China requiring people to visit their aged parents

[n2doc]

BEIJING (AP) -- Visit your parents. That's an order.

So says China, whose national legislature on Friday amended its law on the elderly to require that adult children visit their aged parents "often" - or risk being sued by them.

The amendment does not specify how frequently such visits should occur.

State media say the new clause will allow elderly parents who feel neglected by their children to take them to court. The move comes as reports abound of elderly parents being abandoned or ignored by their children.

A rapidly developing China is facing increasing difficulty in caring for its aging population. Three decades of market reforms have accelerated the breakup of the traditional extended family in China, and there are few affordable alternatives, such as retirement or care homes, for the elderly or others unable to live on their own.

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_MANDATORY_ELDERLY_VISITS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-12-28-10-38-28

[limpyhobbler]

1. must be a pretty different culture.

I don't think somethink like that would fly here.

[dimbear]

2. I recommend Agatha Christie novels. She has such interesting ways of dealing with relatives. n/t

[doc03]

3. My mother was in a nursing home for about a year

before she passed. I observed many people and not just elderly people in the nursing home that seldom if ever had a family member visit them. I know we couldn't do it here but I understand the problem. One of my brothers never came to my mother's funeral and he lives 15 minutes from the funeral home.

[Cleita]

4. I guess they are just gonna have to pass some new laws about Social Security and Medicare

to help their elderly, you know the same programs the Republicans are trying to shrink here until they are so small they can be wadded up and drowned? I wonder once Social Security and Medicare are destroyed here in the USA if the Repubs are going to have to pass laws ordering Americans to visit their aged parents under the bridges they will be living under?