"People at this age have already made a career, but my child still has to be served three meals a day by his parents, has to buy gas, and has to ask his two retired grandparents for money when he parties with friends," lamented a 62-year-old father in District 12, Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr. Nam has three children, the two older daughters are married and have stable jobs, while the youngest son, who is the one his parents take care of the most, is still wandering around, working anywhere for only a few days or half a month before quitting.

With two older sisters, the youngest brother was spoiled and hardly had to do any work from big to small. After graduating from Thuy Loi University, he worked in a few places but complained about the low salary and low position. Therefore, after 8 years of graduating, he now goes to coffee shops every day or lies down watching TV, playing games, and eats the food his mother has prepared.

Mr. Nam and his wife sold a piece of land to their son to get capital to open a shop, but the "boss" spent all his time playing games and sleeping, and even closed the shop whenever he felt like it. Therefore, after only a few months of business, the capital was exhausted, and he suffered heavy losses. He went home and asked his parents for money to spend on entertainment.

"My wife kept urging him to get married and hoped that having a family would help him work hard, but I was so discouraged that I wanted to kick him out of the house many times, but I couldn't bear it," said Mr. Nam.

Illustration: Dissolve.

Mrs. Xuan and her husband in Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi also have to work hard to take care of not only their son but also their daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

The couple has a row of rented houses, plus a small business, so they don't have to worry about finances. The son has been a playboy since he was a child, so he hasn't studied well and doesn't have any qualifications, he's only good at pawning his parents' motorbikes. The family asked acquaintances to help them find various jobs, but none of them are permanent, and after a few days he's just stuck at home playing.

After urging her son to work for a long time without success, Mrs. Xuan and her husband switched to urging him to get married. When he was 29 years old, the son brought a bride home, but his habit of playing around and not liking to work was still there. In addition, the wife he married got pregnant right away, so she quit her job selling clothes, stayed home to take care of the pregnancy, and after giving birth, she helped her mother-in-law manage and collect rent from the tenants. She loved shopping, so every penny her parents-in-law gave her, she spent on shopping.

"Taking the child to the doctor, paying for milk, diapers, shopping for dad and mom... all come from the grandparents' pockets. Now we have to cover the whole family, not just him alone," said Ms. Xuan.

Doctor of sociology and master of psychotherapy Pham Thi Thuy, Ho Chi Minh City, said that it is quite common for adults, completely normal physically and mentally, to still depend on their parents. While in many Western countries, children move out at the age of 18 and take care of their own lives, in Vietnam, many people, even though they are married, still "depend" on their parents.

In seminars or when going to psychological counseling, many parents in their 50s and 60s expressed their concerns about what to do when their children, at 30 or even 40 years old, still refuse to work and rely on their parents for everything. Most of them have good economic conditions, spoil their children from a young age and only realize the consequences when they are old. They have wealth to give to their children but also understand that "the mountain is the mouth that feeds", so they worry that if something happens to them, they will not know what their children's future will be like.

A grieving father said that he and his wife spared no expense in sending their only son to study abroad, from the US to Australia, and were even willing to sell some land for their son to use as capital for business, but their 35-year-old son was still playing around, without a job.

"Everywhere he went, he complained about the job being unsuitable, the boss being bad, the salary being low... He used his family's money to 'start a business' but it still didn't work out, he only saw it 'invested' in cars, phones, clothes... The money his parents poured in was like going into a bottomless hole, no matter how much it was, it was gone. My wife and I's health was getting worse and worse, and seeing our child only showing off and having fun made us extremely anxious. Advising him was like water off a duck's back," the 63-year-old man confided.

According to VNE