"Lost way home: My uncle was kicked out of his home for taking care of his children in Shanghai before the Chinese New Year"
This year, according to the agreement with the elderly on both sides of my wife for one year, I followed her back to my father-in-law's house in Dongzhi, Chizhou, Anhui Province for the New Year.
When my uncle came to visit us for the New Year, we felt that his mental state was not very good, and he looked like he was depressed. Because the little uncle wants to save face, it is not good to ask the reason directly from him. We learned from the uncle that the younger uncle was kicked out by his daughter-in-law, and he and his sister-in-law had to move from their son's house in Shanghai to their daughter's house in Hangzhou before the Chinese New Year.
It turned out that every year for the Chinese New Year, the son and daughter met together for the New Year, but this year, the son's family did not go to his sister's house for the New Year, but chose his own family to stay in Shanghai for the New Year. Not only that, but when I went back to my hometown to visit my relatives, my uncle also came back alone.
This year, the eldest brother's eldest brother celebrates his 80th birthday, so the younger uncle must be present, but the strange thing is that the younger uncle and his son are not visiting together, but separately. My uncle stayed until the fifth day of the new year and returned to Hangzhou. The reason why he went back was to take into account that his son went back to his hometown to visit relatives on the fifth day of junior high school and deliberately staggered with him. Father and son are no longer strangers.
In fact, my uncle's children are very prominent representatives in the rural society, and my wife said that when they were young, their parents often used the example of my uncle's children to educate them to study hard.
Sister Xiaorun, the eldest daughter of my uncle, was born in 1982, was admitted to Anhui Medical University, before the pediatrics of Zhejiang Zhoushan Hospital, was already the deputy chief physician, and came to Hangzhou three years ago because of her husband's work transfer, and now works as a doctor in a hospital in Hangzhou, and bought a house in the urban area of Hangzhou. Sister Xiaorun has two children, the older one is studying in the best high school in Hangzhou, and the younger one is still in elementary school.
Xiao Kunge, the son of the little uncle, was born in 1984 and was admitted to Fudan University, which was the top three in the county science college entrance examination that year, and is now working in the semiconductor industry in Shanghai Jiangwan Science and Technology Park. Brother Xiao Kun relied on his own hard work to buy a house of 156 in the suburbs of Shanghai, and he also has two children, one in junior high school and the other in primary school.
However, as the children start a family in the city, the sister-in-law and uncle also follow the son to take care of the children, but they don't know that the contradiction between the two generations will become more and more intense, and the biggest tension is the uncle and daughter-in-law, on the contrary, the sister-in-law has a good temper, and she keeps the house clean and tidy.
The grievances between the younger uncle and the daughter-in-law have gone through several stages:
In the first stage, the two sides had a big quarrel, and after that, they never spoke to each other again, my wife took the child to Xiao Kun's house for a meal, and she felt that the atmosphere of the meal was a little embarrassing.
In the second stage, the two sides escalated from an argument to a physical altercation, on the basis of which the uncle also threatened to jump off the building, which ended with the uncle staying at his daughter's house for a while.
The third stage is that after the conflict between the two sides, Brother Xiao Kun also stood on the side of his daughter-in-law, and the isolated uncle packed up his things overnight and moved to his daughter's house in Hangzhou with his sister-in-law the next day.
From the perspective of the reasons for the conflict between the uncle and the daughter-in-law, there are mainly the following levels:
First of all, the daughter-in-law herself is an accountant in the enterprise, and her income is in her own hands, and it is mainly used for her own consumption, and the family expenditure mainly depends on Brother Xiaokun, and the little uncle has a lot of opinions about this, so he said a few words to the daughter-in-law, so it caused a conflict.
The second is that the little uncle will also express his opinion on the daughter-in-law's education of the child, which in the eyes of the daughter-in-law is an interference in the internal affairs of the small family, and the two sides have caused conflicts several times.
It is not uncommon for the parents to participate in cooperative parenting after the children go to the city, and after chatting with the elderly who help their children with children, they find that every family has a difficult scripture, and the two generations have their own bitter water, and there are many contradictions hidden behind the seemingly superficial harmony, but some families choose to end in the form of "points".
