Building Prosperous, Happy, Democratic, Civilized Vietnamese Families
Professor
Le Thi
Translated into English by: Doan Thi Ngoc
June 28 is considered Vietnamese Family Day.
Prime Minister-Nguyen Tan Dung agreed to honor the Family Day in Vietnam in 2013
and directed that various activities be held to build Vietnamese Families in a
Prosperous, Happy, Democratic, and Civilized Manner.
As Uncle
Ho pointed out, "It is proper to be concerned about family since families
are cells of society. If society is good then families are good. Good
families create a good society".
What is
the life of Vietnamese families like today?
I. Life of
the Vietnamese Family Today
Family is
considered as an institution. The Vietnamese family institution has gone
through different historical periods of time and stages, along with changes in
politics and the economy of the country which is being more progressive. In
particular, our people gained independence, freedom and happiness after many
years of war and they have built up a country which is now the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam.
The Birth
of Marriage and Family law was enacted and is built upon the principles of a
monogamous marriage, equal rights between couples regarding obligations,
freedom, democracy, and equality. These are solid basic values for building the
Vietnamese family. However, the construction of the Vietnamese family has been
affected due to dramatic changes caused by economic upheaval in recent years.
General
current standard of living: present living conditions of families in Vietnam
The
Vietnamese family standard of living is evaluated based on an average level in
comparison with the ASEAN countries in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, living
conditions for the families are particularly difficult in the rural,
mountainous and ethnic minority areas and they are at a disadvantage regarding
material conditions and cultural and spiritual activities.
Currently,
many people from rural areas move to cities to search for jobs and other
employment opportunities because the rural areas do not have much work and
consequently there is not enough to live on. There is a high rate of
unemployment and in addtion a large number of college graduates are unable to
find proper jobs. They cannot find jobs in their fields or in allied fields.
Many have to work in fields that they were not previously trained for in order
to earn a living to support themselves and their families. Popularly, they work
in services for businesses and shops of all kinds. As a result, to ensure basic
needs and a prosperous life for families in Vietnam it is still an important
matter that requires great effort and striving in 2013 and in the years to
come.
Negative
phenomena threatening the peace and happiness of family life
The
decline in morality and the personality of some members in the families has
raised social concerns. For example, more negative news has been emerging in
the newspapers: relatives are killing each other over family assets,
inheritance, adultery, or other issues like substance abuse. Some people have
said that when personal interests of some individuals are not satisfied, their
selfishness rises and which drives them to act that way. For any reasons, these
sudden and extraordinary phenomena in the press make the general public
extremely worried, saddened, and they wonder why some people are so cruel and
inhumane to their loved ones. Meanwhile, these events are painful and
humiliating which has resulted in alerting and alarming the general public. If
these events continue to happen, the good Vietnamese family values of of the 21st century may become faded and
forgetten. What are the causes for these problems?
The first
cause is the gap in the living standards between the Vietnamese families. The
motto of the entire society is to uphold justice, democracy, civilization and
that all people are created equal regarding being beneficiaries of social
welfare and other benefits. But in reality, the rich become richer and the poor
become poorer. In a market economy, there are people who spend money as if they
are able to produce money on their own, while others work hard but earn little.
Children in the rich and elite groups enjoy a life of material things and
indulgence. They think they are kings and queens, so they do whatever they
think they want without fundamental rules and values. In contrast, children in
low socioeconomic levels have limited resources to pay for their tuition fees
and their accommodations. Sometimes some students have to quit their studies
and join the labor force to earn a living so they can support themselves and
raise their families. The gap in the standard of living of the family is the
primary cause for creating problems in society.
The second
reason is the disregard for ethical training, moral life, and discipline in the
family and at school. Previously, teaching ethics, mannerism, and life skills
were considered the main task and responsibility of the family with the slogan:
"To study manners first and then to learn to read and write".
Nowadays,
it seems that the parents entrust all of their responsibilities to the teachers
at school. Parents only care to enrich their assets, pay school fees, and
provide sufficient materials for their children and then think they have
achieved their duties and have done their best after having paid their tuition
fees. However, the schools have to manage students for only 8 hours a day and
students are assessed only based on their final test scores on all subjects.
The subject of ethics and citizen responsibility in education is often made light
of, so students show a loss of interest in taking such courses.
Especially in teaching life skills, duties, discipline, proper behavior, and values is overlooked both by the school and the family. Young children are now developing freely and grow up without essential guidance from their parents and schools. Children can only shape their lives if they are guided and taught fundamental proper behavior, basic rules, and values, how to live with dignity and respect, how to lead a happy life, and how they can contribute to society and human development.
II. What
should the government, community, and family do to achieve the goals of
building prosperous, happy, democratic, civilized Vietnamese families? Here are
some suggestions.
·
Create essential conditions to ensure that families have enough
income to meet basic needs and educate their children in becoming good human
beings. They have to have opportunities to obtain education and vocational
training. After that, they have to find jobs in the fields or related fields in
private or state sectors. If they live in rural areas, they have to have land
for agricultural production.
