FILIAL PIETY: Does ad convey right values?
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Jun 23, 2010 - ST Forum
FILIAL PIETYDoes ad convey right values?
THE new TV advertisement to promote filial piety - spearheaded by the National Family Council and supported by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports - has left me disturbed.
While some people may find it touching, the message of filial piety seems distorted to the point of emphasising the wrong values.
The ad begins with a grandmother moving in with her son's family after her husband's passing. As she may have been grieving the loss of her husband, she becomes intolerable and picks on her daughter-in-law. She shows no effort to be reasonable even when her son makes attempts to pacify her. She throws tantrums, is ungrateful and threatens to move out.
When she becomes ill and is hospitalised, her grandson asks his father why he is feeling sad despite his grandmother treating the family badly. It is not revealed whether the father gave his son a proper reply; instead, a flashback shows how his mother had taken care of him when he was ill as a child.
By his actions, the father seems to be teaching his son that it is perfectly fine to disregard his wife's feelings in favour of his mother. It also seems to suggest that it is acceptable for the elderly to create disharmony at home.
Then came the slogan, 'How one generation loves, the next generation learns'. In this instance, the boy seems to be learning a lot of wrong values.
Shouldn't the authorities have thought of a happier way to teach and instil filial piety - perhaps featuring a happy and well-adjusted family visiting the grandparents, and the parents explaining to their children why it is important to spend more time with the elderly to create precious memories for all?
Or, they could have altered the ad to show the father comforting his wife and acknowledging her feelings in a delicate situation - thereby setting a good example for his son.
Using an overly domineering grand- parent in an ad to promote filial piety does not send out the intended message. After all, is it not true that one has to show respect to earn respect?
Hannah Chee (Ms)
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Generation gap.
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You had to take care of your own parents.
Please do not expect "me" to take care of them for you!
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The ad painted only one side.
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Jun 24, 2010 - ST Forum
MINISTRY'S TV ADFilial piety not a simple matter
I REFER to Ms Hannah Chee's letter ('Does ad convey right values?'; yesterday), criticising the TV advertisement on filial piety.
I enjoyed the ad as it highlighted tensions between young and old. And these tensions do not only involve adult caregivers, but the entire family as well.
In this case, the teenage son is disdainful of his grandmother's difficult ways and the trouble they cause his parents. He leaves the dinner table in anger when his grandmother criticises his mother's cooking. The father tries to placate his mother by asking her if she wants something else to eat.
One view of the ad, as Ms Chee suggests, may be simply that one should accommodate unreasonable, and possibly matriarchal, demands.
My view is that the ad captures a slice of the complexities of life with the elderly.
Social and practical adjustments must be made when the elderly decide to live with their children. These include physical changes to the home such as installing handbars in toilets and making the home barrier-free.
Often, changes in social relationships and the physical environment may result in disagreements between family members.
As women are typically the main care- givers, they bear the brunt of the stress and strain of the relationship between adult caregivers and elderly parents.
In this respect, I agree with Ms Chee there was a need for the husband to be seen to comfort his wife in the ad.
However, I disagree with her view that an ad portraying a well-adjusted family visiting the grandparents would have been a happier way to instil filial piety.
Elderly parents and their children may choose to live apart. But visiting a healthy elderly parent once a week is different from the concerns and stress faced by those caring for the elderly with health or other issues.
It is also different when weighing the benefits and disadvantages of institutional care for the elderly, which involves financial and emotional concerns.
These are difficult issues which deserve representation. It is easy to preach the virtues of filial piety without addressing the real tensions involved in elderly care and the relationship between the elderly and the young.
While this advertisement has its rose- tinted moments, I laud its attempts at realism.
Kelly Fu (Ms)
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Jun 24, 2010 - ST Forum
TV ad on filial piety was effective
I REFER to yesterday's letter by Ms Hannah Chee, 'Does ad convey right values?'.
