Respect is paramount

My maternity leave ended when my son was 4 months old, so my parents-in-law moved from rural Heilongjiang province and came to live with us in Beijing.

Compared with some families where there is constant low-level friction between young and old, our relationship is pretty good. I have to say that we're lucky, because they're such generous, tolerant people.

We've been living under the same roof for almost three years, and I now understand the headaches and difficulties some older people face when they move to the cities.