Grandpa Goat was already ancient. He could not move his legs, his eyes could not see, his ears could not hear, and all his teeth had fallen out. When he eats, the food often leaks out of his mouth. The son and daughter-in-law stopped letting it on the table and just let it eat in the woodshed.
Once, they brought a bowl of rice to Grandpa Goat to eat. Grandpa Goat tried to move the bowl closer, but the bowl fell on the floor and broke. So the daughter-in-law began to scold the old goat, saying it had cracked everything in the house and broken many bowls. The daughter-in-law also said that it would use a large wooden pot to serve the old goat in the future. The old goat listened and had to weep silently. It knew it was too old to work, so the son and daughter-in-law disliked it.
One day, the son and daughter-in-law were sitting at home when they saw their son playing with a pile of small pieces of wood on the ground.
The goat’s father asked, “Son, what are you doing?”
The son replied, “Dad, I am making a wooden pot, so that in the future when you and mom are old, I can use this wooden pot to serve you food.”
The goat couple looked at me, and I looked at you and cried. They were ashamed of themselves for treating the old goat that way, and from then on, the goat couple invited the old goat to the table again and took good care of it.
Respect for the elderly is not only an obligation for children but also an essential criterion for measuring a person’s character. The first lesson to understand society and life is to appreciate parents’ hard work in raising themselves so they can genuinely cherish themselves, love life and work hard.
A person without filial piety will not be loved by his children because his wrong words and actions also affect them. So, to treat your children how you want them to treat you, you should treat your elders how you want them to treat you.
