Luo Ruiming (Beijing Morning Post): Whether one is willing to go home to visit their parents is a moral issue, so it's not easy to implement this law in real life. If one lives not far away from their parents, it's easy to visit; if one lives far away and can only manage to go back home once or twice a year, then it raises the question of how to define "regular visits."

There is no scientific ruler to measure one's care for their parents. Some people return home but offer little care to their parents. Others might not go home so often, but always bring joy to their parents and make them feel real care and love from their children. Therefore, the standard of filial piety should not be how many times children have visited their parents within a certain period, but how much care their parents have felt.

Besides, in some cases, people want to go back home to visit their elderly parents, but due to various reasons they are not able to. For example, during the Spring Festival, it's very difficult for some to get a train ticket bound for their hometowns. Thus, infrastructure should also be updated to ensure people's regular visits.

Moreover, even if children deliberately refuse to visit their parents and their parents send them to the court, what can the judge do? Is there any reliable evidence to prove who is telling the truth? There are many reasons that the children can claim to justify their failure to visit their parents. When filial piety-related issues are taken to the court for justice, what verdict will help the family? The sentimental bonds may be cut even further.

Law is a serious and compulsory concept, while filial piety is an emotional issue. Even if it is written into the law, it's hard to enforce.

He Yong (Dazhong Daily): Urbanization and industrialization are changing China's familial interactions. Children are no longer living with their parents and grandparents into their adulthood. In both rural and urban areas, many people are left behind at home alone. In some extreme cases, elderly people die at home with no one knowing of their death.

In this sense, it's necessary for the law to demand the children to pay regular visits to their parents. However, the result won't be as rosy as expected. Despite the legal regulation, the reality will make it difficult for people to fulfill this obligation.

For most young people living far away from their parents, they do want to pay regular visits to their parents and fulfill their obligations, as the old and good Chinese virtue of filial piety demands. In the real life, this is often an empty wish, even if it is now required by the law.

Many children have to leave their parents behind just to find work. Their incomes can only support them at a basic level, and even if they live together with their parents, they cannot ensure the elderly people a comfortable life. In many cases, the children really have no time to visit their parents. Nowadays, some employers do not grant holidays to their employees in accordance with law, even during legal holidays, let alone weekends. Besides, for the vast majority of low-income migrant workers, regular visits mean they have to spend a lot of money on transportation, which is beyond their economic capability.

Actually, most parents fully understand the difficult condition their children are struggling with, so even if they miss their children very much, the parents often tell their children to put work first and not worry about them. Thus, even if the law demands people to "pay regular visits," many people will not because of work or even survival concerns. Parents will not go so far as to sue their children in the court.

The key is not to legislate morality, but to strictly implement labor laws and ensure the basic holidays so that grown-up children can go home and visit their parents. Besides, it's necessary to set up a nationwide social security network, so that the elderly people can enjoy welfare at places where their children work and live. If possible, transportation cost should be cut to make children's home journey less expensive. Of course, the best solution is to cut living cost in the urban areas, particularly the home prices. If that happens, many children will be able to support their parents in cities where they work.

Sun Ruizhuo (Shenzhen Daily): The draft has not told us what punishment will be imposed on the children who fail to visit their parents regularly, so this is really a guiding regulation rather than a compulsory legal article.

In this context, what can you do to the adult children who do not pay regular visits to their parents? Most children know their filial responsibility and do hope to visit parents regularly. Nevertheless, heavy work pressures and the hardship of living in cities make their home journeys impossible. If the external environment is not improved, it seems unrealistic to require children to fulfill the legal obligation of paying regular visits to their parents.

China is now home to 167 million elderly citizens over the age of 60, and half of them are living alone without children. It is predicted that in 50 years, 90 percent of elderly people will be living alone. As a result, more physical and mental health problems are seen among the aging population. In recent years, stories of old people dying unnoticed in their apartments have shocked the public. Some elderly people, in order to make their children come back, even take actions to hurt themselves. The large number of those left behind has now deteriorated into a critical social problem.

Obviously, solving the problem is not so simple as to promulgate a law. It is a social problem and thus, the whole society, particularly the government, has the responsibility to help the elderly who cannot help themselves.

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