Narrator: Aunt Zhou who is born in the 60s
01
At 3.30 pm, I felt hungry and had some acid reflux stomach, and wanted to cook porridge for my two grandchildren.
As soon as she sat up, the little granddaughter woke up and cried loudly and crawled into my arms. I had to pick her up and pat her back gently until she fell asleep again half an hour later.
This time I didn’t dare to put her down on the bed and kept holding her in my arms. I got up and walked around to where my 4-year-old grandson was sleeping. I touched his forehead and it was still hot.
At this moment, the phone rang suddenly. I hurriedly took out my cell phone from a pile of quilts and hurriedly answered it.
On the other end of the phone, the voice of my daughter-in-law came.
Have both children had lunch? Has the fever gone? At this time, the two children burst into tears.
Why are you crying again? How do you take care of your children? My daughter-in-law kept scolding me on the phone and didn't care at all. I hadn't even eaten breakfast yet.
02
His son graduated from college until he was 30 years old, and he didn’t even talk about a partner.
He works in a construction company, rain or shine, and talks about how good it is to be free and carefree. Besides, he is so tanned that no one can take notice of him.
Every time I call, I nag about my partner. I get tired of hearing it. When my son sees me, he doesn’t answer the call, or he hangs up on the excuse of being busy after saying a few words.
When he was 32 years old, his son suddenly brought back a man who said he wanted to get married and that he already had a child.
My wife and I were laughing from ear to ear. We didn’t even want to know the girl’s family situation or education, so we invited our relatives and friends to hold a lively wedding for them.
My daughter-in-law’s natal family and I met for the first time at a wedding.
At that time, I realized that although she was 30 years old, she still had a 10-year-old brother.
Her parents work on the construction site and their income is unstable. Her younger brother has only entered elementary school and her parents have no time to help take care of the children. This has become the source of quarrels between her son and daughter-in-law after marriage.
03
Naturally, after my son got married, at the request of my daughter-in-law, I moved into my son's house to take care of my pregnant daughter-in-law.
We used all our savings of 200,000 yuan, plus the money saved from our son’s job, and made a down payment of 300,000 yuan to buy a small second-hand house.
After moving into their small home, I was responsible for buying groceries, cooking, and taking care of all the household hygiene. I was not able to go home even once until my daughter-in-law gave birth to her eldest grandson.
During my confinement, I once went out of my way and discussed with my daughter-in-law to let my mother-in-law take care of me for a few days. My daughter-in-law raised her face so much that I could only see her nostrils, and she snorted and said that her parents still had to earn money to support her younger brother. If you really want to come, I will give you a monthly salary of 5,000.
My son looked embarrassed. I knew that in addition to supporting the family and paying off the mortgage, my son’s salary didn’t have much left over. He couldn’t afford a salary of 5,000.
That week, I endured the pain in my back, cooked for my daughter-in-law, and bathed my grandson. When my grandson cried, I held him with one hand and moved slowly around the house with my hands on my hips.
The little grandson cried endlessly, and the daughter-in-law angrily accused her loudly in the room. She couldn't even coax the child well, so what's the use.
I wiped away my tears quietly. I don’t know what the purpose of urging my son to get married was. Was it to make myself uncomfortable?
04
When my grandson was full moon wine , my in-laws and his family came over. They didn’t give any red envelopes or buy anything. When I left, my daughter-in-law gave my in-laws 5,000 yuan in front of me, saying it was for the round trip expenses.
The in-laws pretended to postpone it for a while and took the money. When they left, they asked me to take good care of her daughter, saying that her daughter had never done housework since she was a child, was clumsy, and even dropped the dishes the few times she washed them. After
finished speaking, he covered his mouth and smiled.
was in confinement, and her daughter-in-law didn’t go to work until her grandson was 3 years old and went to kindergarten.
