Grown-up children who fail to visit their elderly parents, or who do not attend to their “spiritual needs”, will henceforth face the prospect of fines or even prison, under a new Chinese law that has just come into effect. China’s “Elderly Rights Law” is an attempt to deal with the country’s rapidly ageing population: by 2053, the number of Chinese aged 60 or over is projected to jump from the current 185 million to 487 million, or 35% of the population. The legislation compels citizens to address the daily, financial and spiritual needs of parents who have reached the age of 60 – and to visit them “frequently”. The move is a response to a surge in reports of elderly people facing abuse and hardship – but has been widely mocked on social media as overly vague and impossible to enforce.

Sixty? You’re a mere slip of a kid! In any case, who wants visits from grown-up children who are being forced by law to visit you? Leave me alone, please! And as for spiritual needs, give me a break! What a patronizing lot of nonsense. Epicurus might well opine that where there is love and respect, and a caring attitude there is no need for the heavy hand of the state.
in fact if the whole world was Epicurean there would be no discussion.