By Kristen Gelineau
The Associated Press
Zhang Zefang, a 94-year-old woman who sued her own children for not taking care of her, sits on her bed in her house in Fusheng Village, east of Chongqing City, China on March 19, 2013. Zhang is among a growing group of elderly Chinese who have resorted to suing their children in a desperate bid for care. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP)
FUSHENG, China (AP) — The daughter-in-law smashes the cockroach under her foot and rolls open the rusted metal doors to the garage. Light spills onto a small figure huddled on a straw mattress in a dank room. A curious face peers out.
The face is the most infamous in this village tucked away in the lush green mountains of southwest China. It’s the face of Kuang Shiying’s 94-year-old mother-in-law — better known as the little old lady who sued her own children for not taking care of her.
The drama that is playing out inside this ramshackle house reflects a wider and increasingly urgent dilemma. The world’s population is aging fast, due to longer life spans and lower birth rates, and there will soon be more old people than young for the first time in history. This demographic about-turn has left families and governments struggling to decide: Who is responsible for the care of the elderly?
In China, where aid is scarce and family loyalty is a cornerstone of society, more than 1,000 parents have already sued their children for financial support over the last 15 years. But in December, the government went further, and amended its elder care law to require that children also support their parents emotionally. Children who don’t visit their parents can be taken to court — by mom and dad.
The law pits the expectations of society against the complexities of family and puts courts in the position of regulating the relationship between parent and child.
Which then begs the question: How do you legislate love?
War at home
Zhang Zefang hardly looks like the vindictive matriarch many assume she must be. A tiny woman with blotchy skin, she stares at visitors through half-blinded eyes.She is one of about 3,800 people who live in the village of Fusheng, where life seems frozen in a long-ago era. Mothers trudge up steep roads with babies in bamboo baskets strapped to their backs. Farmers balance poles across their shoulders to lug crops over hills and past orange groves.
But inside Kuang and Zhang’s home, there is war.
Resentment hangs in the air, acrid and sharp like the stench from the urine-filled bucket next to Zhang’s bed. The cluttered storage space she calls home is as loveless as it is lightless. This is the epicenter of a family feud that erupted amid accusations of lying, of ungratefulness, of abuse and neglect and broken promises.
“I never thought about whether my kids would take care of me when I was old,” she says. “I just focused on taking care of them.”
Inside her room, there is no heat to ward off the damp chill, no window to the outside world. Zhang spends her days alone in the dark, accompanied only by the roaches, the mess, and the memories of a life that started out tough and seems destined to end the same way.
Filial piety
It used to be in China that growing old meant earning the respect of the young, and the idea of filial piety, or honoring your parents, was instilled from birth. Parents cared for their children, and their children later cared for them. Neither side had a choice.
A Chinese proverb calls filial piety “the first among 100 virtues,” and the ancient philosopher Confucius credited it as the bedrock of social harmony. Generations of Chinese read the classic morality guide, “The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars,” where sons strangle tigers, let mosquitoes feast on their blood and proudly scrub bedpans for the sake of their parents. This is the world Zhang was born into, on Aug. 15, 1919.
Her parents married her off at 14. Her husband died of dysentery, and she found herself a widow with two little girls and her husband’s mother to support.
But her mother-in-law set her free. You don’t have to take care of me, she told Zhang.
Zhang quickly remarried. Her new husband, a furniture maker, was too poor to support her, so they moved in with his parents. Her new in-laws expected her to look after them. And that’s when her nightmare truly began.
Miseries past and present
Zhang is crying. It’s hard to tell if the tears are linked to the miseries of her past or her present. Her family locks her in this room all day. She dares not scream for help for fear she will be beaten. Her bones ache. Her feet ache. She hasn’t moved her bowels in at 10 days. The stench from the toilet bucket sickens her. Her children force her to drag it outside to empty it, but she is too weak and it is too heavy.
When her lawsuit hit the local news, she says, her furious daughter-in-law Kuang asked her: “Why don’t you go hang yourself?”
All she wants is to go to a nursing home, she says. But the few nursing homes in China supply only 22 beds for every 1,000 seniors, and most are too expensive for the average family. Zhang has no money. She says her children took it all.
“I’m too old to go through this.”
Generational tug-of-war
China is projected to have 636 million people over age 50 — nearly 49 percent of the population — by 2050, up from 25 percent of the population in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So who will care for them?
