In this news, although these two Confucian parents have multiple children, they gave all their property to their “only son,” hoping that he would take care of them in old age. However, not only did they fail to enjoy family happiness, but even in their seventies and eighties, they had to serve as cattle and horses for their son’s family, taking care of daily life, and even paying for medical treatment without a penny from their son. But even so, the two still kept the 400,000 yuan for their old age with their daughter-in-law, only to find that their son’s family was ungrateful and simply refused to repay the money. The parents treated their son as an old-age tool, only to be betrayed—truly hard to bear.
Actually, compared to what the son’s family did, the behavior of these two parents is even more worth examining. Why did they have multiple children but only give the property to their son? This blatantly shows their contempt for women and their ugly face of maintaining patriarchy. Taking care of the son’s family also reveals the status of the eldest son and grandson, which was likely fostered by these two parents into a giant infant—an outcome of their own making. Seeing that the son would not support them in old age, they couldn’t just hang on a single tree, so they quickly sought help from Confucian guardians—the Zhongxiu government—who took back their investment—several properties. Zhongxiu then firmly enforced its authority to uphold Confucian parental dignity, “governing with law to uphold filial piety,” and reclaimed the parents’ properties. However, how the subsequent events will unfold, whether the son’s family will pretend to soften their stance, or whether the parents will use this to lure them, remains unknown. What we only know is that “the bourgeoisie has torn off the veil of warmth and tenderness covering family relationships, turning such relationships into purely monetary ones.”
