In this era, how should we be children?

In every era, "How do we face our parents" will be an eternal topic.

And this question is, by extension, how should we treat our elders as the younger generation: "How should our generation face the older generation".

For this question, every generation of young people gave their own answers with their own words or actions.

Now, this problem has been placed in front of the post-95 s and post- s college students.

The relationship with parents is one of the most important social relationships we have to face as college students and young people.

According to the survey conducted by University Voice at the beginning of this year, the relationship between most college students and their parents generally belongs to mutual respect, but there is also a generation gap.

Only 3.7% clearly think that their relationship with their parents is poor, and only 18.4% think that their relationship with their parents is completely intimate.

However, in many of our classmates' families, in the actual process of getting along with parents and elders, all kinds of value collisions and interest conflicts are still everywhere.

such as "What if your parents interfere with your college entrance examination?"; "What if your parents forbid you to fall in love in college?" ; "What if parents are seriously patriarchal?" This kind of problem has been bothering many students.

This article will take about seven or eight minutes to read. The original intention of writing this long article is to read "How Do We Be Fathers Now" written by Mr. Lu Xun more than half a century ago, combined with some thoughts caused by several things I have seen and heard recently.

(Further reading: How Do We Be Fathers Now)

Here, I try to discuss with you how we should be children in this era.

Can the parent-child relationship be maintained by filial piety?

In China, for a young man, the most serious moral crime may be "unfilial".

Confucianism pays most attention to advocating "filial piety". What is filial piety? The essence of filial piety is unilateral and unconditional love and respect for parents.

There is no problem with love and respect, but the crux of the problem is "unilateral" and "unconditional".

Filial piety, as a social system and code of conduct, only stipulates that children have the obligation to do one, two, three, four, but keeps silent about what parents have the obligation to do.

Confucius said that children must abide by the system for three years after their parents died, during which they could not go out to work or go to school. Everyone still followed it from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, but such old rules were out of tune with modern society, and no one mentioned them any more.

Compared with the ancient times, the contents of what we have to do are quite different, but the "unilateral" nature of filial piety has never changed.

(Source: Picture the World)

According to the netizen "Thumb Brother" in Zhihu, the concept of filial piety specifically includes three aspects:

There is kindness in childbirth: the life of a child is a gift from parents, and this alone means that parents are kind to their children, and children should repay them;

parental authority: in the parent-child relationship, parents are in an authoritative position, and this authority continues until their children reach adulthood;

absolute respect: children should always have a respectful and even submissive attitude towards their parents, no matter what their feelings for their parents are.

(Source: Twenty-four Filial Pieties)

In ancient times, the social productive labor was mainly farming, with several generations of clans under one roof as the basic production unit.

personal interests, likes and dislikes, even life and death are completely unimportant in the face of the continuation of the clan, and the social system maintained by filial piety can be sustained.

But in modern times, if you still insist that filial piety should be the basic bond to maintain the family, you will face thorny value judgments on many social issues:

If your parents abandoned you at an early age, do you still have the obligation to be filial to your parents?

(Typical case: "Abandoned as a child, do you still have the obligation to support your biological father?"

If parents are involved in the sexual assault and rape of their children, do children still have the obligation to be filial to their parents?

typical case: the "Tang Lanlan" incident in Heilongjiang ("Ten years ago, a girl reported that her family was in prison. Was it sexual assault or injustice?

If your father has been abusing your mother and you for a long time, do you still have the obligation to be filial to him as an adult?

Typical case: Father's Love Is Like a Mountain: From Mysterious Superstar to Li Yang's Domestic Violence)

If your parents, like Fan Shengmei's parents in Ode to Joy, seriously prefer sons to daughters and regard you as a cash cow, you will be forced to die if you don't agree, should you obey their wishes?

Typical case: Angela Zhang: the real version of Fan Shengmei's rebirth from the fire

Angela Zhang, who was framed by her mother for taking drugs

The social events I listed above have caused quite extensive discussion, and you may have paid attention to them.

In the discussion of these incidents, there has always been a voice that abandonment, domestic violence, sexual assault and exploitation are not reasonable reasons for children not to be filial.

People who hold this view base their arguments on the "unconditional" of filial piety:

As long as you are born, you have to pay back a debt to your parents, no matter what your parents do afterwards.

Fan Shengmei's mother in Ode to Joy

Mr. Lu Xun refuted this idea of fertility kindness more than half a century ago.

