Daily Lessons from Life 14 August 2014 - Closer parent-child proximity doesn't make heart grow fonder

"Closer parent-child proximity doesn't make heart grow fonder - New Papers 14 August 2014

SINGAPORE - Day after day, Madam Lee, who declined to give her full name, sits alone in her five-room Housing Board flat, passing the time by praying, watching TV, reading the newspaper or simply resting. Once a month, the 80-year-old gets a visit from her only son, who says a quick hello, slips some money in between the grilles of the front gate and leaves within a few seconds, not setting foot in the house at all.

To rub salt into the wound, her son and his family live in the same block.

In fact, living close by, or even under the same roof, does not mean that the relatives have a stronger relationship than those who live far apart, said Iris Lin, a senior social worker at Fei Yue Community Services.

Ms Lin added that, with other priorities in life, such as work monopolising the child's life nowadays, it is understandable that adults spend less time with their parents. But she said "There are no excuses for not respecting and caring for their parents, who might need help in one way or another as they age.""

What is 'filial piety'? Who defined it? Is it something natural to the human race?

If I stripped away the emotion, the sentimentality and the romances, man meets woman, fell in love (hopefully for a while at least), got married, have kids, take care of kids and bring them to adulthood as best they should and could as a sense of duty and obligation if not LOVE.

Is it natural for the parents to look after the kids till adulthood? Probably due to LOVE though there were the occasional exceptions of parents abandoning their kids, healthy ones too.

So, is it natural for the grown kids to take care of their aged parents? It should be if we apply the 'you need to repay the love, care, dedication and devotion the parents gave to you' principle.

Yet, if the relationship between the parents and children, including the son- and daughter-in-law, are bad, filial piety can only happened as a DUTY, a mandatory one if need be.

What probably need to happen is to analyse and understand EACH specific case of 'missing filial piety' instead of generalizing. Each specific case will be unique though there may be some so-called common factors like: money problem, philosophy of bringing up the grand children (if any), ill health - physically as well as mentally, bad relationship between the parents and the son- or daughter-in-law, etc.

YET, if one dug deeper, each will still have unique contributing factor(s).

If we use RATIONALIZATION, filial piety is flexibly applied.

If we use UNIVERSAL value system, filial piety is NOT TO BE RATIONALISED.

Which approach do we choose or INSIST?