My parents were 50 years old and gave me a "son"

Author | Wu Xiangjuan

Edit | Sun Yalan

Source | True Hometown Research Office

Id | zhengulab

With the opening of the second child policy, more and more old women choose to chase the second child. When they gave birth to the second child, one child had entered adolescence, and the two children were teenage or even twenty years old.

This uncommon family combination is a new challenge for each family member, especially for one child.

In the face of the intergenerational gap between compatriots, how can the parents' attention and the sudden responsibility, how should one child adapt?

Unusual hand and foot relationship

At five in the afternoon, Yang An scratched a few strokes on the blackboard after class, stuffed the preparation materials into the backpack, and hurried out of the classroom.

The kindergarten where the twin brothers and sisters are in school at 4:30 pm. She has been late for half an hour.

When I arrived at the kindergarten, when my brother and sister saw her, I immediately rushed from the security pavilion to the door and shouted, "Sister, I'm hungry!"

Yang An smirked and paid the teacher, and hung his brother and sister's schoolbag on his arm.

Speaking of which, such a life lasted for nearly a year, but she has not been able to adapt to the teacher's full -scale eyes.

On the way home, her brother and sister kept sharing things in the school with her, but she was always distracted. This was a few relaxation moments every day. She did not want to respond to the two children's puppets.

After returning home, she first arranged dinner for her brother and sister, supervised them to complete her homework, and then started her own lesson.

Yang An is 21 years old, her twin brother and sister are 3 years old. After graduating from college, she originally planned to go to a big city to work hard, but was interrupted by her parents' requests -

His father was busy with the business of the pharmacy. The elderly mother was weak after giving birth, and her grandmother fell ill. The burden of taking care of her brother and sister can only be taken on.

Stills of the movie "My Sister"

Sometimes, Yang An looked at her brother and sister's very similar face as her childhood, and felt a mistake: "I am obviously just sister, why should I bear my mother's responsibility?"

Yang An feels that his relationship with his brother and sister is complicated:

On the one hand, they "stumbled" her footsteps to go high; on the other hand, she also knew that this was not their fault.

"If all parents are before they have children, they can pretend to be a child who is about to be born, and ask if they are willing to be born, and then make a decision to get the answer ..." Yang Anshi often fantasized.

With the release of the second child policy, more and more middle -aged couples choose to have children. In such families, the first and second babies often have a large age gap.

This kind of hand and foot relationship will not only reshape family relationships, but also means the beginning of a new life for a child.

Different from Yang An's silent practice "sister's responsibility", Zhang Fan always tried to escape this role conversion that made her uncomfortable.

When her brother was born three years ago, Zhang Fan was 18 years old. After a whole summer vacation, she felt her parents "unprecedentedly left" at home. Since then, she has regarded her brother as the "culprit" to destroy her warm life.

"I hate my brother most of my time, and I can even say that I hate it," Zhang Fan said.

She solved this dissatisfaction way is to deliberately leave her younger brother.

When the younger brother vomited milk and wiped his clothes, and the mother wiped in a hurry, she just looked at it with cold eyes; when the younger brother just learned to climb, he pulled her pants legs, and "invited" she played the game together, she didn’t do it. Reason.

American children's psychologist Burton L.White has sorted out a "The most full second child" age gap "influence of the control table:"

It shows that when the two children are over 6 years old, parents are often easier, but a child is easy to be unbalanced.

Chen Hao, a 16 -year -old brother, always deliberately keeps distance from his brother.

He regarded this alienation as a resistance to his mother -the mother ignored himself to his brother.

This alienation sometimes slides to another extreme -control desire.

In the past ten years, Chen Hao has always regarded his younger brother as his ideal "heir".

Because of his tallestness with the military academy, he was discouraged and turned to his brother. "I am 16 years old, and I know more than him."

The obedience of his younger brother when he was a child, which once made Chen Hao immersed in this sense of control. Until the adolescence, the 13 -year -old brother began to resist:

"Why do I have to go to the military school? Why can't I be a teacher? You are just my brother, not my dad!"

