Vietnam’s fast-paced modernization motivates many adults to adopt and pursue new values from Western countries, while sometimes forgetting to take the time to connect and uncover the life-long treasure of their parents’ wisdom. Last Vu Lan, when Abbott asked both parents and adult children “Do you know what have been kept inside parents’ hearts? Do they share with you how their health is? Do you know how much they are proud of you?” Many children could not answer them and such questions have motivated Abbott to connect adult children and help them discover “Parents’ Untold Stories.”

Parents’ silent pride and unconditional love

"Dad, I just need a year to prove it. I promised, so please give me just a year to complete what I’ve started,” the 34-year-old project manager Hieu Bui told his father, Mr. Trung Bui.

"I give you the whole of my life," stated the father.

How long can one life be? We don’t know. But, no matter how long it is, our parents are devoting to us all they have – every day, which most of us are not aware of.

In a recent program of Ensure on this year’s Vu Lan occasion, the “Parents’ Untold Stories,” while Hieu was hiding in a secret place, Mr. Trung started to expose his own untold stories.

“As an acupuncturist, my job has me travel very much every day to deliver cures and treatment for my patients. One day, when I was driving outside in a heavy rain, Hieu called to check if I was safe. In the echo of thundering, I had to admit that I was in a storm but I tried to tell him that I was fine. I don’t want him to worry about me. He’s already had many things to take care of.”

This confession might not be that of only Mr. Trung, but also of many other Vietnamese parents.

They always prioritize their children’s happiness over themselves and silently support their beloved ones to achieve what they desire.

The story of Hieu and his dad also helped to reveal survey findings conducted on Vietnamese parents in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

According to the result of Ensure’s latest survey, all parents stated the success and maturity of their children as their most important pride and motivation in life.

They are proud of how their children succeed in life and how they grow up to be a good person in society, but they never or rarely confide in the ones who may want to hear this a lot – their children.

Another special guest of the event, Mrs. Thom – mom of professional ballet dancer Do Hai Anh – also admitted that she always hides her pride about her three children in order to make them want to try to achieve even better.

She thinks that “every best thing could still be done better, I don’t want my children to rest on laurels and become complacent about what they’ve achieved.”

Children’s maturity with good behaviors and appropriate manners are what parents take pride in.

That is why they desire to guide their descendants with traditional values and their lifetime lesson learned.

As surveyed, Ensure found that half of all aging parents silently want to pass on the traditions and experiences they have earned throughout life to their children and the next generations.

The untold story of Mrs. Mai – mom of Phuong Vy Idol – is a typical one.

Since Phuong Vy’s husband is a foreigner, cultures create differences in parenting styles.

Although Mrs. Mai appreciates modern Western education, she still exerts many efforts to teach her grandchild about their mother tongue and Vietnamese traditional values.

“She’s very nice, a good and intelligent girl. She can speak fluently both Vietnamese and English without any confusion though she’s only three,” her eyes were sparkling when talking about her little granddaughter.

Are we missing something about our parents?

Ensure’s survey also unveiled a secret: one of the primary topics parents had trouble opening up about is their health; according to the survey, 4 out of 10 senior parents prefer to keep their health concerns to themselves because they do not want to burden their children.

The health concerns parents kept untold covered a broad range including strength limitations, tiredness, and lack of sleep.

Revealing this provoking figure at the “Parents’ Untold Stories” event, all three parents shared this same hidden concern.

Mrs. Mai confessed: “I used to stay up late at night to prepare performance costumes for my daughter before. But after 50, I’m getting tired easily just by doing housework. This is the secret that I’ve never told my daughter. I am afraid that if she knows it, she would not allow me to do anything. She’s so busy with work already, so I don’t want her to worry about me.”

Mr. Trung also agreed, saying that he rarely tells Hieu about his health problems.

As a parent, he considers himself a ‘battery charger’ for his son.

“Anytime my son runs out of ‘battery,’ I will get him back for a full charge. What if a charger is not able to output power? My wife and I can handle ourselves to be always there whenever Hieu needs us.”

All of our parents’ stories are untold just to protect their children’s happiness.

However, they do not notice that time is limited, and so is health.

While aging is a common hidden concern, many parents are unaware that adults can naturally lose up to eight percent of muscle every decade starting in their 40s, and after age 70 that rate almost doubles up to 15 percent.

Being unrecognized and underestimated, muscle loss would lead to severe damage to physical health.

Research has shown that 10 percent of the muscle loss can reduce the immune system and increase the risk of infection while 20 percent can cause weaknesses, thinner skin and affect the body’s healing system.

Yet, these problems are foreseeable and can be slowed down or reversed.

According to Doctor Nguyen Viet Quynh Thu, Specialty II, FV Hospital, “At the age of 50, people’s health is declining as a result of the deterioration of muscles or muscle loss. During this period, regular exercise and proper and balanced nutrition are very important to help slow down the muscle loss process and to keep elderly people mentally and physically healthy. I would recommend elderly people to provide themselves with oral nutrition supplements which include muscle-support nutrients like protein or HMB.”

Last year, Abbott launched Ensure Gold with HMB as a gift of strength to Vietnamese elders which is scientifically formulated with HMB as a complete, balanced nutrition supplement to improve strength as early as eight weeks.

Time is limited as our parents are getting older and older.

Bursting into tears, Mrs. Mai recalled her shocking moment before going for a cancer surgery – the moment of separation with her children.

Although three years has gone by since then, she is still not able to read that-year letters from her children, which is her biggest secret.

Many tears fell down – belated backflow tears.

Some was whimpering for the white shade of Vu Lan roses.

Others were sobbing when they realized the shade of red roses was fading away.

“The average life expectancy of Vietnamese is around 74. How many years left do you have to be with your parents?” Mr. Douglas Kuo, General Manager of Abbott in Vietnam, did an experiment with candles of different lengths to visualize the limitation of lifespans.

“By publishing this survey, we wish to close the gaps between generations and encourage them to connect more with their parents to recognize the early signals of their health decline and help them regain strength. We are committed to helping people live longer and better through good health – facilitating the creation of long-lasting family bonding moments that matter,” he added.

Time is impossible to buy, yet most people are spending seven lunar months waiting for just one day with parents while they can make every day a Vu Lan by giving their parents enough care and support to strengthen family bonding and help them enjoy the fullest golden years.