Outlook on Life (14) Marriage, Family, and Happiness

A person's family life can bring them great happiness, but there is also a lot of unhappiness that comes from their family.

This is contradictory and realistic.

Intimate relationships between spouses, parents, and children should be one of a person's greatest sources of happiness. In real life, on the contrary, family relationships have become a source of distress for many people, and almost everyone experiences various troubles as a result.

How to maintain a harmonious and happy relationship between adults and children, and how to provide children with a happy life, are issues that everyone should seriously consider.

This issue involves many aspects, and this article does not discuss content related to the social environment, but only focuses on the relationships within the family.

What children need is not a complete home, but a home full of love and security.

Some people say that children need a complete home. Under this premise, even if the marital relationship is strained or difficult, it can barely be maintained; Some people also require their children not to be from a single parent family when choosing a partner. These people are not a minority in society.

This concept is really wrong!

For a child's growth, what truly matters is not the integrity of the family, but the environment and atmosphere in which they are situated. When there are constant disputes between husband and wife, but they insist on not divorcing for the sake of their children, adults may not have to bear the responsibility of hurting each other, but children have to bear the psychological burden of "parents choose pain for me".

When a child falls into an emotional quagmire due to divorce, perhaps we should focus more on the way their parents handle their marriage rather than the divorce itself.

Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself "is a requirement for oneself, not for others.

Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself "is a widely circulated saying. Many people may often use this phrase to demand of others, especially when someone's behavior makes them feel uncomfortable. If this sentence is used to demand others, even preach to others, instead of demanding oneself, it is essentially an extremely selfish expression, because no one needs to please others, even family members. The best state among family members is to please each other, so this sentence can only be used to demand oneself, not others.

The reason why parents have such demands on their children is to some extent due to the traditional concept of "filial piety". The root of this garbage mentality may be complex, but one thing is certain: in traditional culture, parents have power or dominance over their children, rather than selfless love for them.

The so-called "filial piety culture" in traditional thinking, at its essence, is a moral kidnapping of children, or the kind of "love return" that parents give to their children. Some people even refer to not getting married or having children as "unfilial", which is even more groundless. Underage children must rely on their parents for their livelihood, which does not mean that parents can have any expectations for their children, such as using their own expectations to demand their children, hoping that their children will realize their unfulfilled ideas, and so on. For adult children, when they are able to survive independently in society, parents cannot impose their own ideas on their children, such as marriage, work, and other requirements.

If a young person, regardless of gender, feels unwilling to be married or bound, unwilling to reduce their happiness in life due to having children, no one has any reason to demand that they get married or have children.

Sacrificing one's own happiness to satisfy others, even if it is the demands of parents, is also a form of harm to one's own happiness in life - if this satisfaction ultimately leads to one's life being filled with troubles or unhappiness.

Of course, if this kind of thing is placed in the social environment, it is even more unacceptable to let one's children continue to live a difficult or painful life instead of a happy one after having children. As for some Taoist scholars using reasons such as "social responsibility" and "public responsibility" to encourage young people to have children, it is a proper "toxic chicken soup".

Everyone needs to learn to adapt to the family values of modern society.

With the development of society, the family is an atomized unit based on marriage, and there is no need to pursue the organizational structure of large families such as "four generations under one roof". In the family, everyone is an equal and independent individual, and the relationships between individuals must also abide by the "contract".

Home is a place of emotional attachment for a person, and what members need is comfort, support, respect, and understanding in intimate relationships, rather than necessities of life. The core of a family should not be the elderly, but both spouses and children who are related by blood. At this time, what is needed among family members is the supremacy of reason rather than age. The concept of "filial piety" should be abandoned, and more "love" should be used to maintain the relationship among family members.

In short, this article does not involve social factors and abandons traditional ideas such as "filial piety" and "passing on the family line". It discusses how to find happiness in marriage, family, and parent-child relationships.

We need to return to the concept of 'love', please refer to.

Of course, the love for children and the love between adult men and women in marriage are different, but fundamentally they are still similar. That is a kind of emotional experience of respect, concern, and protection between independent living beings, where each other's satisfaction is taken as satisfaction and their happiness is taken as happiness.

Regardless of whether the child is financially independent or not, respect, concern, and protection between parents and between parents and children are unconditional and unrewarding.

The more difficult life is, the more love is needed between family members.

Perhaps with love, even if life is difficult, one can still find happiness.

Perhaps, in the current social environment, the viewpoints in the article may be criticized by others, and some friends may argue that they can't even eat enough, so why talk about happiness?

Indeed, individuals often feel powerless in the face of society. At this time, what is needed more is clarity and rationality to understand society, to recognize the essence and source of suffering, rather than numbly enduring everything. As there are more and more sober and rational individuals, the possibility of social change will increase.

Facing pain numbly may only bring destruction; Facing it soberly and living happily may bring about change.

A single opinion is bound to be biased, and everyone is welcome to participate in the discussion.