Selected Daughter

      Filial piety is a term of praise in China. It means the child would take care of their parents very well when they got old. In traditional China, the daughters would get married to compose a new family and the sons have the responsibility to take care of their parents when they get older. On the other hand, who can take care their parents when they only have daughter? My second aunt's name is Xiao, the Chinese meaning is happy but her name does not match her life. When she was only sixteen years old, she was selected by my grandparents to take care of them for the rest of their life. Sometimes, filial piety is double edged weapon. However, these words for Xiao are more like the responsibility and pressure to that changed her life.

     As a selected daughter, Xiao has never had choices for her own life, even her marriage or dreams. Xiao was an intelligent student in school and she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. However, my grandmother thought there wasn't any benefit for girls to study. When Xiao was in high school, she was forced to give up studies and went out to work to support her home. In addition, she had no choice to choose her marriage. When Xiao was twenty-five, she had a boyfriend, and they had been together for several years. Unfortunately, my grandmother was against their marriage because Xiao's boyfriend's family was poor. My grandmother wanted Xiao to marry a rich man. These are Xiao's greatest regrets of her life.

    Since my grandmother and Xiao lived together, they began to quarrel about every little thing in daily life. My grandmother's and Xiao's attitude and options towards everything were completely different. My grandmother always wanted to know everything in the house, and Xiao always tried to hide everything. For example, one day my cousin was fell down in the stairs and went to the hospital for two days. Xiao was afraid my grandmother would worry about it and would make her blood pressure become higher. Therefore, she did not tell my grandmother what happened, but my grandmother suspected my cousin had run away from home and never come back. Furthermore, they often had a lot of debates about food. My grandmother is a frugal person, and she likes to save the leftovers in the refrigerator, but Xiao thinks leftovers are unhealthy. They have argued everyday, Xiao has too much pressure to living with my grandmother.

     My grandmother's decision increased Xiao's burden when my grandmother got Alzheimer 'S disease. When Xiao planned to send my grandmother to a nursing house. My grandmother thought Xiao wanted to abandon her and my grandmother refused to eat anything. Eventually, Xiao decided to lived with my grandmother but Xiao had to spend a lot of time and energy taking care of my grandmother. One day, my grandmother said she wanted go out to buy breakfast. After three hours she did not come back and that made everyone get anxious. My cousin and Xiao stopped their work to look forward to my grandmother. Furthermore, my grandmother usually said something made Xiao feel hurt. She would repeat and repeat Xiao 's mistakes. My grandmother's unreasonable behavior made Xiao 's life become harder and harder.

     Filial piety is the traditional goodness of Chinese people, but some people are burdened by these two words. These traditional ideas have damaged some selected daughter's live. In fact, it is the responsibility for people to take care of their parents 's life. However, responsibility do not mean live together. There are some different ways to make the parents happy in daily life. The first is giving some patience to understand what they want to say. The second is spending more time with them and do not make them feel lonely. More care and respect is more important to living together.