Unrealistic goals

Shao Junguo (Jinan Daily): The new standards are very specific. However, most low-income people will find the new standards too ambitious. To what extent can we expect these people to attain these filial objectives?

Real filial piety is not something to be shown off to others, but something buried deep in one's heart—an expression of gratitude. Due to different living and working environment, the ways of practicing filial piety are of course different.

Actually, parents do not have too much to demand from their children. The young generation only needs to try their best to fulfill their parents' basic material needs and respect their free choices. When these things are done, even if there are no filial standards to determine what the children must do, elderly people can still live a fulfilling life with their children.

Xiao Fuxing (The Beijing News): Filial culture is something that is supposed to take shape and develop naturally among ordinary people. As for the government, it can try to steer the society toward filial devotion by building up more state-run nursing homes, which will have a more tangible effect than issuing filial standards.

China has entered the aging period, faced with pressing demographic problems. As the traditional model of family supporting the elderly is still mainstream, whether children respect their elderly parents will decide if the old people can live a happy life in their final years. The issuing of the new filial standards shows that this social problem is being noticed by the majority, but the question is, what is the use of issuing such items like, "teaching parents to use the Internet," "supporting a single parent to get remarried," or "calling your parents every week?"

I doubt whether such a set of standards of filial devotion can help to reverse the trend of slipping filial piety in society. The foundation of filial piety is morality. Today, many factors have led to the deterioration of the society's moral standards, so it's quite doubtful that the new filial standards can really reach the expected goal.

The aging population is a social problem that demands an urgent solution. However, the solution does not lie in the issuing of these new filial standards, but in the restoration of social morality and filial ethics.

Deng Haijian (China Youth Daily): The ambitious new filial standards seem out of reach for the vast majority of Chinese.

These new standards are easier to understand and more up to date and thus will surely help to promote filial piety and even the overall moral level in the Chinese society. But, there are still critical questions about them.

Are these standards really the ideal for elderly people in their late years? For example, the new standards require that children should always bring their parents to important activities, teach them to use the Internet, take photos and hold birthday parties for them. The fact is that for the elderly parents living in China's vast rural areas, these items are absolutely impossible. These goals are not even easily attainable for people living in urban areas. What the elderly people need is not occasional grand ceremonies, but humble yet sustainable care. Photo taking, banquets and other important occasions—is this really the so-called filial piety they need?

Actually, in most cases, it is not that children don't want to look after their parents, but they are restricted by a harsh reality. While most young people are struggling with a mortgage, high tuition fees, and occasionally high medical expenses, it's really too difficult for them to live up to the new filial standards. The most important thing now is to create a social environment that makes it possible for the young to fulfill their filial duties.

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