In How Do We Be Fathers Now, he directly pointed out that it is immoral for parents to be kind to their children consciously:

"To kill love, blindly say kindness, and therefore expect to repay, that will not only ruin the morality between father and son, but also greatly contradict the actual true feelings of parents and sow the seeds of good thorns."

what is a "good thorn seed"? Many families that could have lived in harmony, just because their parents refused to get along with their children on an equal footing, insisted on interfering in an authoritative position, and finally caused a series of regrettable tragedies.

The Indian film Mysterious Superstar

(Source: Orange Entertainment)

When parents interfered with the issue of love and marriage when they were young, the probability of arranged marriage decided by parents was far greater than that of free union.

if you are unwilling from the beginning, how can you stay together through thick and thin? In the future, if your feelings are not smooth, can you not take it out on your parents for beating Yuanyang?

Another example that students have more personal experience is that when they apply for the college entrance examination, they are forced by their parents to apply for colleges or majors they don't like, and they are more likely to have problems in their studies and give up on themselves.

Every time you feel helpless when you encounter difficulties in your studies and career, you will recall your helpless choices and even turn your present pain into resentment against your parents.

(Further reading: Don't give in to your parents' will easily when you volunteer for the College Entrance Examination)

More than half of the intergenerational family conflicts in China are traced back to the parents' arbitrary orders by relying on authority.

And the children are forced by such authority, knowing that it is inappropriate and have to listen, which has planted a time bomb for the future relationship between the two sides.

unilaterally advocating filial piety

poisons the family and society

The reason why filial piety was elevated to such a prominent position was entirely the result of various political operations that lasted for 2, years after Confucianism was exclusively respected in the Han Dynasty. Its peak should be regarded as "ruling the world with filial piety" inherited from Wei and Jin Dynasties.

Lu Xun pointed out in "Twenty-four Filial Pieties in Morning Flowers" that why did these two dynasties rule the world with filial piety?

"Because heaven comes from abdication, that is, taking it by surprise, if they advocate ruling the world with loyalty, their foothold will be unstable, and it will be difficult to do things and make arguments, so they must rule the world with filial piety."

(Source: Baidu Encyclopedia)

In the political field, filial piety means obedience, and obedience is naturally unilateral.

"He is filial to his younger brother, but those who are prone to offence are rare; It is not easy to make mistakes, but those who are good at making trouble are not there. " -The Analects of Confucius

As the elder of the family, you are willing to manipulate you, and the emperor is the elder of the whole world, so you can do whatever you want, so filial piety can become the basis of patriarchal feudal totalitarian rule for thousands of years.

Can respecting filial piety in Wei and Jin Dynasties purify people's hearts? Just a few years after the death of Sima Yan, the founding emperor of the Jin Dynasty, a group of princes with the same surname were brothers and sisters, which led to the famous "Eight Kings Rebellion".

Brothers kill each other, uncles kill each other, and grandparents kill each other, demonstrating a good example of governing the world with filial piety to future generations, and directly causing the "five random flowers" that lasted for hundreds of years. The genius of Sima family almost became the historical sinners of the whole Chinese nation.

The Five Wild Flowers reduced the population of the Chinese nation from

2 million to 4 million, and nearly became extinct

. It was in this erosive political environment that a group of corrupt speculators devoted themselves to their interests, and made various creative upgrades to "filial piety", showing their magical powers, showing a new style and a new height. Its master is the book "Twenty-four Filial Pieties".

When Dr. Chen came home during the Spring Festival last year, he saw a poster of twenty-four filial piety on the bus. He happened to see the article "Guo Ju Buries a Child", which was vividly illustrated:

"In the Han Dynasty, Guo Ju's family was poor and didn't have enough food. One day, when he saw his mother saving her food for his three-year-old grandson, he discussed with his wife: the child took up her mother's food, or I would dig a hole to eat the child tomorrow. The giant refers to the wife, saying that poverty can't feed the mother, and the son is the denominator. Bury this child? " )

Guo Ju buried his son

(Source: Twenty-four filial piety pictures)

This advertisement made me see a cold sweat. Obviously, this should be the plot of a horror film. Is it really appropriate to make a public service advertisement as a typical example for minors to watch every day?

my evaluation of twenty-four filial piety is two words: farce.

Of these twenty-four typical filial piety models regarded as models by many feudal guardians, only a few paintings, such as "Deer milk to serve relatives" and "Huai orange to leave relatives", are slightly normal.

As for "Guo Ju burying children", "lying on the ice for carp", "Lao Lai entertaining relatives" and "carving wood for relatives", we can't see much true feelings between parents and children, but they are full of hypocrisy and cruelty.

