Then and now
4:07 PM Edit This
My husband and I had a reunion dinner with his friends who just returned from Australia. After the dinner we returned to the couple’s apartment (their second home) and the talk drifted to living there. The friend, Joe related about his brother and how he is bringing up his teenage daughter. The daughter is attending an international school in Kuala Lumpur. Joe’s brother said, “I feel so sorry for my daughter. She tells me that her friends have their personal driver and updates me on all the latest gadgets that they bought. Since I can’t afford a chauffeur or the latest iphone, I’ve decided to indulge her in anything that she wants.” According to Joe, his brother paid RM 500 for his daughter to attend a rock concert and gave her extra pocket money to spend. Joe’s wife Sophie injected about her friend’s son who hung up abrubtly on his mother’s phone call when she called him at school. The teenager’s mother called him back and asked, “Why are you so curt?” The teenager replied, “You gave me this old mobile phone. I have to hide it from my friends so that they won’t laugh at me. Good thing, they didn’t see me just now. Don’t call me anymore at school.” Sophie told us further of another friend’s son who refused to allow his parents to host a birthday party for him in their house. The boy said, “Are you kidding me mum? You’ll shame me to hell! Our whole house fits into my friends kitchen!”
I recalled the stories my father used to tell me of his childhood, when things were scarce.
My father loved to tell us stories of his childhood, after the Second World War. Prior to the war, my grandfather had a thriving business in coal from Burma and Thailand. But when the war came, his ships returning to Malaya with a cargo of charcoal, were lost at sea. This caused him to become a bankrupt. One day, my grandfather went to Penang to buy condense milk to feed his children. He was at Weld Quay when the Japanese bombers started to drop bombs on that street. The bombers mistook the parked rickshaws as canons pointing up towards the sky. My grandfather was injured during the bombing. He became incapacitated from abdominal injury which never healed and suffered for the next five years of his life.
My grandmother became a widow in her early 40’s and had to bring up seven young children. My father who was the eldest son, at age 13 became the ‘man’ of the house. He showed me the calluses on his hands and said, “Those are from years of chopping firewood.” One of my aunties had to stop school because of poverty and also to carry out the household chores. Priority for education was given only to the boys. My grandmother became the sole breadwinner and fed my uncles and aunties and my grandfather’s sister and her four children through the meager earnings she made, from selling ‘nyonya kuih’. Occasionally, they could afford to buy meat. Otherwise their staple diet consisted of tapioca roots, potato shoots, vegetables and white rice. When the days were bad, they were grateful enough to feed on watery white broth. Whoever that was late for dinner, had to go without it. My grandmother sewed all the children’s uniforms from thick white cotton fabric, so that they would last. They could not afford to buy black leather school shoes, so my father wore wooden clogs to school. He was very careful to keep his uniforms clean, as if he came home with a soiled shirt, my grandmother would punish him. Alas, this was a challenge, as there was a school bully who enjoyed wrestling and pinning him down, rubbing his clean shirt with dirt.
My father said that things became easier when he started working. He just turned 19 and right after he graduated from the teacher’s college, he was offered a position to teach at his former alma mate. My grandmother sewed him the shirts and baggy, trousers which he wore to work. He was so proud when he received his first pay check and treated his two younger brother and sister who were 3 and 4 then. He bought them a tricycle which they both fought to have their turn to ride on. His first salary was only RM 200 of which RM 180 was given to my grandmother for the family expenses. He kept the rest for himself and to take my uncle and aunty out to a ‘kopitiam’ for ‘char ho fun’ (thick rice noodles with seafood and pork) and satay (barbecued pork on skewers). He pampered my uncle and aunty as they had never known of any other father figure. When my father got married and moved to the teacher’s quarters, he brought my uncle to live with him. Ironically, he married the school bully's younger sister.
My thoughts were interrupted with Joe’s loud sigh. Joe said, “Perhaps it’s better not to have children these days. We seem to have plenty yet there isn’t enough to go around. With our diminishing values, what are to become of our children?”
I know that parenting isn't easy and we all do whatever that we believe is right. But, is indulging and giving in freely to our children's demands of any good to them at all? Would they even value whatever that they receive when it's given so simply, without a need to earn it.
I recalled the stories my father used to tell me of his childhood, when things were scarce.
My father loved to tell us stories of his childhood, after the Second World War. Prior to the war, my grandfather had a thriving business in coal from Burma and Thailand. But when the war came, his ships returning to Malaya with a cargo of charcoal, were lost at sea. This caused him to become a bankrupt. One day, my grandfather went to Penang to buy condense milk to feed his children. He was at Weld Quay when the Japanese bombers started to drop bombs on that street. The bombers mistook the parked rickshaws as canons pointing up towards the sky. My grandfather was injured during the bombing. He became incapacitated from abdominal injury which never healed and suffered for the next five years of his life.
My grandmother became a widow in her early 40’s and had to bring up seven young children. My father who was the eldest son, at age 13 became the ‘man’ of the house. He showed me the calluses on his hands and said, “Those are from years of chopping firewood.” One of my aunties had to stop school because of poverty and also to carry out the household chores. Priority for education was given only to the boys. My grandmother became the sole breadwinner and fed my uncles and aunties and my grandfather’s sister and her four children through the meager earnings she made, from selling ‘nyonya kuih’. Occasionally, they could afford to buy meat. Otherwise their staple diet consisted of tapioca roots, potato shoots, vegetables and white rice. When the days were bad, they were grateful enough to feed on watery white broth. Whoever that was late for dinner, had to go without it. My grandmother sewed all the children’s uniforms from thick white cotton fabric, so that they would last. They could not afford to buy black leather school shoes, so my father wore wooden clogs to school. He was very careful to keep his uniforms clean, as if he came home with a soiled shirt, my grandmother would punish him. Alas, this was a challenge, as there was a school bully who enjoyed wrestling and pinning him down, rubbing his clean shirt with dirt.
My father said that things became easier when he started working. He just turned 19 and right after he graduated from the teacher’s college, he was offered a position to teach at his former alma mate. My grandmother sewed him the shirts and baggy, trousers which he wore to work. He was so proud when he received his first pay check and treated his two younger brother and sister who were 3 and 4 then. He bought them a tricycle which they both fought to have their turn to ride on. His first salary was only RM 200 of which RM 180 was given to my grandmother for the family expenses. He kept the rest for himself and to take my uncle and aunty out to a ‘kopitiam’ for ‘char ho fun’ (thick rice noodles with seafood and pork) and satay (barbecued pork on skewers). He pampered my uncle and aunty as they had never known of any other father figure. When my father got married and moved to the teacher’s quarters, he brought my uncle to live with him. Ironically, he married the school bully's younger sister.
My thoughts were interrupted with Joe’s loud sigh. Joe said, “Perhaps it’s better not to have children these days. We seem to have plenty yet there isn’t enough to go around. With our diminishing values, what are to become of our children?”
I know that parenting isn't easy and we all do whatever that we believe is right. But, is indulging and giving in freely to our children's demands of any good to them at all? Would they even value whatever that they receive when it's given so simply, without a need to earn it.
