The suffering of immigrant parents abroad
This cannot be said to be the unruly, insolent, and impolite thing that can happen from time to time in any child who is upset or angry for some reason.
This behavior becomes a real problem when it happens too often and tends to get worse.
The unfilial child becomes a constant threat to the parents and the family atmosphere is always tense and very heavy.
For Immigrant families living abroad, it is also necessary to talk about the lack of empathy caused by the generation gap.
Parents insist on embracing the moral values of the ancestral culture with filial piety as the first. Children grow up, study and grow up in foreign countries, absorb Western culture, are very practical and value individualism, so the understanding between parents and children is sometimes not as expected. everyone’s wish is.
Then there’s the teenage crisis. During this period, the young aunt or uncle may develop an immortality disorder that makes parents unable to touch and sometimes want to go crazy with them.
Some people blame that the bad child is because the parents do not know how to teach and pamper too much. Yes, but this life issue is not so simple, it goes beyond religion, and educates the family a lot.
In general, first-generation refugees living abroad have fewer problems caused by children than white host families. Can our children understand the hardships and hardships that their parents have to sacrifice to take care of them to have a bright future like today?
If something unsightly happens, the inherent mentality of the person is good and bad, so no one can know the importance of the problem of how abusive parents are. Child abuse is extremely embarrassing and humiliating for parents.
In the past Western countries, as the same as other countries, they considered the issue of parents being abused by their children as a taboo tabou that should be covered up and should not be discussed. But since recent years, thinking has changed, so the situation is different.
Elderly parent abuse is a problem in many families today.
Today, the abuse of elderly parents has become a reality in every family as well as in any society.
For our immigrants, this is a taboo issue that should not be discussed because it is not good to talk about it.
Migrant elderly are often incompetent, weak in living language, so everything and everything must depend on, depend on others and the help of their children and grandchildren.
Therefore, sometimes they are not treated well, but the elderly also swallow bitterly and ignore them and sometimes even find ways to make excuses and forgive their children and grandchildren.
Many elderly people are sometimes unaware that they are being abused.
What is being abused ?
As defined by the World Health Organization (2002) abuse is:
When an action (or lack of action), a gesture or an unusual attitude occurs or is repeated many times in a context that requires accountability and gives the elderly a sense of belonging. disadvantage and crisis.
Elder abuse can manifest in a variety of ways:
1) Physically: shoving, pushing, squeezing, grasping tightly, shaking violently, throwing things, forcing him to eat and drink, being locked in a room, intentionally forgetting, not taking care of him, making him wait a lot long to help go to the bathroom, tormenting hard stuff.
2) Psychologically: ignore the old man, glare, speak loudly, raise his voice, speak loudly, disparage, criticise, rude, arrogant, intimidating, treat the elderly as a child childish, humiliating, denigrating his beliefs and beliefs, damaging his identity and human values, speaking mean words, lowering his dignity, age and degree of self-control in life.
3) Sexually: being harassed, touched, squeezed, or they may be victims of “exhibitionniste”, showing her, being raped. Elders can be mocked when they want to express or discuss their sexuality.
4) About money: can happen in many forms.
For example, stealing money, jewellery, furniture. Put pressure on him to divide the inheritance.
In addition, the elderly are easy prey for fraudsters impersonating over the phone to tell them to send a certain amount of money urgently because their children have an accident far away.
– Being lured into making fraudulent investments, or making legitimate investments that are not suitable for his circumstances.
– Was deceived by a family member that he trusted very much.
– Being cheated by impersonation to withdraw money from the bank.
– Being forced to use credit cards inappropriately.
– Being stolen to steal money when he authorises procuration to a relative to manage his bank account book.
– Tools are often the prey of telemarketing telemarketing services.
– The elderly are the target of crooks because they live alone, because of their advanced age, because of illness, poor brain, because of lack of family attention.
The elderly are often abused.