Studies have shown that when the age difference is large enough, one child usually shows a parental consciousness, and the younger brother and sister will treat them as their own children.

Many years later, Chen Hao began to reflect on this consciousness on his body, because this is more inclined to control the desire.

But for Wang Lele, this consciousness is more like a kind of "motherly love that is not rewarded."

Since her 17 -year -old brother was born, Wang Lele's happiest thing was to go home on vacation. From an early age, her brother's attachment to her always made her happy.

"He is very sticky, and always calls me secretly with my mother's mobile phone. I always ask‘ sister, when do you come back ’,‘ sister, I miss you ’.’ ’

Every time he answered his brother's phone, Wang Lele couldn't wait to go home immediately, and he "lost contact" with the outside world as soon as he arrived at home.

Looking at my brother all day long, Wang Lele said that she had a kind of "happiness". She even felt that having a younger brother, it is not important to have a child. Picture | Wang Lele and his brother's photo

Divided into preference

Children's psychologist Perry Klass once said that out of instincts, children are always looking for evidence of "who is the favorite child of mom and dad".

Therefore, parents' attitudes will directly affect the hand -foot relationship of multi -fetal families.

This has been intuitively confirmed in Wang Lele. She believes that the harmonious relationship with her brother is largely derived from the fairness of her parents.

After her brother was born, her parents were "even more intimate than before", which was a balanced balance-

When buying snacks for my brother, I will also buy a copy for my sister; my sister wants to go out and play, and she will not tie her home to take care of her brother.

But more children do not have the situation of Wang Lele. As older children, they "should" take care of the responsibility of taking care of the second child, and they are required to show the characteristics of humility, tolerance, and understanding.

Chen Hao used "a big change in temperament" to describe the change of his mother after giving birth to his brother. The mother in his impression was "gentle and always laughing", but since the younger brother, the mother "always picky me, I blame me not to bring my brother. "

Once, Chen Hao played the game and entered the game. He ignored the younger brother on the side. The cry of his brother quickly attracted his mother. The mother threw Chen Hao's keyboard to the ground. ? "

After speaking, holding his brother to leave. Chen Hao trembled in his heart: "As for it?"

The attitude of parents has always made Chen Hao difficult to release.

When his brother was one year old, he was caught up with his college entrance examination, but the whole family "seemed to remember this matter". He completed a series of things such as applying for examinations, physical examinations, and filling in volunteers alone, and even faced unsatisfactory scores.

And compared to all of this, the mother seems to be more concerned about the milk powder that the mall is discounted, and whether he has taken care of his younger brother.

When filling in volunteers, Chen Hao only chose those cities far away from his hometown, "want to escape far away."

Figure | Chen Hao and his younger brother are a few photos

Zhang Fan, who is as difficult as Chen Hao to get close to his younger brother, also felt the neglect of his parents.

"When they went to the park to play, they only bought toys and snacks for their younger brothers, and only cared about the teasing brother, and I always held my brother's water cup and clothes like an outsider. Take care of me. "

For the relationship between hands and feet with a large age gap, parents' attention is divided by not only emotional, but also includes the tilt of economic resources.

According to the "China Fertility Cost Report 2022 Edition", the average raising cost of children aged 0-17 is 630,000 yuan; the average raising cost of rural children 0-17 is 300,000 yuan.

In addition, from the perspective of the cost of raising a child to the 18 -year -old and a per capita GDP, China's raising costs are almost the highest in the world. Among them, Australia is 2.08 times, France is 2.24 times, Germany is 3.64 times, the United States is 4.11 times, and the United States is 4.11 times. China is 6.9 times.

In the face of high raising costs, the average willingness to fertility of the Chinese is almost the lowest in the world.

According to the data of the OECD, the average number of ideals of most countries exceeds two, while the average number of ideals of Chinese people is less than 2.