·
Provide families with parenting skills to bring up their
children to becom good and useful citizens. This brings benefits to couples,
families, and the future of their children.
·
Provide knowledge on family organization in a respectable and
scientific manner. If parents know how to organize their family, such as the
division of labor in the house between husband and wife, time management,
budget management, family activities, work issues outside the home, then their
family relationships will be healthy and their children will be disciplined;
they will respect their parents and grandparents, appreciate their identity,
worship their ancestors, and get long with people in the neighborhoods and
community.
·
Implement principles of equality in the family, from the
division of labor, finance issues, care giving for aging parents of both
paternal and maternal sides, to work outside the home. Spouses should agree to
support each other and be fair in the assessment of each individual’s efforts.
Families need to treat boys and girls equally, redress the imbalance in the sex
ratio at birth due to the preference for sons which leads to abortion if the
fetus is female.
·
Mobilize couples and families to improve their residence,
villages, communities, and society at large. Redress ideas of personal
selfishness, self-interest, group interest, family interest. Advocate people in
the family and intently abide by the guidelines and policies of the Party and
the State and show their social responsibility in order to build-up their their
community for a stronger and better society.
·
Become actively involved in finding solutions to reduce negative
phenomena that are undermining the peace and happiness of family;in this
regard, the roles of neighbors are critical. They live next to each other, so
they need to care for each other and intervene on a timely basis when neighbors
have conflict, along with the support of local authorities that will help bring
peace and harmony to families in the community.
·
The Vietnam government should promote the implementation of
policies of support for the family. They include:
·
Policies to create favorable conditions for families to obtain
employment in the public and private enterprises, or non-government
organizations, especially pay attention to creating jobs for new graduates and
female workers,
·
Implement a policy of equality between male and female workers
regarding their retirement age. It is essential to increase the retirement age
of women workers from the current 55 years to 60 years of age. If both male and
female workers are in good health they should be able to work up to the age of
60. In addition, there should be flexibility in letting workers make a choice
to retire earlier or later,
·
Currently the aging population in our country is increasing.
This may lead to a deficit pension fund. Therefore, the State should reconsider
increasing the retirement age of workers for both men and women to 65 as some
Western countries do.
·
The central government and local authority levels need to give
timely help to families struggling in business.
·
The revised land law for farmers is important. The State needs
to ensure the right for farmers to use their land for 50 years. The
compensation of land recovered must be satisfactorily carried out when the
State or businesses need to use their land for urban development or building
factories. Farmers have to pay taxes in accordance with their annual income and
there is a need to have them reduced when they experience disasters and failure
crops.
·
The State needs to make prioritizing and supporting policies for
families who have all female children according to the population policy, to
redress the sex imbalance. The sex ratio at birth in Vietnam families today is
113 boys/ 100 girls. One of the causes is that parents know their children’s
gender through ultrasound. Due to the preference for sons, abortion is
performed if they find out it is a girl and with the hope that future
pregnancies will bear a son. It is estimated that by 2030, Vietnam may be short
of 4 million brides due to this sex imbalance Thus, the State needs to have a
prioritized policy to aid families that have all girls.
·
The Government at all levels should actively resist domestic
violence that has been taking place in some families. Often-times the husband
batters his wife, some parents batter their children. We especially must
eliminate and prevent all forms of violence against women and girls because of
the patriarchal mentality that has existed for years in our society
today.
·
The fundamental problem is that the State, the general public,
the agencies and organizations should raise awareness of the position and role
of the family. That is the foundation of our society.
Therefore, family life regardless of whether
it is bad or good is not the only issue for society. If families are happy
prosperous, democratic, and equal, Vietnam’s society can develop in a
prosperous, civilized and solid manner and keep their progress in step with
other countries in the 21st century.
Commune authorities when issuing certificates
of marriage or registration for couples, should be reminded that it is
necessary to urge the families to build happy prosperous and civilized
families. Not only is this the couple's own issue but the implications of these
reminders are related to the future development of the country and that couples
and families must be aware of their own responsibilities.
The educational content in schools at all
levels needs to emphasize the importance of the position and role of the
family. Family is the foundation of a strong country. All family members from
children to the elderly, boys and girls have the responsibility to fulfill
their obligations in accordance with laws and rights of the country. Thus,
simultaneously with the construction of well-being for themselves, they have to
fulfill their duties as Vietnam citizens to benefit the entire country.
In summary, on the 2013 Vietnam family day,
we should have some initial thoughts on how to build better families in Vietnam
and with the hope that readers will exchange their ideas. This is very
necessary and urgent for our people and requires that each of us will
contribute and remove obstacles in order to progress to a better future.
In Vietnam, the family has played a
significant position in society over the years. One of the three chains to
deeply understand the country, the people, the history of Vietnam is family,
village, and country that intertwined together to form the process of human
development, ethnicity, and Vietnam.
With a current population of nearly 90
million people in Vietnam, it is critically vital to build the family to be
prosperous, happy, democratic, and to be civilized Vietnamese Families in order
that the country may walk abreast with all other countries around the world.
