This article is from WeChat official account:Story FM (ID: story_fm)< span class="text-remarks">, author: Story FM, original title: “”Nanny Companion”: The Secret Trade Between Elderly Living Alone and Single Mother | Story FM”, head picture from: Visual China
“Nanny becomes stepmother”, this kind of urban bizarre talk with a curious color, is in people’s cognition a thing that cannot be topped off. People often portray “nanny” as clever rhetoric, stealing the image of the fruits of family happiness by deceiving kind-hearted elderly people living alone.
However, such a plot may be “outdated” long ago. What we are going to talk about today is the secret transaction between the elderly living alone and the babysitter about “getting what they need” in the small northeastern city of the moment.
Grandpa’s change
My name is Duo Duo. I have worked in mainstream media in China for more than ten years. I have been a reporter, editor and editor-in-chief.
My grandpa was very influential when he was young, and he was already in a high position when he retired in his 60s. But his marriage has never been happy. My grandmother is 4 years older than him, and the two are arranged feudal marriages. My grandma has a very strong personality. In the 10 years before her death, the two of them had been in a state of domestic violence and war.
Last fall, grandma passed away.
My grandfather was 93 years old at the time, and the family couldn’t worry about it, and quickly found him a male nanny with very experienced nursing experience. Unexpectedly, within a week, they would resign. After changing three babysitters one after another, he had various reasons for dissatisfaction. Until I met the nanny now.
We really realized what was going on. Before the Spring Festival this year, my dad gave Grandpa a lot of food. The nanny happened to be taking a bath for Grandpa at the time. Grandpa slowly stood up naked from the bathtub, and the nanny wrapped his lower body with a bath towel, and then wrapped his head with a small towel, especially like an adult bathing a child.
■ Picture/ Stills of “Everything is Good”
I can still remember the scene that happened next. Grandpa walked through the living room peacefully like this, and he was still humming “The Love of Daughter” from Journey to the West. Why is his daughter beautiful or not? My dad was holding a bathrobe and wanted to put it on him, but he didn’t wear it, he just said, “You go quickly.”
Grandpa slowly closed the curtains after entering the back room, and then called the nanny in to sleep. I wanted to take my dad away quickly, but my dad was in a daze. He walked into the room next to my grandfather and looked around. That room was where grandma lived for more than ten years before her death. Now all the furniture, sofa and wardrobe have been emptied.
I can feel that my dad’s eyes are very sad. Grandma was still there at this time last year, and now the next room has become a love nest for grandpa and nanny.
family war
My dad told me later that after your grandma passed away, we really saw your grandfather. Back then, we felt that grandma was suspicious, even suspicious of her personality, and suspicious of people all day long. It wasn’t until the nanny entered the house that we discovered that grandma sometimes described her husband’s true side, but we, as children, didn’t understand it.
My dad thinks that the old man is now in a long farewell period with his children. As long as he chooses willingly, whether it is “hidden marriage” with the nanny or giving her the pension, we will not add more put one’s oar in.
But my two aunts don’t think so. For this reason, there was a family war.
At that time, our family sat and ate together. The babysitter was sitting on Grandpa’s right hand. Grandpa held her with his right hand, and tremblingly picked her vegetables with his left hand. My aunt couldn’t see it and said, “Dad, you are not left-handed. Can you pretend to be left-handed and eat well?”
So the babysitter changed to sit on the left side of Grandpa again, and Grandpa still kept picking food for the babysitter. The aunt felt embarrassed and she felt a little bit about to cry. She inadvertently glanced at an old photo. It was a family portrait taken by everyone when her grandma was still alive a few years ago..
My aunt burst into tears, her face changed and she asked grandpa, “Dad, you are like this, are you worthy of my mother?”
When everyone did not expect, Grandpa said a sincere sentence, “How can I be sorry for her, she has harmed me for decades. I hope she can die 20 years earlier, and my life will be more than now.” Okay. I’ve been in my 90s, and I finally killed her!”
At the end of the talk, grandpa patted the table, and my aunt burst out with tears on her face.
■ Picture/ Stills of “Everything is Good”
“nanny” + “wife” = “nanny companion”
My grandpa’s nanny is not an ordinary nanny. In our hometown, people call these services that integrate nanny and wife as a “nanny companion“.