Consequences of elder abuse
– Give the elderly a feeling of fear, make them find solutions to isolate, live in seclusion, and make it difficult for them to participate in social activities.
– Creates a feeling of insecurity.
– Close yourself
– Leads to anxiety disorder
– Depression depression- confusion, confusion memory confusion
The sad story: the elderly choose to end their lives.
In addition, the problem of suicide among people aged 64 to 75 and those aged 75 and older often stems from loneliness, followed by conflict reasons, including abuse.
Elder abuse is not a new phenomenon in today’s society. It can happen anywhere and is relevant to everyone.
But the most painful thing is that most of us take it for granted.
Everyone closed their eyes and deliberately turned a blind eye, including some elderly people.
They do not want to accept a painful truth and do not want to see themselves as victims of abuse coming from within the family.
That’s really the most painful thing
Story in France
In France more and more parents are starting to come out of the shadows timidly to speak the truth about a situation they have been victims of for so long.
According to experts, it is difficult to draw a portrait (portrait robot) of an aggressive child as well as the parents of their victims.
The problem of children’s abuse of parents often occurs in single mother, monoparental families. Often a mother begins to experience abuse from her children (boys or girls) when they are very young.
These children often grow up in the context of the most pampered pet like the children of kings (enfants rois).
Parents, because they love their children blindly, do not clearly define the boundaries that the child needs to stop.
Often, abuse starts at a very young age (9-10 years old) but parents are negligently unable to recognize the signs in advance.
According to the psychoanalyst Jean Pierre Chartier, these children have been brought up in an atmosphere of incest” meaning that they feel that their wishes have been satisfied by their parents from an early age and are full of children power.
Then suddenly at some point, during the most sensitive period of adolescence, some event changes the situation such as a mother wanting to take another step with a certain man, so Is he warm or she is not acceptable. The mother has no choice but to turn to the authorities for help: asking for the treatment of terapies, social assistance for the child, or sending him to a re-education camp if there is violence. physical act.
If the child has reached the legal age of majority, 18 years old, the parents can evict him or bring him before the law. That ended the relationship between mother and son or father and son.
Here is a summary of the comments:
* Physical violence 11% against girls and 9% against boys.
*How: most often “push, push” grandparents, 6% of cases throw, hit something, maybe hit the wall to relieve anger, 1% threaten with a weapon such as a knife.
*Especially, girls often attack the mother, and the son often attacks the father.
*Mental abuse: 45% of teenagers admit that they swear or say harsh words to their parents, but most often to their mother (perhaps the mother often nags, rebukes every inch of it. bit, too detailed that the kids are easily annoyed, so react.)
*Research shows that often violence cases stem from ungrateful reasons such as: the old woman wants to buy herself a pair of pants at Zeller, WalMart (too popular store) but the daughter does not. consented, and then quarreled with the mother, and the war broke out.
*1 in 10 parents have been victims of physical abuse. This is similar to a poll of western countries.
If parents don’t go to sue the children , the government can’t intervene. According to the government, not sueing means that the child’s actions are not dangerous at all and are acceptable. In fact, parents are afraid of shame, of humiliation, of being embarrassed if they make a fuss.
According to common thinking in society, a child cannot be a threat to parents, only incompetent and irresponsible parents.
For this reason, parents have to live in a constant cycle of abuse with no way out of it.
In the case of a complaint from a parent because they have been assaulted or there is a threat to their life, the police can immediately arrest the child and send him to a child detention center.
But usually this is just the opposite case.
The more dependent on the children, the more problems!
The elderly class is increasing day by day, and some of them choose to live at home to be close to their children and grandchildren.
Many elderly parents abroad do not want, nor dare to separate from their children because of language and money problems. Until now, from big to small problems in dealing with white natives, the grandparents had to rely on their children to interpret and solve. Living abroad for more than 30 years, but many people still do not master the minimum transactional language…
Now that the elderly are old, their health is weak, making them even more panicky. The more dependent on children and grandchildren (emotional, money, caring, helping, interpreting), the more conflicts and conflicts arise with the youth. Children and grandchildren also have their own families, there are also difficulties and frustrations in their lives, in their jobs… If they follow the children, how can they be, but if they let go, they are afraid.