While I understand her concerns with using an 'overly domineering grandparent' in the TV advertisement, I do not agree that the message is lost with the demonstration of other 'undesirable' values.
What Ms Chee did not observe in the ad was the circumstance in which the grandmother had to move into her son's home, that is, the death of her husband.
Such distressing experiences can create insecurities in the elderly and affect their personality.
The younger generation should demonstrate respect with understanding and forbearance. After all, the elderly in our family deserve our respect as they raised us.
This outstanding ad not only conveyed the message of filial piety to viewers, but may also remind elderly viewers to reflect on their behaviour so as to sustain harmony within the family.
Law Wei Ming
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Jun 24, 2010 - ST Forum
Favour elderly parents whom we owe so much
IN HER letter ('Does ad convey right values?'; yesterday), Ms Hannah Chee criticised a government TV advertisement for distorting filial piety and emphasising the wrong values.
My view is that there was nothing wrong with the message conveyed.
Filial piety is an Asian virtue that can scarcely be disputed. The ad reminds us that filial piety remains a relevant, worthy and necessary virtue.
Ms Chee confined filial piety to visiting grandparents in order to create precious memories. Her view suggests that a married adult must leave the parents' home, and fulfilling one's filial duty merely means visiting elderly parents, instead of supporting and caring for them.
Ms Chee finds the difficult grand- mother portrayed in the ad ungrateful and she does not deserve respect because she has not earned it.
She also expects an elderly woman, who has toiled for decades to raise her son, to be 'grateful' and 'respectful' when he tries to repay a fraction of what his mother had sacrificed for him.
Even if Ms Chee's objection is right - that the father in the ad seems to teach his son it is all right to disregard his mother's feelings in favour of his grandmother - we should ask whether that too is objectionable.
Spouses vow to support each other in sickness and in health, and for better or for worse. This surely must mean they are obliged to care for each other's parents - or else those marriage vows ring hollow.
In an extended family, it is not hard to decide who deserves more respect: certainly the elderly parents who have toiled for decades to rear their children rather than the young wife or husband whose entry into the spouse's life is far more recent.
It is also clear who the loved one, caught in the tug of emotion between spouse and parent, should favour: the frail and vulnerable parent whose days are numbered, rather than the young, able-bodied spouse who has a lifetime of familial bliss ahead.
Yeh Siang Hui
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Jun 24, 2010 - ST Forum
Ad does not convey correct values
I REFER to yesterday's letter by Ms Hannah Chee, 'Does ad convey right values?'.
People grow old and bitter for many reasons, including unmet needs arising from disappointments in life, depression and bottled-up anger.
Whatever the reason, the reality is that it is a tremendous burden to live with a harsh parent or grandparent. And it is an added strain on the family when younger members have other things to deal with.
When elderly parents are domineering, other children tend to stay away and see them as little as possible to avoid conflict.
I agree the TV advertisement does not convey the correct values as it appears to say one is entitled to be nasty and demanding just because of one's position in life or good deeds done in the past.
One way to moderate the ad is to have the family see a counsellor and show how counselling helped in reconciliation.
Cindy Ong (Ms)
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Jun 25, 2010 - ST Forum
Filial piety isn't about earning respect
I REFER to Wednesday's letter by Ms Hannah Chee ('Filial piety: Does ad convey right values?').
In the letter, Ms Chee said she was 'disturbed' by the TV advertisement promoting filial piety because it seemed to emphasise the wrong values.
Among other things, the ad showed a grandmother unhappy with her daughter-in-law's cooking, throwing tantrums and threatening to move out of the house.
Ms Chee said the ad seemed to convey the idea that it was perfectly fine for the man to disregard his wife's feelings in favour of his mother and that it was acceptable for the elderly to create disharmony at home.
While I agree that the grandmother's behaviour was wrong, I disagree that the ad suggested her behaviour was acceptable. The ad is intended to convey a message of filial piety, of how the younger generation should love the older generation, not the other way round.