At the beginning, she said that the child should be breastfed until eight months old. Therefore, she believed that she had to breastfeed at night and did not have a good rest. She should rest during the day. Except for breastfeeding, the child was in my hands.
said that he took anesthesia after giving birth and suffered low back pain. Apart from eating and going to the toilet, he lay in bed looking at his mobile phone and sleeping all day.
I told my son several times, but all I got was throwing things and making loud noises.
My son asked me to be patient and wait until my child goes to kindergarten.
It has been three years, and every time I can't stand it anymore, I call the old man. He comforts me that his children must know how to tolerate.
05
In the past three years, my daughter-in-law has transferred money to her parents' family every month for countless reasons, including her younger brother's birthday, her parents' birthdays, her grandparents' birthdays, her younger brother's illness, and her younger brother's interest classes...
The money earned by her son was handed over to her, and the living expenses were sent by the old man.
He lives frugally in the countryside just so that I can live a decent life with my son, so that I won't lose my dignity.
But he has never truly experienced my life. I have long lost my dignity. I am caught between my son and my daughter-in-law, walking on thin ice.
is always on tenterhooks every day, fearing that if he fails to do a good job, he will be scolded by his daughter-in-law.
I managed to survive until my grandson was almost 3 years old. I thought I was about to be relieved. At this time, my son told me that my daughter-in-law was pregnant again. The moment
heard the news, it was like a bolt from the blue. I couldn't stand still and almost hit the wall.
I told my son that I really couldn’t hold on any longer. Besides, my wife was at home alone and he had three high school children. I was worried.
My son begged me, if I don’t help, my daughter-in-law will take over the whole family. What will he do? This family will definitely break up when the time comes. What will happen to the children?
06
I am always in tears. What kind of evil has this done?
After working hard all his life, he finally managed to support his son through college and work. He thought he would be able to enjoy happiness, but he never expected that the end of raising his son would be to serve his daughter-in-law.
I started an endless cycle of shopping, cooking, cleaning, picking up my grandson, and taking care of my daughter-in-law as if she were in the confinement period.
I have become numb and gradually no longer have my own thoughts. I just let my daughter-in-law tell me. As long as she is happy, the whole family will be happy.
As long as she has her way, the whole family can go to heaven.
As long as she doesn't get what she wants, the whole family will go to hell.
After my granddaughter was born, she still said the same thing. In fact, I had expected it, but when my idea was confirmed, I felt a layer of gray in my heart.
When the granddaughter was 8 months old, her son suddenly fainted and suffered acute cerebral hemorrhage due to overwork during a construction site inspection. Fortunately, he was rescued.
After recovering from this illness, his son was transferred to another job, his salary dropped significantly, and the family's expenses only increased.
07
My son has been looking sad all day long, but my daughter-in-law seems to be fine, wearing pajamas and lying on the sofa playing with her mobile phone.
When the child cried, she didn’t even raise her eyes and directed her son to comfort him.
When her son moved a little slowly, she would throw a tantrum, saying that her son could not earn money and could not coax the children, so what was the use.
I was in the kitchen and I didn't dare to express my anger. I knew that at this time, if I said a word, the flames of war would immediately be drawn to me, saying that I failed to teach a promising son.
Once, she scolded me for several hours because I cooked preserved egg and lean meat porridge with a little too much salt. I couldn't hold it back and told her to do it herself.
She greeted my 18th generation ancestors and said by the way that we, the old couple, were incompetent. Other people’s wives had a house, a car and savings, and their parents still had pensions to supplement the family. We only knew how to grow peaches and earn money. She didn't save any money, allowing her to live such a hard life.
After her son came back from get off work, she complained again that I bullied her at home and wanted to poison her and the child. The child suffered from eating such salty porridge.
From then on, I no longer refute any of her opinions, I just let them go in one ear and out the other.
08
When my granddaughter was one year old, I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I took advantage of my son to discuss it with her after he went to work.
One of her and I has to go out to work. No matter how much you earn, it will be money. The father of the child is working too hard. If he has another problem, the family will be over.
