"A foolish child brings trouble to the parents..."

(Baonghean) - There's a folk saying, "A foolish child is the parent's burden," which, simply put, means that if children are foolish and spoiled, their parents bear the blame for not raising them properly. It's similar to the saying often used by Confucian scholars to admonish people: "Raising a child without educating them is the parents' fault." This means that if children are born and raised without being properly educated, they will become "foolish," doing many unwise and undesirable things, and that is the parents' fault. Therefore, parents must bear the responsibility, or "carry the burden."

People often say, "The elders are never wrong." However, nothing in life is immutable, uniquely right, or always true. In the past, it was true that "a foolish child is the parent's burden." But today, that's not necessarily the case. It might even be the opposite. The reason for this is that recently, several events have forced people to change their perceptions. First, there was the case of "Mr. Truyen from Ben Tre," whose villa, according to locals, was "oversized." When people wondered how a retired government official, living solely on his pension, could afford such a large house, he and his family explained that the house belonged to his son, as he himself didn't earn the money. This caused his son, also a government official, the trouble of explaining the source of the money for the house to his workplace. According to the explanation from the young son, who earns a low salary, the money to buy the villa came from his beer business and loans from brothers, friends, relatives, and acquaintances totaling several billion dong. It's unclear if he convinced anyone, but the matter seems to have been dropped.

The second story concerns a leader in Vinh Phuc province. Having just "landed safely," he inaugurated a villa spanning thousands of square meters. He had plenty of money, so he built a large house; he didn't care what anyone said or how he got so much money because... he didn't bother with public opinion. But the unfortunate thing was, his house encroached on public land by several hundred square meters. This caused public outcry, a public uproar, and the press investigated. Ultimately, he had to voluntarily remove the fence and return several hundred square meters of land that wasn't his to the State. People criticized him for being a high-ranking official but not setting a good example. He hastily explained that his son had encroached on the land without his knowledge. By the time he found out, it was too late, and he immediately forced his children to demolish the fence and return the land. What is very illogical and incomprehensible is that his son works in Hanoi and owns a house there. Yet he went to the trouble of returning to his birthplace to encroach on public land. And yet he was right there, completely unaware?

The third story, also about a former "public servant" of Central Vietnam, a general, who built a very grandiose mansion on public land. When public opinion scrutinized him, it turned out that his son had acted recklessly and carelessly, disregarding the law and treating public property as his own. It's true that a "tiger father" doesn't raise a "tiger son." These sons of influential families bring shame to their parents, who were once "parents of the people." At this point, one might think the old saying "a foolish child brings shame to the parents" is always true. But a deeper analysis reveals that this isn't entirely accurate. These "spoiled sons" are very young, have only been in office for a short time, so their salaries are low, and their prestige is also limited. Their influence and power are almost nonexistent. They certainly couldn't have accumulated that much money to build such a large house in such a short time. They certainly wouldn't dare encroach on that much public land in this day and age where "every inch of land is worth its weight in gold." Furthermore, those guys lack the authority to command respect and fear from the authorities, thus hesitating to prosecute the blatant act of misappropriating public property right before the eyes of the public. They disregarded discipline and the law. Without much discussion, everyone knows that their fathers were behind it, pulling the strings. If the fathers didn't approve, the sons wouldn't dare act so recklessly. Clearly, the fathers made a fool of themselves. They spent their lives as public servants, maintaining discretion and avoiding any scandal. But at the end of their lives, they couldn't control their greed, arrogance, and ostentatious behavior, leading to trouble. When it was exposed, they blamed their children. When things got complicated, they used their children as pawns, taking the blame and the bad reputation. As a result, some were disciplined and their actions were publicized nationwide, while others saw their reputations vanish in an instant. Isn't that sheer stupidity?!

That's the interesting thing: times change. Things were different then than they are now. In the past, it was "the mother bears the burden of the child's mistakes." Today, it's the opposite: the child bears the burden of the child's mistakes...

Buddha Mountain