Society

Part 1: The village is gradually becoming deserted!

Thanh Nga - My Ha - Diep Thanh • June 23, 2025 06:06

Parents working far away from home, leaving their children to be raised by grandparents, is a common situation in many rural villages. Although working far away from home can bring high income, the loss of connection between family members is causing serious consequences.

Author: Thanh Nga - My Ha - Diep Thanh
Publication date: June 23, 2025 - Technical: Diep Thanh

For a living, many people have accepted to leave their hometowns and leave the burden of educating and taking care of their children to their elderly grandparents. There are many villages in rural and mountainous areas where adults, especially those of working age, are increasingly absent. The same is true in Nghe An.

For many years, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thao (Bai Xa village, Tam Quang commune, Tuong Duong district) and her husband have not had a day off even though their children are all grown up and married. The burden has been heavy since the children, due to circumstances, one divorced, one lost his wife or husband early, one went to work far away, so all 4 grandchildren, both paternal and maternal, have to be sent to their grandparents to look after. Currently, the oldest is only in 6th grade, the rest are in primary school, some have been taken care of by their grandparents since they were weaned.

Because the children are still young, still in the age of playing and studying, even though they are nearly 70 years old, both grandparents have to shoulder many roles at the same time: grandparents, parents, and school parents. The small salary of the grandfather - a retired miner - must also be used to raise the children, because the amount of money their parents send home every month is very small.

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thao added: I usually start each day at 4:30 am to prepare meals for the children to go to school. Besides worrying about books, tuition, clothes, and hospital expenses when they are sick, my grandparents also have to urge the children to study.

At Tam Quang 2 Primary School, more than half of the parents work far away and the majority of the cases are left at home for grandparents to take care of like Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thao's family. As the homeroom teacher of class 2A, teacher Nguyen Thi Thuong said: I rarely see the faces of the students' parents, because most of the parent-teacher meetings are attended by the grandparents. Children who do not have their parents around are at a disadvantage, because most of the grandparents are old and cannot closely monitor their children's studies.

The entire Tam Quang commune has about 2,000 people of working age, but up to 1,200 people go to work far away, mainly in the southern provinces. Ms. Kha Thi Hien - Chairman of the People's Committee of Tam Quang commune also admitted: In the commune, "after the 5th day of Tet, there is not a single person left". The remaining people are mainly the elderly and children. The economic conditions in the commune are still difficult, farming is not enough to eat. Therefore, it is understandable that people choose to go to work far away, thanks to that the economy is also better, houses are invested in and built more spacious. The only thing is, when parents go to work far away, leaving their children with grandparents has many consequences.

According to statistics from Tuong Duong district, the locality currently has nearly 10,000 people of working age working far away. Most of the workers leave their hometown to work in the Northern provinces, the Central Highlands and the Southern provinces, so they have to leave their children with grandparents and relatives to take care of.

Returning to Huu Kiem commune (Ky Son), meeting Mrs. Lu Thi Dieu (Dinh Son 1 village), she also confided that, "If I didn't love my grandchildren, I would have gone to work." At the age of just over 50, Mrs. Dieu said that at her age, if she worked in the commune or district, she could earn 3-5 million VND per month. But now, she is forced to stay at home because she is raising 5 grandchildren by herself. "After giving birth, they all left the village to work far away, I have taken care of them since they were young. Occasionally, they send money back, but it's not much, we have to save to make ends meet...", Mrs. Dieu said.

Because their parents are not around, Mrs. Dieu's grandchildren all have to "do it themselves". She herself has not been educated and is not literate, so most of the schoolwork has to be "left to the teachers". The daily teaching and guidance cannot be done from beginning to end, because she mainly stays at home, not knowing her grandchildren's friends and other social relationships. Mrs. Dieu's biggest worry is that when her grandchildren grow up and need guidance from their parents, they will not have their parents around to support them: No one wants to go far away to work, but if they don't go, how will they feed their children and take care of their future?

Discussing the above issue, Mr. Lu Ha - Chairman of the People's Committee of Huu Kiem Commune, said that currently there are about 800 workers (accounting for 1/3 of the working-age population) working far away, mainly as workers in Bac Ninh and Binh Duong. Among these, only a few cases of working in rubber plantations in Army Corps 15 (Binh Duong) go with the whole family. The rest, most of them leave their children at home with their parents.

According to statistics from the Ky Son Department of Internal Affairs, at this time, the entire Ky Son district has more than 21,800 workers working far away, accounting for 41% of the local working-age population.

Luong Minh Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities (Tuong Duong) has more than 350 students, but each student has a different situation. It is worth mentioning that most of the students in the school do not have parents around for many reasons, such as parents working far away, students being orphans, etc.

Student Cut Phi Hung (grade 8, living in Ca Moong village) is a Khmu student. His family has 3 siblings, but because his father died early, his mother worked as a factory worker, and his grandparents live far away, for many years the siblings have taken care of each other. Last year, Hung's older sister finished grade 9, dropped out of school, and went to work in Bac Ninh, leaving only two siblings. During the week, Hung stays at the school, and after grade 3, no one takes care of him, so he has to go to his aunt's house in Minh Tien village. As for Hung, he comes home every 2 weeks. Every time he comes home, sometimes he cooks for himself, sometimes he goes to his aunt's house to have a quick meal. For many months now, Hung has not had a full meal for all family members, because the cost of each trip is expensive, and his mother and sister's wages from working as hired workers are not worth much.

"Our class has 33 students and 90% of them are living alone or with their grandparents. We feel sorry for them, they are only 13 or 14 years old and have to be independent."

Teacher Moong Thuy Duong - Luong Minh Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities

As the homeroom teacher of class 8A - Luong Minh Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities, teacher Moong Thuy Duong shared that many parents in her class have never met or contacted. Teacher Thuy Duong said: "Our class has 33 students and up to 90% are living alone or with their grandparents. We love them very much, they are only 13, 14 years old and have to be independent. Sometimes I also want to connect with parents to discuss but the class cannot set up a closed group on Facebook or Zalo, because the number of parents using social networks can be counted on the fingers. The rest all work in places without signal or do not use phones."

Flipping through the list of class 8A, Ms. Thuy Duong also felt sad because up to this point, the whole class only had 5 students who had escaped poverty. The rest were all poor or near-poor households. Many of her students, although staying at the boarding school, still had a "precarious" time going to school, not knowing which day they would miss. "Many families do not even have enough food to eat, so how can they afford to pay for their children's education? All the students' work at school is left to the teachers. Many times when students were sick or had something unexpected, I called the grandparents and was "snarled" back, the grandparents only knew how to take care of the children, if anything happened the teacher had to contact the parents. But to be honest, I did not know the phone number to call. There were cases where they did not go to school for a whole week, I could not contact them and had to ask the village chief for support," Ms. Thuy Duong explained.

Talking about the situation of students in the school, teacher Tran Duc Dung - Vice Principal of Luong Minh Secondary School for Ethnic Minorities expressed his concern: "Most of the students do not have parents to take care of them. Now they are studying at secondary school, they have boarding school, so at least during the week they have teachers to guide and support them. But after finishing secondary school, I am worried that many students will drop out of school because they do not have the motivation to try hard and do not have parents to guide them. Moreover, the environment in Luong Minh commune is quite complicated, so if they are lax and lack attention, they can easily get into social evils"...

(To be continued)