My hometown is a third-tier city in the Northeast. Due to the constant loss of young people, the local population is aging very seriously. There are nearly a million elderly people in the permanent population. On the other hand, in recent years, the crude divorce rate of the three eastern provinces—that is, the ratio of the number of annual divorces to the total population—is significantly higher than the national average.(Note 1 , See References at the end of the article for details).
Under these two social phenomena, a large number of elderly people living alone are left unattended, and many single mothers urgently need to find a source of support. The needs of the two parties matched, and the profession of “nanny companion” was born in a gray area.
■”Nanny Companion” is a gray area in housekeeping services Picture/From the Internet
The difference between “nanny companions” and ordinary nanny is that they only serve relatively wealthy old men who live alone and can live together. On the other hand, their remuneration is also very generous, except that their monthly salary is higher than that of ordinary nanny, and after a long time, they are even expected to control the financial power of the elderly.
The babysitter from my grandpa’s family became an invisible rich woman because of this job. Her monthly salary in our family is 3,500 yuan. After sharing the bed with her grandfather, grandpa gave her all the pocket money of 800 yuan, plus her own pension, and all of her monthly income is more than 8,000. yuan. In our hometown, this makes more money than doctors and civil servants.
An old man like my grandfather does not consider money issues, as long as the rest of his life is the life he wants for the next few years.
These babysitters sacrificed their dignity, bottom line and evening festival to a large extent. From an emotional point of view, no one would like to sleep with someone like my grandpa, but they still insist on doing so. What is the reason-for the children.
Grandpa’s nanny is widowed, nearly 60 years old. Before coming to our house, her child had just borrowed hundreds of thousands of loans from the bank, and she had to take at least 60,000 to 70,000 to repay the child every year.
I think her son should know exactly what his mother is doing. Occasionally, when the food at home starts to be surplus, we can also see her son, driving a small red Mercedes, dressed up in fashion, from her mother He took the whole box of apples and seafood in his hand, and left after talking for a minute or two.
For young people in the small city of our hometown, there are few job opportunities, and there is no other way out except for entering the system or working in the service industry. In this case, the Northeast people are particularly good-faced. There is a saying, “You can’t see who has money in Guangzhou, and in the northeast, you can’t see who doesn’t have money.”
In this state of life, parents also hope that their children can live happily. If the parents are ordinary workers’ families, they can’t handle their children’s work within the system, nor can they buy cars for their children.Buying a house, he will be at the bottom of the chain of contempt in his circle.
They do whatever it takes to live a decent life for their children.
■ Picture/ Stills of “Everything is Good”
The broken-hearted dad
As a reporter, because of my professional sensitivity, I can feel the deeper social problems hidden behind the story of the “nanny companion”. So I started investigating the “nanny companion” industry in my hometown. To my surprise, in my own circle of acquaintances alone, there are no fewer than four or five elders who are or have used nanny companions.
My father has a friend, Uncle Zhang, whose nanny partner even completely changed their family structure.
This year’s Spring Festival, Uncle Zhang’s father spent the entire Spring Festival in the hospital because of a brain hemorrhage. When his father woke up, he said the most words to Uncle Zhang, “I hate you, I hate you to death.” “
The old man was in his 70s. In the year when his wife died, he lived with their babysitter in a low-key manner, and the children were also tacitly aware. Unexpectedly, last year, the news suddenly began to say “right of residence”, the old man considered a villa by the lake in the park to set the right of residence for the nanny.
Uncle Zhang knew that the babysitter must have been blowing his ears. He felt that this man was very scheming and able to calculate, so he secretly opened his father’s drawer and stole the old man’s ID card, will and real estate certificate. Up.
When the old man found out, he became furious. Not only did he call the police, but he also changed the lock of the house. From then on, he never let Uncle Zhang and the others come to visit. It was precisely because of this report that Uncle Zhang discussed with his sister whether after retiring, could he invite her sister to take care of his father and quit the babysitter who caused instability in the family.
Without the consent of their father, they negotiated the dismissal with the nanny, and the result turned out to be unexpectedly smooth. The nanny said that 7 years ago, it was your father who had to live with me. My child was still in need of money for college, and I was afraid of losing this job, so I didn’t dare to refuse. Now that my child has settled down and bought a house in Guangzhou, I plan to bring him the child, but I didn’t plan to do it anymore.
So I negotiated a severance pay of 10,000 yuan with the nanny and left the job after a while.
Unexpectedly, the babysitter left without saying goodbye just after receiving the severance payment before the end of the agreed work day. Along with her disappeared, there is also the 7,000 yuan pension in the old man’s salary card, and two bottles of Moutai.