Ms Chee asked: 'Shouldn't the authorities have thought of a happier way to teach and instil filial piety?'
They could have, but few would learn about filial piety through such 'happy' ads. This ad showed a more realistic family situation, something that most viewers can identify with. It conveys the message of showing filial piety even when the elderly are difficult.
Yes, one has to show respect to earn respect, but this applies to people in leadership positions. Children do not have to earn or work for their parents' love, and neither should parents have to earn their children's love.
Priscilla Goy (Miss)
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The ad potrayed the elderly as unreasonable; not a right message.
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after watching the ads i cry .. so touching ....
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i've finally seen it and i thought "meh... attempts at emotional blackmail and manipulation again..."
the ad does imply that the next generation must become doormats of their parents and that their parents in old age have the right to abuse them..
then after abuse, the children must take the abuse quietly...
kinda whacked...
the malaysian version of attempting to instill filial piety is much better as it is a lot more subtle...
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Originally posted by the Bear:
i've finally seen it and i thought "meh... attempts at emotional blackmail and manipulation again..."
the ad does imply that the next generation must become doormats of their parents and that their parents in old age have the right to abuse them..
then after abuse, the children must take the abuse quietly...
kinda whacked...
the malaysian version of attempting to instill filial piety is much better as it is a lot more subtle...
It's a subtle reminder that one need to be submissive no matter how abusive and unreasonable to someone that brought you up like our present ruling elites.
without "him" there is no Singapore.
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Originally posted by Clivebenss:
It's a subtle reminder that one need to be submissive no matter how abusive and unreasonable to someone that brought you up like our present ruling elites.
without "him" there is no Singapore.
sounds like a conspiracymaybe Lau Lee is afraid his progeny will do what Khaw Boon Wan suggested
or worse, people storm his place with torches and pitchforks
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'The filial crow'.The story is about a baby crow which was young and needed mother crow to find foods. Later when the mother crow grew older, the baby crow who became stout, started to find foods for its mother instead. One day, there was fire in the forest, all birds were asking the young crow to leave its mother.Yet, he decided to stay back to rescue her mother.With the help of a rain, it successfully rescue its mother.:
The above story carries better values than the rubbish ads.They should have gone back to the root. Confuscious teaching should be taught to the children as chinese civic instead of rubbish being taught as civic -
this is really much better
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Originally posted by the Bear:
this is really much better
even the Malaysian can do better than that -
Originally posted by the Bear:
this is really much better
good ad.
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Originally posted by charlize:
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Originally posted by charlize:
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This advertisement seem weird.
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Jun 28, 2010 - ST Forum
Don't assume children are there for you
I REFER to the debate about the TV advertisement on filial piety.
Being respectful is just as important as being filial. Elderly parents should not assume that their children or even grandchildren will 'give way' or let hem 'misbehave' the way the grandmother in the ad is portrayed.
When two people decide to have children, they have to be prepared to sacrifice whatever is needed in order for their children to grow up as secure, educated and responsible adults. They should not expect anything in return.
When parents are past their prime, they should maintain an active and healthy lifestyle, and ensure they have enough savings and insurance, so as not to be a burden to their children.
Cecilia Sim (Ms)
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Originally posted by Clivebenss:
Jun 28, 2010 - ST Forum
Don't assume children are there for you
I REFER to the debate about the TV advertisement on filial piety.
Being respectful is just as important as being filial. Elderly parents should not assume that their children or even grandchildren will 'give way' or let hem 'misbehave' the way the grandmother in the ad is portrayed.
When two people decide to have children, they have to be prepared to sacrifice whatever is needed in order for their children to grow up as secure, educated and responsible adults. They should not expect anything in return.
When parents are past their prime, they should maintain an active and healthy lifestyle, and ensure they have enough savings and insurance, so as not to be a burden to their children.
Cecilia Sim (Ms)
cold.
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brutally cold but she's right..
it's as if the parents bore the children for the selfish purpose of being their slaves when they grow up