Should Caring for Your Own Parents Be Written in the Law?

Should Caring for Your Own Parents be Written in the Law?

     A new law went into effect that requires children to provide for the emotional and physical needs of their parents, and who goes against it would be fined or face the potential jail time. After I saw the news, I was shocked. My first respond was: should caring for even your own parents be written in the law? Would it work anyway? Then I took a moment to calm down and think about it seriously, sadly, I must admit that it seems not necessary for our country to bring up this kind of law, based on the unsatisfying phenomenon in today’s world.

Why do I think it’s not necessary? There are several reasons and three stand out.

First, as it is said that this law may end up causing more familial strife and resentment toward elderly parents. And it will not only have bad effect on those families without a good relationship, but also affect the families with caring kids. For example, if a child cares his parents and make some lovely gestures, the enforcement of this law may make this look like the finishing of a job, rather than out of love.

Second. Some people might say,although no government can legislate loyalty or love,but the law sure can ensure that those poor parents get at least the material support. According to the statistics that 200 million people in China are over the age of  60. This group of people usually cannot take the heavy job to earn their own living because of their physical conditions, neither should them do it at this age,since they have worked 30 to 40 years in their life to raise their children. Seriously, you really think this is something that can be made up by money? For these unlucky parents, they already cannot receive any comfort from their kids emotionally anyways, can you imagine them sitting in an empty room and hold the money their children give them just to avoid the punishment from the law? Is there any feeling worse than that?

Third. There are some exceptions among the situation I said above. Some parents do not get pay back when they are old, this is because they didn’t do well when raising up their children. Of course this is not often heard on radio or seen in TV, but as far as I’m concerned, it happens a lot. Actually there are several examples around me. In this aspect, I think this law would give the chance to the irresponsible parents and lead them to think :Anyway, I’m going to be taken care of when I’m old no matter how I treat my kids now. And that would be very terrible and will probably lead to a bad circle.

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