Uncle Zhang thinks that this nature can be reported, but he did not expect that the old man would stop his son like he went crazy. Uncle Zhang asked angrily, “Will you die without her taking care of it? Is it better to take care of your own daughter as a nanny? Are we not as good as a nanny in your heart?”
The old man knelt on the ground and cried, slapped his thigh and shouted, “My heart, my liver, my little baby.” Uncle Zhang said to me in tears, when his mother died, his father He didn’t shed a single tear, and he had never called any child a darling. Maybe he is really not as good as a babysitter in the old man’s heart.
■ Picture/ Stills of “Everything is Good”
In fact, this nanny is very scheming and very powerful. She knows how to get along with the elderly and get what she wants. Uncle Zhang’s family jokingly called the babysitter “Fan Lihua”, not because her surname was Fan, but because she had been working at home in the past few years. She was always angry with her father and carried the bag back to her home in the suburbs by herself. Every time, Uncle Zhang drove the car and brought him 10,000 yuan to coax her back.
Such incidents have happened at least 3 times, so relatives all say that you are “Xat Ding Shan three please Fan Lihua.” Later, the old man was discharged from the hospital, completely like a different person, and his eyes were dull all day.Looking into the distance. Keep asking his son, “Did she call back? Can you contact her?”
Speaking of this, Uncle Zhang lamented. Perhaps he made a wrong decision for the family’s house and for the elderly’s property to make the family the way it is now—perhaps it’s his fault.
whatever you need
Although elderly people living alone and single mothers mostly exchange interests, it is undeniable that in the long-term relationship, especially when the two parties can begin to understand each other’s situation, understanding and care may be born from it.
One of the “nanny companions” I knew, Da Yingzi, who had taken care of her for several years, passed away. The old man is an old cadre with a very well-off family. All his children except one are in his hometown, and the rest are in big cities or even abroad. They rarely come back.
His only daughter in her hometown often sends drivers to bring some high-end ingredients and meals, and she also gives Dayingzi some obsolete big-name women’s clothing and unused cosmetics.
Dayingzi had experienced domestic violence and divorce in the past, followed by laid-off, and lost money in starting a business, so when she entered the house of an old cadre, she was in debt. In addition to money and these preferential treatments in life, the veteran cadres helped her the most by using a lot of interpersonal relationships to help her son, who has only a vocational education, get a system within the system.
■ Picture/ Stills of “Little Willingness”
Dayingzi feels that she can truly understand the old man, what the old man lacks, and know exactly what she wants. She said that the veteran cadres lacked company and attention, and hoped that a woman could share the bed with him. Even though he no longer has this ability physically, he has never lacked the illusion of the relationship between husband and wife from the psychological point of view.
When Dayingzi said the following passage, her voice was trembling, “I have been with the old man for so many years, and only when he said goodbye to his body did I see all his children and family members. Other than that , I have never seen this family gathered.”
Relying on her friendship for the family, Dayingzi stayed with her children to finish the funeral for the elderly, and did not leave the family until he settled for peace.
In these years, the person who really played the role of the only relative of the old man was sometimes like a wife, sometimes like a lover, and sometimes like a daughter, the person is Da Yingzi. I think his happiness in his later years was brought to him by Dayingzi.
the terrifying old man and the unfeeling driver
Not all single mothers who are in a crisis of life are willing to become “nanny companions”, even if the rewards are generous.
I once met an aunt named Yumei. She also experienced a series of life blows when she was in her 30s. She was laid off, divorced, and dropped out of school. Yumei was very beautiful when she was young. She was called “Liu Xiaoqing the Ticket Seller” in the factory. It was probably because of her beauty that she was introduced to an old engineer’s house as a nanny.
The old engineer’s wife has just passed away. He was originally from Shanghai and was assigned to us after graduating from university. When I was young, I went to study abroad many times, played the accordion and danced ballroom dances. It was such an elegant old man that Aunt Yumei could not bear.
Picture/Stills of “Wenzhou Nanny”
In the beginning, the old engineer would play the MV of that kind of swimsuit beauties in the middle of the night, with the song “The Moon Represents My Heart”, and insisted on pulling Aunt Yumei to dance.