After listening, she said nothing and just stared at the screen of her mobile phone.
I know that she doesn't want to go to work, so she has to say, you are the mother of the child, and what the child needs is your company. I will go to work.
She still didn't raise her eyes, curled her lips, and answered readily.
OK, you go to work, but before you leave every day, you must prepare the day's meals.
As long as I can go out and help my son, it’s okay for me to work harder, and this is not too much to ask.
Every day, I get up at 6 o'clock, go to the vegetable market to buy vegetables, wash them, cut them, pack them one by one and put them in the refrigerator, and then go to work.
I work as a cleaner in a supermarket. I sweat profusely every day, but I don't feel tired at all. Instead, I am very motivated.
I had been working at this job for less than two months when my daughter-in-law quit and asked me to go home while she went to work.
09
Because she has never taken care of children and cannot cook. During the two months since I went to work, she only drank porridge and noodles. The fried vegetables were either salty or tasteless. Sometimes, the vegetables were raw.
The child cried all day long. She couldn't play with her mobile phone. She didn't even have time to sleep. She had to hold her when going to the toilet.
She realized how hard it was to take care of children and do housework, so she insisted on going to work on the grounds that she was young and could find a good job.
I once again returned to my family to take care of my children. However, this time, I felt a lot more relaxed without the guidance of my daughter-in-law.
It was also at this time that I learned that my daughter-in-law had never gone to college and the jobs she could find were limited. In the end, she went to a kindergarten to work as a childcare worker.
is taking the childcare certificate exam while working.
complained that she was tired when she got home from get off work. She would lie on the bed instead of on the sofa. The two children asked her to play with them, but she pushed them away and let them play with their father or me.
does nothing, but arranges a lot of work for me.
enrolled the little grandson in three interest classes, basketball, painting and taekwondo. I didn’t even think about it. I carried the little one to pick up the older one, and it took an hour to walk back and forth.
10
When I get home, I have to cook in a hurry. If my grandson is in a hobby class, school doesn’t end until 6:30. When I get home, it’s 7:00. Sometimes, when my granddaughter is crying, I have to carry her to cook.
Once, on the way back, my grandson fell down while running and jumping and bruised his knee. My daughter-in-law sat on the sofa with her legs crossed and scolded me for an hour.
I suggest enrolling in one less interest class. The child is still young and cannot understand the teacher’s instructions in basketball class. The child cannot keep up. Besides, studying has become more important since elementary school. If you don’t play now, you won’t have time to play. .
My daughter-in-law said that I didn’t know anything, so I just worried about it. I only had a few hundred yuan, and it wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it.
In her eyes, any consideration I have is just because I am afraid of spending money.
can sign up for these interest classes, which are saved by my wife growing crops and peaches at home, no matter the weather.
I often wipe my tears alone in the dead of night. I want to go back to my hometown.
But my son begged me again and again. Looking at his tired and bloodshot eyes, my heart ached, helpless and heartbroken. When will these days end?
11
My son told me that it would be nice to wait until my granddaughter goes to kindergarten. Maybe I can return to my hometown by then.
Many times, I wanted to leave them alone, but when I saw the two young children, I couldn't bear it.
comforted herself time and time again. At least her daughter-in-law went to work now. This was a good start. In the future, everything would be fine.
My wife often calls me to comfort me. We cheer each other up. Without my wife, I don’t think I can survive.
I watched the sun rise and set every day. The sunset, with the remaining warmth of the setting sun, gently caressed my cheeks. Tomorrow will be another sunny day.
But when will my sunny day come?
Just endure the days like this. You don’t know when the end will be, and there is no hope or goal.
I just want to leave this home as soon as possible, return to the countryside and live a simple life with my wife, live a life without any burden, and help my son's family as much as possible in our limited life.
I know that it is difficult for every family, so I try my best to tolerate it. If my tolerance can bring peace to my family, then I will tolerate it. Who calls me a mother?
just take it one day at a time.
