When we think of 6-year-old children we assume that they have a parent that takes care of them. But for 6-year-old Jia Jia from Ningxia Province in China, it’s the other way around.
She has an adult that she takes care of.
Jia Jia is her father’s caretaker. Tian Haicheng, 40, was left paralyzed after he was injured in taxi cab accident two years ago. His cab crashed into a ditch while it was speeding.
Jia Jia’s mother ended up abandoning them about two and a half months later after the accident. She and Haicheng were married for seven years.
She took Jia Jia’s older brother with her.
“She told me on the day that she was going to stay in her mother’s home for a few days. But she never returned, and she took our son with her,” Haicheng told Yangtzi Evening News.
Not having her mom around doesn’t really bother Jia Jia. When asked if she misses her mom she said, “No, because she doesn’t look after dad. But I miss my brother. I used to be very close to him. I miss him!”
This left Jia Jia to care for her father. And it’s no easy job. According to Daily Mail, she wakes up at 6 a.m. to massage her father’s muscles for a half hour.
She then washes his face and brushes his teeth before she heads off to school.
Jia Jia’s great-grandparents, who are both farmers, watch over her dad when she is at school.
When she gets home from school she makes dinner for her dad and helps him move around the house in his home-made mobility hoist.
And she has a positive attitude throughout it all.
“Looking after my dad, I don’t feel tired at all,” she told Yangtzi Evening News.
The hardest part about helping her dad is moving him around the house and helping him to turn over in bed.
He’s a lot bigger than she is. But he is grateful to have her.
“She is my hands,” Haicheng admits.
Jia Jia’s grandfather made a mobility hoist to movie her father from the bed to the wheelchair.
The girl has to use all of her strength to work it.
She attaches the straps to her dad while he lies down. She then slowly lifts him up with the hoist and pushes him toward his wheelchair by the bed.
Jia Jia then slowly lowers him until he is safely in his chair before she takes off the straps.
She also has to jump on and off of the bed a few times and balance herself so she doesn’t fall over.
Another task she has to do very carefully is shaving her father’s beard.
“At the beginning, I didn’t know how to shave and I cut dad’s face and it bled. But dad said it wasn’t painful,” Jia Jia said. “Now, I’m very good at shaving his beard. My grandmother says I shave it very clean.”
Haicheng lost his ability to work so he relies on his parents’ farming to survive.
He also raises money through a live-streaming app which shows how his daughter cares for him.
They have more than 48,000 followers that call Jia Jia an angel. You can watch Jia Jia take care of her dad in the video below.
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