There are many children out of love for their parents, because of “filial piety”, because of lack of self-esteem, not enough courage to decide their own life, so they still live around and live by their parents’ side any day or that day, in order to be successful. strong….
Time passed quickly. Then the children also have to grow old. Unmarried boys and girls are common occurrences in many immigrant families
Therefore…
Some elderly parents are conscious, choosing the solution to stay in nursing home is the most practical and reasonable. As for the situation of the Elderly living at home, they must have a lot of money, the more money the better for them.
According to the author, living in foreign countries, most of the elderly parents tend to want their children to live with them or to be near them, but the children are thinking are opposite. They want to be independent, and to be far away from parents to be free, less frustrating, less troublesome, less having to listen to parents
The children are sometimes blamed by their parents, blaming them for this and that, comparing them with other people’s children, deliberately making them feel guilty, etc.
“For my parents, it was clear that they still have the mentality of Vietnam. They want their children to study medicine or the science of health. If I don’t do what they want, they consider it a failure of my future. And they compare me to other people’s children every night… In a way, he’s lowering my worth. Sure, on another level, my parents wish the best for me, but when I can’t, I can’t. End! »
“They mercilessly compares their children to others’. It makes me very angry because I always feel put me in a competitive position, and I am always the loser.”
“Yes, we have a very good relationship with each other, except that my parents still have a traditional mind, that is completely different from that of the people here. Everything is strict, everything is controlled by , when ever I say absolutely anything. On the other hand, I don’t want to offend my parents, and upset them. Generally speaking, it’s like that, it’s a matter of freedom
«My parents belong to another generation. In terms of daily life, I often hang out with my friends, which makes them very angry. Things like that always annoy them.”
It’s the same everywhere
No matter which solution they choose, elderly people may still be victims of abuse and violence from family members or caregivers in aged homes.
It can be mental abuse (lack of courtesy, slamming doors, harsh words, humiliation, disparagement, cursing, slander, treating elders like children), sexual, physical body (buckling, pushing, shoving hands and feet…), leaving the elderly in the room, on the chair, not talking to the elderly, not changing diapers, taking advantage of money and etc. The elderly normally did not dare to report the above acts for fear of retaliation.
Particularly for some family members, they also think this matter is normal and not very important.
The grandparents were very sad and could only cry silently.
This is a problem in today’s society but few have the courage to talk about it.
A very common problem now in immigrant family is birds flying back to their nests. No job, no money, and unlucky love are the main reasons for their children return to his parents’ house to live and stay for a while…
Living with elderly parents is always difficult and conflicted.
Usually a mother, because she loves her children like when they were young, she takes care of almost everything. From housework, to taking care of their meals, their sleeps ,cleaning the bedroom every day for the children, etc.. Mother does it with a tolerant heart.
When the children grow up, the normal life of elderly parents is disturbed, and children also feel “lost freedom” and are not as comfortable as when they are living alone, they can do whatever they want. The children become also resentful, annoyed…
«Parents’ love for their children is limitless; the children’s love for their parents is limited. When children are sick, parents are sad and worry ; If parents are sick, children only ask their parents few questions. Children spend their parents’ money comfortably; It’s not easy for parents to spend their children’s money. The parent’s house is the child’s home; The child’s home is not the parent’s home. That’s the difference, people who understand life consider taking care of their children as an obligation, a joy, without expecting anything in return. Waiting a repay from children are hard and impossible “.
Socialists all emphasize the conflict that often occurs when elderly parents live with their mature children. It is difficult for the elderly to enjoy their old age peacefully and entirely. Children who live with their parents will find it difficult to grow up and lose their independence.
