A leisurely life that begins with the possession of a game character

(This chapter does not advance the plot, so you can skip it)

Zhang Lan could understand that it was difficult to support the elderly. Supporting the elderly was similar to raising children, but it was much more difficult than raising children. This was because the elderly had a unique commonality that children did not have: their status was suppressed.

If your children are disobedient, you can beat, scold and control them as much as you want because your status is higher than theirs.

Elderly people? You know they are no different from children, and in some ways even worse than children, but you can’t let them go.

They can even manage you to a certain extent, but when their status and ability are completely inverted, caring for them in old age is a stressful and difficult problem, much more difficult than taking care of children.

Who told them that they are in a higher position than you? You can only watch them being unreasonably frugal, and end up in the hospital because of the heat in order to save a few dollars on electricity. You know that the health supplements such as bird's nest and shark's fin you buy are all rubbish and money-swindling, but you can't resist them. You know that smoking, drinking, high salt and high oil intake are bad, but you can't stop them and you can't really control them with force.

Often they know that what you say makes sense, but they just can't bring themselves to "listen to their children". If it's the same thing, they would rather listen to their neighbors than you.

The more concerned about their reputation, the harder it is to support an elderly person. Their stubbornness, refusal to accept old age and refusal to acknowledge their own weakness are the biggest problems in elderly care.

Let's take a few very simple examples. For example, when a child cannot control his bowels and bladder, he has no complaints when adults put him in diapers or even hold him to pee.

For an elderly person who cannot control his bowels and bladder but is conscious, if you put a diaper on him and he refuses to use it, and you remind him to go to the toilet, he gets angry.

For example, if a child is picky about food, if you explain it to him with emotion and reason, he will be willing to take a bite even if he doesn't like the food.

A picky old man will slam your bowl on the table before you even open your mouth.

There is also medical treatment. If a sick child doesn't want to take medicine or get an injection, coercion or bribery will always work. But a sick old man will say, "I don't want to live any longer."

The elderly are facing aging, and supporting them requires money and energy.

If there are children, and if they live well, and the elderly have pensions, savings and other assets, and can take care of themselves, this is the best situation. All the children need to do is to visit or video chat with them frequently, buy some things, and comfort them spiritually. This will make the elderly feel cared for.

If the elderly cannot take care of themselves, their children can hire a housekeeper to help them if they are not retired. Some elderly people feel that they do not like housekeepers because they have children.

In addition, the quality of housekeeping services is hard to satisfy. Some housekeeping services are OK in the first few days, but they become lazy after a while. But as long as the housekeeping services are generally acceptable, and the elderly can chat, heat meals, help them go to the bathroom, and clean up, the children don’t have to worry too much except for paying.

If the elderly do not have pensions or other property, they need their children to subsidize their living expenses every month. If the other half can accept this, then it is a very harmonious and happy state. The premise is that the children have a good quality of life, and the children can contribute money or effort if they have money.

Families with many children are most likely to have conflicts when the elderly need support. Because their living conditions are different, everyone feels that they are doing a good job of serving their parents and making a great contribution to the family, especially when someone is serving their parents in person and someone is living away and does not pay, or even if they pay, they do not understand the difficulty of serving their parents in person.

The elderly are sometimes partial or biased, and do not understand the distress of the people who serve them closely. Also, people may make the people who serve them feel uncomfortable because they are not careful in what they say.

Elderly people, especially those in rural areas who have no source of income, are a major problem to support.

Zhang Lan had been drinking with Zhang Qing, the director of the Public Security Bureau, and during their conversation they talked about disputes over supporting the elderly in the surrounding towns and villages.

Zhang Qing said he had read an investigation summary that said most of the support cases occurred in families with poor economic conditions. These families were in extremely difficult financial situations but were unable to support their parents.

Some children are old and weak, and the family burden is heavy. Others do not have the skills to get rich, have certain difficulties in their own lives, and are unable to support their parents.

In addition, most of the strong labor force in rural areas go out to work or do business for a living and are away from home all year round. Their children do not earn much money themselves and it is difficult for them to take care of their parents at home.

Due to the lack of pillar industries to support economic development, most rural youths work away from home all year round, leaving the elderly without a place to live and causing disputes over support.

In maintenance disputes, most people have a low level of cultural education, and the caregivers have weak legal awareness and moral concepts, and ignore their obligation to support the elderly.

Some people in rural areas who have the obligation to provide support have poor legal and moral awareness and ignore their obligation to provide support to the elderly. As the elderly age, their physical functions decline, and their production and living skills gradually disappear, some children believe that the elderly need money to feed, clothe, house and treat their illnesses, so they only know how to ask for money from their parents, but their awareness of "repaying the debt" is very poor.

Some children think that their parents can no longer bring in income for the family, but they have to bear the expenses of food, clothing, housing, transportation, medical treatment, etc. This makes them psychologically unbalanced and unwilling to do their best to support their parents. As a result, they regard the elderly as a burden to the family and ignore their legal obligation to support them.

Most elderly people are deeply influenced by the feudal idea that having more children means more blessings. In rural areas, the current situation is that the more children a family has, the more likely it is that there will be cases of support disputes.

Influenced by traditional concepts, parents do not require their daughters to assume the obligation of supporting their parents, which leads to conflicts between sons and their parents and sisters. Some elderly people, influenced by the old feudal ideas, believe that "a daughter who is married off is like water spilled out", and that married daughters are no longer family members and do not have to fulfill the obligation of supporting their parents. As a result, sons complain and think that their parents are biased, which leads to disputes.

Others are caused by conflicts over the division of family property. When dividing up a family in rural areas, many elderly people usually divide all their "family assets" among their children in exchange for their children's promise to support them. Children who do not receive any property use this as an excuse to refuse to assume their support obligations.

Elderly people have many children, and the children shirk their responsibilities. In a large family, family relationships are more complicated, and sisters-in-law and children compete with each other and shirk their responsibilities, which is most likely to lead to a situation where the elderly are left without anyone to support them.

Li Baogui's family is a typical example. The old couple decided to take care of the eldest son in their old age. Their hard work throughout their lives also helped the old family. Now that the old lady is old and can no longer do things, they start to push them away.

At the beginning, when the old lady could move on her own, it was okay so her children didn't have to worry about taking care of her. But as the old lady became disabled and sat in a wheelchair and needed someone to take care of her, it became a trouble that could not be avoided.

Finally, there is a clash of moral concepts. Among the children, it depends on who has the heart to be ruthless and who is the one who endures it honestly.

Some people also say that a family that accumulates good deeds will surely be blessed in the future. If you take good care of the elderly, you will definitely be blessed in the future. Some people believe this, while others think it is just a joke.