Wang Xiang lies on the ice, begging for carp

(Source: Twenty-four filial piety pictures)

In order to achieve his filial piety, an adult can pretend to be a child, bury his son alive, divorce his wife, sell himself, lie prone on the ice in winter, and feed himself to mosquitoes ... Meanwhile, seven or eight kinds of crimes in today's criminal law are involved, and a set of agricultural society version of "The Birth of an Actor" is vivid.

This so-called "moral model" is beyond the eyes of even the sensible ancients.

During the Liu and Song Dynasties, there was a man named Guo Shitong, who followed Guo Ju's example of burying his children to serve his mother, and Song Wendi made him a typical public commendation.

Han Yu, who has always been famous for his three views, commented on this: This scum has been lucky enough not to be beheaded, and can he still be commended? (Not waist in the city, but fortunately, the situation is repeated! )

Mozi

"Filial piety" can't represent the traditional culture of China at all. The reflection on respecting filial piety began in the Spring and Autumn Period when Confucianism moved out of this god-dominated card.

Mohism, the main ideological rival of Confucianism, has the most incisive analysis of the disadvantages of maintaining family relations by filial piety.

Mozi put forward "universal love" and "love each other", holding that the love between parents and children should be mutual and equal, and refuted the filial piety advocated by Confucianism.

He hit the nail on the head, saying only "filial piety" and not "kindness" is self-love but not love, which is a chaos and a harm to the world.

Mozi, which everyone is more familiar with, is like this.

(Source: the glory of the king)

To maintain family relations in the new era, it is impossible to rely on filial piety.

three pillars to maintain the relationship between healthy children and parents

Mr. Lu Xun pointed out that parents in the new era should pay attention to three points: understanding, guidance and liberation: "sound production, best education and complete liberation".

and as children, how should we face our parents?

Love

The most important thing between parents and children is to say "love".

Whether biological or adopted, parents and children have to stay with each other for at least ten years, and they have a lot of interaction experiences, which come from the biological instinct of primates and naturally produce a special chemical reaction between them-love.

Love is a general human emotion, which has nothing to do with race, country or historical era.

love should be mutual, and unilateral love is generally difficult to last.

love is the most powerful. The power of love is like a trickle of water, but it can be worn down by drops of water, breaking through the shackles of all famous religions and rules.

John Denver

As the lyrics of the music "perhaps love" at the beginning of this article say:

Love to something is like a cloud

To something as strong as steel

For something a way of living

For something a w. Ay to feel

But two points must be emphasized here:

First of all, the love mentioned here must be true, and it cannot be a deliberate performance.

All vain things are blasphemies against true love, and plastic fake flowers are not qualified to be displayed with real flowers.

The social atmosphere advocates competing to show how much you love your parents. Just like in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, a bunch of action art who "should be filial and greedy and honest" can only cause further deterioration of the social atmosphere.

A primary school held a filial piety festival for more than 8 students to bow down to their parents

(Source: Morning News)

Secondly, love must not be forced.

As children, we have the right to reject unhealthy love that will do harm to ourselves, as well as smuggled goods packaged under "love".

A month ago, Dr. Wang Meng, who graduated from Peking University and studied in the United States, published a long article with ten thousand words, enumerating all kinds of negative influences such as parents' excessive care during their growth.

(Further reading: American students who graduated from Peking University scolded their parents for 12 years' Spring Festival and broke up with them for 6 years) Red Star News

As a post-8s generation, many of Dr. Chen's peers also had similar experiences, and Wang Meng was very courageous, at least he had been reflecting.

The first part of Wang Mengwan's long letter

(Source: Red Star News)

But more people finally accepted their fate and were constantly suffering from the poison from family of origin.

I have been living in pain and depression for more than ten or twenty years, and I have gradually become numb to my true feelings. I will repeat this cycle after I have children.

I also went through a painful process of psychological self-examination before I clearly realized what influence family of origin had brought to me and figured out how I should get along with my parents in my future life.

(Further reading: Is it a baiwenhang for young people to bear grudges against their parents? )

loving your parents doesn't mean you have to obey them; It doesn't mean that you have to praise the wrong things they have done against your will; Doesn't mean you have to forgive them for all the harm they have done to you.

Responsibility

The second thing for children to do to their parents is to do their duty.

According to the current laws in China, as long as the parents have fulfilled their maintenance obligations, the children have the obligation to support their parents. We must abide by the law, no matter what attitude you have towards them, our personal legal obligations must be fulfilled.

But beyond the scope of the law, many parents will voluntarily take on some extra responsibilities.

For example, students have personal experience. According to us,