For an ordinary family, choosing a second child means the decline in the overall living standard of the family.

Zhang Fan has experienced this change many times.

Since giving birth to my younger brother, the family's original trip was canceled twice a year, and the laughter on the dining table was replaced by the quarrel about money.

The mother, who had never mentioned money in front of her before, began to complain about the expenses of childcare--

"Milk powder has to be imported, and the diapers should be the best. Now they are popular in bilingual kindergartens. Interest classes are indispensable.

Zhang Fan didn't understand that nearly 50 parents compared with the post -80s and post -90s parents?

Picture | Brother Zhang Fan and his parents before birth

The older child has long passed the period when there is no concept of money, and they can keenly perceive the competition triggered by money.

Zhang Yu recalled that he had disgusted his brother at first because "he moved my cake."

Before his brother was born, his parents promised Zhang Yu:

"Don't worry, regenerate one, you are still our eldest son.

But later, the good wedding rooms and wedding cars were drifting, and even the wedding venue changed from the hotel to the ancestral hall.

Today, Zhang Yu has been married for four years, and his son is three years old. The family of three is still squeezing in the rental house to worry about the down payment.

Speaking of his own knot, Zhang Yu said:

"I don't have to rely on them. They have promised but can't do it. I am also their children."

Sometimes the impact of economic pressure on one child appears in the form of a Domino card effect.

Li Xin was one of the bone cards -when she learned that her boyfriend had a 21 -year -old younger brother, she thought again and again, and decided to break up.

When Li Xin's boyfriend was in his junior year, his younger brother was born. Since then, his boyfriend's tuition and living expenses have been made by himself. He had to work part -time work while studying.

Li Xin, who looks at all of this, can't help but worry:

"His parents did not even have a pension. What do you take for his brother to go to school and get married after getting old? If I get married with him, will these become my responsibility? Responsible responsibility

Different from others, they are free and easy, and one child in the family relationship often has nowhere to hide.

One child who has been adult will even take the initiative to take the responsibility to the family.

When she first graduated from college, Yang An thought about going long and flying. "Just pay for her parents on time." She thought so.

But soon she was softened, "I always feel like this is not filial", so that she can raise her brother and sister alone. She can't do it.

Stills of the movie "My Sister"

An unexpected pregnancy of his parents brought Yang An's twin siblings.

At that time, a family meeting was held, and the mother and Yang An both opposed that "there are already two children in the family, and regeneration will only increase family pressure."

Only his father insisted on giving birth, and said that he would raise two newborns alone.

At that moment, Yang An felt that this responsibility could not avoid it. "He even needed me and my mother to assist in a small pharmacy. What is the ability to make such a guarantee?"

Yang An, who had already prepared psychological preparation, was not surprised to call back her call back three years later.

On the phone, her parents said to her: "Grandma is seriously ill, my brother and sister are still young, and you need you at home."

They even actively helped her seek work in her hometown, "you can come to school teaching close to home."

And Yang An, who was on the other side of the phone, only felt "falling down, looking up, her parents standing by the cliff, beckoning to her with a smile ..."

In the past year, Yang An ran between schools, pharmacies and families every day. Sometimes she felt "back to the busy middle school age", but the difference was that this time she "could not escape from college as an excuse."

She often tossed around at night, recalled the summer of 17 years, "If she was strongly requested not to leave these two children at that time, would my father still persist?"

But when she saw her younger sister's immature face, she felt that she should not have such "sin" thoughts.

Stills of the movie "My Sister"

Yang An said that he still doesn't plan to fall in love so far:

"This is not dare to think about. Which boy will want to fall in love with a sister who is chasing the child all day and has no time to date?" 65 years old. These 20 years are the best 20 years in my life, but I am destined to drag my family heavy. "

For Zhang Fan, who is only 4 years old and her father is only 4 years old, although she is reasonable to realize her sister's legally supporting responsibility for her brother, she currently does not want to face it. "Now I don’t want to raise Pass."

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