I have been having difficulties being a parent to one of my kids. He is 12 and so beyond me I am at a lost – we are at a lost. It is a totally alien space.
I am wondering if I parented him wrongly because of some childhood trauma.
I googled and empowering parents said that I should not feel guilty or accept responsibilities for the difficulties he is facing. After all we all learn to get around our difficulties. If he is working on it and trying I can appreciate and support – but if he is not?
My boss today said something like, if you have parents, remember to spend time with them. He had just returned today from a 2 week urgent leave to take care of things at home (overseas). He also said that when he and his siblings were younger, he had idealistic notions of parental care with parents traveling from one sibling to another through the year.
I started to feel guilty about not ringing my father. Yet on the other hand, I don’t like having any conversations with my father.
He has lost the ability to have a conversation. He is perhaps afraid and anxious all the time. His normal state is always imagining he has the world’s attention on him and someone is always out to get him. Most of all, he is always competing with me – about being right, about being more virtuous (scrimping and saving) and more filial. Every conversation is peppered with a scam that he figured – ie nobody can trick him; or, that I should be as virtuous as him.
I am unable to link what he says of himself to the father I know.
I mostly ignore the self praise and competitive virtue signaling. It bothers me when most conversation is something negative about me even when I am helping him.
I am adult enough to understand parents are also human and imperfect. Parents deal with their own private emotions and they don’t intentional hurt. I also see my responsibilities in this dance. I listen and buy into whatever that was said, intentional or not.
The more I listen, the more I dislike the speaker. The more I assist them with their day to day, the more I resent my assistance because I am hearing the habitual criticisms. Simply because I believe those words. The way I see it is this – I don’t defend myself, I feel angry and upset because I should stand up for myself.
But if he is actually scolding something that doesn’t exist – why should I need to defend and dance to his imagination?
If it is a poor fantasy that he has conjured up for himself – he is deserving at least of compassion and kindness since he is suffering all the time.
So logically, I should visit more – create more possibilities for good interactions. Yet with the problems I am handling now at home and work stress, it’s hard to have the energy to be positive and remain open.
I updated the front of my blog with the pictures I painted. It feels fancy – as if I am artistic. My daughter has been very kind, saying that I am so cool, that I can paint so prettily. It feels funny hearing her say that. I immediately deny it, insisting I don’t have any talent.
When I imagine being 48, I imagine myself single, mostly pay check to pay check in a spartan home. I imagine myself a lousy writer whose always blocked but writing bad novels about Singapore and stuck, not knowing where to sell my book. I imagine that my job requires me to look at data and never talk to anyone.
At 48, my life is not what I imagined myself to me. I am now squarely stuck in Operational Risk. I might have a called a couple of locations in the past to help them with their troubles. My calls are now daily, clarifying, educating, organising. I am writing a lot more PPT and being “gifted feedback” about my bad PPT. I can’t imagine myself now – having the kind of immense difficulties with my son. The kind of difficulties that makes me suspect some level of disorder. That the view from my home begs to be painted. (It’s a Housing Board flat.) That I have learnt to save money. That I have learnt how to do art. That I have a post grad in Finance – astounding, really. I also never thought that my actual friends will be in my office. Just yesterday, I sat with V. at work; the week before I was in the same call as Z.
It feels like a giant leap for me. No way I would have been able to imagine enough to write this in my 5 year / 10 year / 15 year plan. In case you imagine that I have landed in a place of incredible, eye searing success. Just a leap into a different universe. Strange and amazing.
I hope this will be for my kids. The kind amazing giant leaps that makes life interesting. Hard but not boring.
I had a horrible revelation that my oldest is taking PSLE this year. The kind of revelation that involves a friend kindly advising me that I need to schedule block leave during PSLE. I search for some advice on study timetable. I was shocked by the timetable to study for 5 hours after school with dinner and 15min breaks in between. I honestly don’t recall studying that much in primary or secondary school. I did work through assessments but it wasn’t 5 hours of working. I don’t think that is feasible to burn out at primary school level.
Looking through the school’s instagram account, I saw they gave the P6 张德人 a wonderful send off on results day regardless of their results. It was a nice hurrah for the hard work they put in.
Had a grisly moment today in which I lost my daughter in the thronging crowds.
I called & called her pet name. Nothing. My head stopped functioning. I despaired, I was broken. It was a struggle to remain present.
We crossed a road. She was right behind me. My son & I shared my raincoat in the light drizzle. She had her own… She has a streak of randomness. I can’t figure out her logic. She could be ahead, in the shopping mall. She could have run back across the road. She could have walked back to the train station. She could be anywhere. She was no where.
My son suggested that we try to move a little further ahead.
And there she was. Standing, looking for us.
And my world & self functioned again.
Cesarean birth for the alien.
My mom was in certain art circles when she was a young adult from her choral group (Xing Shi He Chang Tuan). She dropped out after deciding that art made no money. When I was older I was really impressed she was in the same circle as Kuo Pao Kun and went to his home for a gathering. (I think art people do not party.) His daughter Jian Hong was very small then. My mom said that Mrs Kuo was a beautiful lady and she dances. My piano teacher was from those circles. 杨运珍老师 (Yeong Yoon Ching) was strict but not terror inducing. (There is another piano teacher Ong Lip Tat who is well known for churning out piano talents – there are terrifying stories of shouting and books being thrown on the floor if you are lazy and a bad student.) I was not a very good musically (cannot play with feelings that I don’t have) and not a particularly dedicated student (30 mins of dutiful mostly bad practice). Her husband, Uncle Hui Kun (Chia Wei Khuan) was gentle and kindly to the kids who came to his home to learn piano. He became the choir conductor and eventually went to do other teaching work. I have no idea what happened to the choir. I had a brief memory that they came from well to do background and knew each other while in the same school abroad and that he had a higher educational qualification. They must be retired now.
My mom was intent on marshalling my interests. Piano was good – a lot of rich middle class children learnt the piano. We weren’t rich – I wasn’t sure how middle class we were. She fiercely opposed that I had hobbies: writing, watching theatre, reading, orchid keeping – if she had a magic wand I think she use it to wither my interest. I don’t think she does it on purpose, rather we have different interests. I only talked about work with her. She enjoyed the politics, the work dynamics, the stories about bosses and eagerly wanted to know “what happened next” at work. It wasn’t boring – she was a sounding board for me. I had at one time, wished I had a mentor who knew how to navigate the professional world. She worked exclusively in SMEs and didn’t know the skills needed for professional success. My younger brother played a lot of computer games and had horrendous school results, smoked (at one time), drank (who didn’t) but she never interfered much with his hobbies.
What would have happened to me if I was left alone with my interests? I think, not much. I won’t be a great starving artist because I am a dilettante at best, a wannabe at worst. I lack the drive, personal skills and ambition to be a great starving artist. It’s not that easy to succeed in one’s ambition.
Today as I waited for my child to finish her lessons, I took a peek at another child tinkling at the keys and noticed her bad finger posture. I said to my daughter later that I would have been patted by a ruler if I did the same thing at music class. Music class is not for crybabies!
headbirth.com 