After arriving, it became more and more unbearable, first heWhen Yumei was out, she would fold up her underwear in the room. Another time when Yumei was taking a nap, she opened her eyes and found that the old engineer was staring straight at her, so close that she could breathe. Can smell the smoke from the elderly. Since then, every day she slept, Yumei not only locked the door, but also blocked the door with a coffee table and chair, and put an inverted beer bottle.
The real outbreak happened once. The old man said that he had a backache. He was lying on the sofa with only a pair of shorts, and motioned to Yumei to give him a massage. Yumei said, “I’ll take you to the massage clinic downstairs.” When the old man heard this, he suddenly jumped up from the sofa and said to Yumei, “What are you pretending to be Lady Huanghua!”
From then on, the old man became clear and asked Yumei directly if you would like to live with me. We can register for marriage. In the future, my pension in my house will be yours. At that time, Yumei was worried that she was still very young. She said that I only wanted to find a peer of the same age to live a good life together in the future.
The old man turned his face immediately, “You find another person of your age, you just find a laid-off worker like you, do you think it is interesting?” Even the engineer’s daughter said, “You are so stupid. There is no such shop in this village.”
But Yumei was reluctant to accept it anyway, that is, at that time, she felt that she was completely out of the “nanny companion”. Soon he left this home.
Picture/Stills of “Wenzhou Nanny”
Later, Yumei lived with a taxi driver of the same age who was also laid off. For about seven or eight years, Yumei washed and cooked for him at home every day, and the taxi driver could only pay six to seven hundred yuan a month for living expenses. The two of them lived very hard, and she had to make money by breeding pet dogs. Some pocket money.
Just when the pension was about to be received and life was about to usher in a turnaround, the taxi driver broke up with Yumei. His daughter got it because of the demolition of the old houseTwo sets of new houses, he wanted to let his parents remarry and live in again, he readily agreed.
When the two of them broke up, Aunt Yumei was really miserable. She had only a torn cardboard box with a few old clothes in it and a Samoyed dog that was not sold.
I asked Aunt Yumei, during the years when you lived with the taxi driver, you were like a free babysitter. Did you feel sad? Aunt Yumei said, “I am not sad. It is my son who really saddens me. Every time I answer his phone call, I know that all the girls on his blind date think he is poor, so I will lie on the bed and cry.” /p>
The pain at the bottom of the chain of contempt is the real pain point in my heart.
Later, Yumei got her pension and found a job as a community cleaner, and she can earn more than 4,000 a month. She decided to live well. She was neither a free nanny nor willing to accompany an eighty or ninety-year-old man.
Picture/Stills of “Wenzhou Nanny”
complex reality
Behind the phenomenon of “nanny companions”, there are increasingly serious urban issues concerning marriage, parenthood, and support. Faced with a complex and cruel life, sometimes people cannot find the optimal solution and can only give in.
In such a cruel reality, everyone is trying their best to solve their own dilemmas, although the “nanny companion” is hovering at the edge of the professional bottom line, the bottom line of emotions, and even the bottom line of morals. , But most of us are tolerant and understanding mothers who choose to be “nanny companions”.
Small cities cannot accommodate people’s hearts. On the surface, life seems easy, but in fact, the ubiquitous comparison makes people physically and mentally exhausting. But if you are content with such a life, you must accept and agree with such a priceValue concept.
We outsiders, whether it is ridicule or evaluation, all stand on our starting point to kidnap them morally. In the reality of society, whether polygamy, DINK, or two-end marriage, they are actually people’s real heartbeats and real thoughts at this time and then.
In the twinkling of an eye, the spring blossoms, a lot of grandpa’s “nanny companions” went up the mountain to ask for a peace sign for grandpa. She hopes more than anyone that the grandpa can live to be 100 years old, so that the children’s car loan and house loan can be paid off. I can leave some surplus money for retirement.
Grandpa is still enjoying it, turning a deaf ear to other people’s gossip. It can be said that “I am so forgetful when I grow old, but I don’t forget lovesickness”. At the same time, in the streets and alleys of Duoduo’s hometown, the small advertisements of “old man seeking marriage” and “retirement 3,000 yuan to find a wife” posted on telephone poles are very eye-catching, but no one cares at all.
Reference material:
[1] Li Yutong. (2018). Analysis of the reasons why the divorce rate in Northeast China ranks first in the country. Demographics (5), 38-46. p>
[2] Inspur Studio “Why the Divorce Rate in Northeast China Is So High”
This article is from WeChat official account:Story FM (ID: story_fm)< span class="text-remarks">, Author: Story FM