Judging from the example of the little uncle's family, the current family relationship has changed a lot compared to the traditional multi-child family around the contradictions between separation and maintenance, and now it is more at the level of life, and behind life is related to rights and emotions, such as the young daughter-in-law is disgusted by the mother-in-law who turns over her clothes without consent and goes in and out of her bedroom, and when the young couple quarrels, she intervenes and even stands on her son's side to count down the daughter-in-law, and the old man complains a lot is the young man who spends money lavishly, He spoke very directly, without caring about the feelings of the elderly.
Judging from the conflict between the two generations in the field of family life, this experience of living together will last for a relatively long time, usually until the grandchildren go to junior high school and do not need to be picked up, and for more than ten years, how to adjust and settle themselves becomes very important for the elderly. Judging from the situation of the little uncle, he still adheres to the concept that the small family and the big family are a community, so he still has the consciousness of being the head of the family to express his own opinions and ask for the cooperation of his offspring.
The conflict between a daughter-in-law and her father-in-law in the community where the author lives is very representative, the son's economic conditions are good, the daughter's economic conditions are poor, the son is a child, the daughter is two children, the father-in-law hopes that when the New Year's birthday red envelope, if the daughter gives the younger brother's child 200, the son will give the sister's child 200, but this is a matter of crossing the line in the daughter-in-law's view, the two sides quarreled about it, and the last few conflicts ended with the father-in-law going to rent a house next to it.
In addition, the parents' way of life is at odds with the neat and clean categories required in modern cities, and one of the things that the daughter-in-law is dissatisfied with her father-in-law is that every time her father-in-law comes home, she takes off her clothes next to the sofa, and the daughter-in-law thinks that dirty clothes should be put in the dirty clothes basket.
In the 1-3 years old, both generations have their own opinions on how to feed children, and the traditions and scientific concepts they represent are reasonable but not absolute, and conflicts will arise when communication is not good. When it comes to raising children, young people often choose to enroll their children in more classes because they feel the fierce competition in urban education, but the elderly advocate not to put so much pressure on children based on their experience in educating children.
Therefore, when the offspring enter the city, how to learn to "be an old man" for the elderly in rural areas is a new challenge they encounter, especially when the main axis of family power shifts to the horizontal axis of husband and wife, and the young daughter-in-law has an enhanced voice in the family power structure, how the elderly should communicate with the offspring to reach cooperation is indeed not easy.
The flexible elderly began to become "cautious", no longer expressing their opinions at the front desk of the family, and they tried to tidy up the house and take the grandchildren according to the daughter-in-law's request. In the families of the offspring, the elderly begin to consciously discipline their own living habits, and they adapt to the lifestyle of the young people. However, the elderly will always accumulate emotions and opinions in the process, they need someone to talk to, so they will turn to build their own backstage, the author has seen the elderly in the community in the walk of the two to express their dissatisfaction with their son and daughter-in-law, and meet together to dance square dance, and at the same time, they will also resonate with the experience of the short ** similar to their own experience on Douyin, if it is really not possible, they will choose to go back to their hometown for a few days.
It is precisely because of the support mechanism of the background that the compliance of the elderly in the words and deeds of the front desk is guaranteed, and the dual-track operation of the front desk and the back office will accompany them for a long time for the elderly in the transition period, so it is not easy for them, until they begin to return to their hometowns to care for the elderly.
An elderly man in the author's community will return to Lujiang County, which is fifty or sixty kilometers away from Hefei City, every weekend, and he describes the life of returning to his hometown as free, playing cards, growing vegetables, and living a much more comfortable and comfortable life. Behind this is the family ethic of father-son integration, which has a strong sense of empathy for the life pressure of children in the city, so they hope to reduce the burden on their children and hope that the children can live well, which constitutes the value and spiritual support for the elderly who follow their children into the city to adjust themselves.
As for the situation of the elderly who follow their children to the city to participate in child-rearing in the wave of urbanization, the author does not mean that the responsibility is directly attributed to the young people, but in fact it shows the projection of social transformation in the family field, and the two generations have their own difficulties. I just hope that while the elderly are adjusting themselves, the young people who are more and more dominant in relationship interaction will look at the efforts of the elderly, so that the intergenerational relationship will not be "sabre-rattling" but a little more warm.
Interaction between grandparents and grandchildren in the countryside, ** taken during the investigation in Jiagou Town, Huainan in January 2024.