Across the world, rapidly increasing life spans have left many adults scrambling to look after their parents, their children and themselves. And in China, one-child urban policies over three decades mean there are even fewer working youngsters to support their elders.
Meanwhile, social and economic changes have chipped away at traditional family values. A lack of jobs means rural youth must leave their parents to find work in distant cities. Even children who can afford nursing homes fear sending their parents away will mark them as “unfilial.”
The result is an emotional and generational tug-of-war.
Kuang has become the true matriarch of this clan. Ask to speak to her husband, and she’ll insist he won’t know what to say. But it is also Kuang who looks after her mother-in-law, because in China, as in many other places, women shoulder most of the responsibility of elder care.
Kuang lives upstairs: She says her frail mother-in-law lives on the ground floor because she can’t climb the steep steps. Up here, the tiled floors shine, and the bathroom has a traditional squat toilet.
Still, her mother-in-law is no victim, Kuang says. If anyone is suffering, it is everyone in the family who has thanklessly cared for Zhang decade after decade, even as they grow older and more desperate themselves.
“I’m doing all the laundry! I’m making the bed for her!” she says, exasperated.
A game of dominoes
China is going grey faster than it is growing rich, and state support for the elderly is not keeping pace.
Even in cities, where pensions are comparatively generous, elders say it’s a game of dominoes; if one family member falls, they all do.
In rural areas, it’s even worse. A new pension scheme for rural seniors does not cover everyone, and monthly payments are meager. Where the government falls short, the kids are left to solve the problems — except that they often can’t, and sometimes won’t.
Zhang’s children have all come up with reasons why they cannot take care of her.
There’s the oldest son, Zhou Mingde, who lives about a mile away from his mother. His pension is $13 a month, so he depends on the $30 each of his three daughters gives him on his birthday and during Chinese New Year. He sells one pig a year to buy medicine for his paraplegic wife. He is still farming corn and millet because he cannot afford to stop.
Then there’s the middle son, Zhou Yinxi. His daughter has schizophrenia, and his wife committed suicide. At 68, he is broke and won’t receive his pension for two years.
Next up is the youngest, Zhou Gangming, 56, and his wife, Kuang, 58. Their only income will come from selling their two pigs and one cow, and their $16 monthly pension. Gangming and his mother lived together until, in her eyes, Kuang came along and snatched away her beloved youngest son. Gangming says they are now too poor and exhausted to look after Zhang alone, but he knows they shouldn’t abandon her.
“She’s my mom,” he says. “I have to care for her.”
Finally, there is the distant daughter, 54-year-old Zhou Yunhua. By all accounts, she would like to care for her mother, but told her siblings she lives too far away.
In the end, the children asked their mother, “What should we do?”
She countered: “If none of you want to take care of me, what should I do?”
No one had an answer. So they went searching for one at the village court.
The solution: A lawsuit
In December, after persistent reports of abuse, China amended its elder care law to require that adult children regularly visit and emotionally support their parents. As the court officials explained the options to Zhang, she sat silently.
Finally, they offered a solution: Zhang could sue her children. Then the court could force them all to care for her equally. She didn’t even know what “sue” meant.
Suddenly, everyone in the village knew her story and authorities began examining her claims of abuse. The settlement was swift: The court ordered Mingde, Gangming and their sister to take care of their mother for four months of the year, and Yinxi to pay her $10 per month. The children must split Zhang’s medical bills.
So far, Yinxi has paid nothing.
Kuang wants to move in with her own daughter in Hong Kong. But she can’t.
“I’ve got to finish taking care of her,” Kuang says. “Then I can think about moving to other places.”
The meaning behind her words is clear: Her life will begin when her mother-in-law’s ends.
She worries about her own future. But she believes her children will be there for her.
“I tell my children, ‘If you can take care of me like I have taken care of your grandmother, then that is enough.’”
She is, she says, setting the example.
Epilogue
Zhang Zefang now lives temporarily with her eldest son, Mingde, as the court ordered.
Her new home is crowded with clutter and complaints. Mingde frets about the cost of medical care. A frustrated Yinxi cries. Zhang clutches her walking stick and stares vacantly as she talks.
“I just wish I could die.” (end)
Associated Press researcher Flora Ji contributed to this report.