Others

As revealed in Source 1, the family pattern is the skipped generation family. Such a family pattern means there is no parent but grandparents to raise their grandchildren, and therefore, the children left in the villages are called left behind children. According to the source, the skipped generation family usually has the parents who worked outside so as to earn more money and the grandparents to work in the field and take care of the children. Money is usually sent from the parents to support the daily living of the family in the villages. These families are usually rural residents as well. The main reason why such a family pattern takes place is because, as referred to source 1, the money earned in the city can be five times of what one can earn in the village. Elderly grandparents may also have different illness so that the parents will need more money to cure them. Therefore, with the hope of improving the quality of life of their family, the parents would choose to work in the city to earn more money. Moreover, most parents are being materialistic, and without understanding the true need of their children. This means that the parents think sending money back to the village would support their family and the growth of their children. However, they failed to realize the true need of their children, which maybe the time spent with their parents. So, with materialism takes place inside the minds of the parents, they wouldn’t bother to leave their children at home. The skipped generation family is not a good family pattern to all the family members, which include the grandparents, the parents and the children. As according to Source 1, the grandparents have to work and take care of their grandchildren, which impose a very heavy burden on them. The parents may force be a migrant in the city as being a migrant can bring more money back to the while being a non-migrant cannot. And for the children, lack of parental care received may result in abnormal adolescent growth. All these shall be elaborated and explained in the followings. To commence with, the skipped generation family would impose a serious burden on the grandparents. As according to Source 1, the grandparents have to both work in the field and take care of the grandchildren. Illnesses that most of the elderly possess make them harder to be good caregivers and their burden further increased. As shown in source 3, those elderly who provided daily care for grandchildren and received very little or even no money from the migrant children have more depressive symptoms, showing that they are unhappy and anxious about what they do. Since most people from the rural areas aren’t equipped with high level skills, it is likely that they can only send little money back to the rural village. Therefore, such a family pattern has created a very heavy burden on the grandparents. Secondly, for the parents, some of them may feel forced to be a migrant. As source 1 and 2 showed, being a migrant and earn five-times the money that earn in the villages, and being a non-migrant would even consume the money from their parents because of the insufficient money earned. However, being separated from his parents and children and adapting into a new environment are harsh things, and some may feel pressure and displeasure of being a migrant as they may want to live back into his home village, which they are not advised to. Also, while some of the parents are materialistic, this would affect the family cohesion as those parents may only visit their rural home after a long time and buy lots of unnecessary products. Nevertheless, they may ignore what the family members truly want from them, such as a chat or a family dining. As a result, all these create negative impacts on both the migrated parents and the family. Thirdly, the children suffer mostly among all. In a skipped generation family, the children would not be able to receive parental care from their own parents, instead it would their grandparents who are trying to provide them. Lack of parental care may eventually lead to improper mental growth of the children and would affect their mental health in a long run. Also, since most rural families are traditional families, the family also has the responsibilities to equip their children with moral conduct, value of judgment and social norms. Yet, this job would be done by the grandparents, who may possess old and outdated ideas, and this would shape their mind and affect their future action. Besides, as the grandparents have to work in the fields and are the only caregivers to the children, it is unlikely that strict and sufficient care to the children can be provided, which would then lead to a probable bad living habit learnt from the peers by the children. Therefore, all these showed that such a family pattern would not be beneficial to the children’s development. To conclude, although the skipped generation family would provide the rural family with more money and possibly a better quality of life, this would create dozens of negative impacts on the grandparents, the migrated parents and most important of all, the children.