If you enter any village in our country, you'll easily find houses inhabited only by the elderly and children, with most working-age people having gone away to work. Life is like a carrying pole without a middleman to support it, with only the two ends—old and young—precariously balanced, living quite a difficult life—though the hardship may not be related to money—with roles that are overwhelming: grandparents in their 70s and 80s "play the role" of parents, teaching, guiding, and directing; grandchildren as young as 8 or 10 "play the role" of children, caring for, supporting, and providing for them.
In Nghe An, villages and houses like these are not uncommon. When asked, the elderly people say they have many worries. For poor families, whose children work far away and leave their grandchildren with their grandparents, the first worry is poverty. Raising one (or several) children these days is not easy; the cost of food and education is immeasurable. Another common worry is that grandparents struggle to figure out how to properly raise their grandchildren, as traditional educational views are now outdated. But the worry extends further: many elderly people are gradually facing the reality of loneliness as even their grandchildren grow up and, as a matter of course, choose to leave their hometowns.
The number of elderly people living alone in their own homes seems to be increasing. According to the United Nations Population Fund, Vietnam is one of the countries with the fastest aging population in the world. People aged 60 and over accounted for 11.9% of the total population in 2019, and this figure is projected to increase to over 25% by 2050. By 2036, Vietnam will enter the period of an aging population, transitioning from an "aging" society to an "old" society. Furthermore, the structure of Vietnamese families is changing significantly; while in 1993, up to 80% of elderly people lived with their children, this figure dropped to only 69.5% in 2010 and continues to decline. Despite being a country that highly values family traditions, especially the multi-generational family model with its philosophy of love, respect, and mutual support; However, more and more young Vietnamese people consider it normal to move out from their parents' homes and live independently after getting married, or even earlier – after the age of 18. Social development is also driving a change in the mindset of "staying put in the same old routine," with the trend of establishing oneself and one's career in large cities becoming increasingly popular.
Their children and grandchildren all have their own lives, and the elderly living alone seems to have become an unavoidable reality. Day after day probably holds little difference for them, except perhaps for waiting for the few days of Tet (Lunar New Year), when their children and grandchildren call to say they'll be coming home. On ordinary days, if they still have a small garden in their hometown, the elderly can leisurely tend to it to keep themselves busy; but if the village has become "urbanized," their daily activities are reduced to sitting on the porch looking out the gate, or watching the cameras their children and grandchildren have installed throughout the house and yard to "monitor" the situation!
Old age brings with it many illnesses, but perhaps loneliness is one of the most terrifying ailments faced by the elderly globally. Recently, news reports stated that some elderly people in Japan deliberately... stole to end up in prison to alleviate their loneliness. In the UK, in 2018, they even appointed a Minister for Loneliness – specifically to address the issue of loneliness experienced by more than one-tenth of the country's population. Some developed countries maintain hotlines for the elderly to call and confide in, as some have gone months or two without speaking to anyone else.
July 11th is World Population Day. On this occasion, the United Nations forecasts that the world population is expected to reach 8 billion by November 15th. Amidst the joy of welcoming new lives, let us pause for a moment to think about the elderly – because, after all, old age spares no one. Thinking about the elderly means thinking about our grandparents, parents; and thinking about ourselves, in a scenario even more isolated than we are now, if we don't have responsible and compassionate solutions at both the macro and micro levels.
Article by: Phuoc Anh
Illustrative image: Archival material
