothes.
The clothes that I had just changed a second ago turned around and pulled them on again, and Xiangxiang, who took care of her father so conscientiously, would be forced to collapse by the old man, and she could only beat herself to vent, because it was her father, and she couldn't scold or beat.
Let's ask, how many of the so-called nurses can be in the feces den, and they can still be emotionally stable and not beat the elderly?
Do it all over again, and I'd rather have a son who delivers food by my side than a son who studies abroad.
Aunt Lan in room 202 lived alone after the death of her wife.
My son worked and settled in the United States and proposed to let him live in the United States.
But the birds love the old forest, the pond fish thinks about the old abyss, and the land under their feet is their roots.
Not to mention that the food climate abroad is not adaptable, and there are no relatives and friends.
At Aunt Lan's insistence, the son did not mention letting his mother go to the United States, but found her a high-end nursing home to spend her old age in peace.
The son paid all the expenses of the nursing home at one time and enjoyed a pension service of no less than 80,000 yuan per month.
But it wasn't until I lost my ability to take care of myself that I realized that the service and quality of the caregivers were not as high as expected.
I have seen with my own eyes that when the nurse feeds Aunt Lan, she rudely stuffs food into her mouth, not caring whether the old man swallows it or not.
The soup of the meal ran down the corner of her mouth, and then rubbed it rudely with her sleeve.
She must be in pain.
In the intimate space, the state of the elderly determines that they will always be in a vulnerable position compared to the able-bodied caregivers.
But young children may understand all this, but they can't do anything about it.
At the age of 70, I was sent to a nursing home by my daughter, and I came twice in eight years.
The older a person gets, the more he needs his children, which is a kind of emotional dependence, and now that he is old, even this dependence has become a luxury.
So do it all over again, I won't give everything without asking for anything in return, I have to live a selfish life, try to live for myself, and reduce my emotional dependence on my children.
Instead of watching every day in this cold courtyard.
end！Digression: The problem of the elderly is not only the question of whether they have children or not. Having children does not necessarily solve the problem of providing for the elderly. Like early childhood education, old-age care is also a social issue. It is not only the family that needs to be solved, but also the society and the state to participate and solve the problem together. In our country, pension is always a long way to go, and it is difficult to achieve it for hundreds of years without several generations.
There is a long road, but I am willing to be optimistic.
At this time, at the moment, with your own strength, you can do as much filial piety as you can.