I picked up my little girl from her friend’s house after her friend’s birthday. Her mother took her to the car and chatted with her for a while. On the way home, she told me that the uncle had asked her very carefully about her family today. I knew that my child would say what she thought, and I also believed that I knew what she was thinking. I understood even more why the boy’s mother asked so carefully, when at the friend’s birthday party, there was only one girl, my daughter, the rest were all boys. All mothers are careful like that, including me.
Is it true that modern life today makes us more insecure, and more skeptical? When I was a child, around your age now, in middle school, I went to school in the morning and came home at noon, and in the afternoon I either went to the fields or the forest. Some of my friends lived on the other side of the river and had to walk across to this side just to buy salt for their mother. Then we became acquainted and close, and every time we met, we chattered for the whole afternoon and couldn't go home. There was a child whose house was on the other side of the mountain. To get to this side, he had to walk for an hour and a half, climb to the top of the mountain and then climb down, cross fields, and cross streams to meet each other. He didn't even know his parents' names, let alone what his father did or what his mother did. Of course, most of them were farmers, just like me. Why didn't my parents and your parents feel insecure? Why didn't they take the trouble to find out what the other family was like?
We must and must raise our children in the mindset of a guardian. And family discipline becomes especially important, the attachment of individuals in each family also speaks to the way fathers and mothers educate. Not to mention, according to sociologists, the divorce rate is getting higher and higher. The number of single fathers and mothers is increasing, which means the number of children growing up without the care of either father or mother is increasing. There are many reasons for the breakdown of marriages, but the biggest reason, as I imagine, as I compare with the generation of my parents and grandparents, is because each person cannot turn down their own light so that both can shine.
My parents are both in their 90s, having lived together for over 60 years. Although there have been conflicts, we have never once heard them “threaten” to divorce. Do they have conflicts? Yes. Are they capable of living independently? Yes. Are they confident? Yes. But what they have, which we do not, is “patience is the key to a good life”.
Family is not simply addition, then subtraction when you don’t want to add anymore. Family is the effort of all members, including parents and children. I asked my daughter: Do you feel sad when you only have your mother by your side for so many years? My daughter replied softly: No. I feel normal. But I know, no child can truly “feel normal” when growing up in a deficit, no matter how hard the other person tries to make up for it.
Illustration: Document
