Lately, I met up with an old student of mine, brillant and promising however ...sigh :(

Obsession with paper qualifications has added a new dimension to parenting in Singapore. A good parent is often seen as the one who gives the best help possible to assist his child in the pursuit of academic excellence. The final goal of parenting, more often than not, is to help one's offspring obtain highly-paid jobs, preferably with social status attached to them. As a result many ambitious parents exert pressure on their children to excel in school work. They coax, demand, bribe or even threaten and thousands of dollars are spent on private tuition for young aspiring scholars... because of the importance placed on education, many parents tend to be over-concerned with their children's performance in school, thus sometimes unknowingly exerting unnecessary and even harmful pressures on them. It is natural for parents to want the best for their children.

Unfortunately, what a parent thinks is the best for his child may not be what the latter is capable of or is interested in doing....Many parents are also guilty of intellectual snobbery. They are more concerned with the status rather than the well-being of their children. Many would rather have their children fail at a university than have them sent to a technical college...

Another area of concern is related to the pressures and stress many parents exert on their children by involving them in all kinds of activities in order to have an "all round education". We are only too familiar with the laments of many parents over the tight schedule they have chauffering their children from one activity to another. For them life has become a hectic rush from school to music lession, tuition class, competitive games and martial art practice session, etc. leaving both parent and child very little time to relax. No doubt, no one can deny the values of engaging our children in such cultural activities, but need we make life so burdensome for our children? These activities are only helpful when they are tailored to the capacities of our children, allowing time for leisure and play. Children are young only once. We must allow them a break from the demands of a competitive school curriculum and the burden of so many extra-curricular activities.

There is yet another aspect of the paper chase. While those who can cope are caught up in the rat race, those who can't can cause problems to themselves and others. Many young people who are capable of high achievement along the academic road have fallen by the sideway because of their inability to cope with the pressures from school as well as from their parents. Child psychiatrists have found that neurosis in children could be caused by unrealistics parental pressures. These children develop symptoms such as nervous habits, withdrawal or aggressive behaviour...

Stay-At-Home-Mom

When I was a university undergraduate, the notion of staying home with your children was unpopular. Why spend 3-8 expensive years preparing for your career going through college, degree, honours, masters...if you were not going to put the kids where God and feminism intended: in childcare?

So it has been fascinating to watch the pendulum swing the other way the last 15 years, as women of my generation and older faced the untold frustrations of trying to work full time and raise a family. Injuries to the number of women whose heads hit the glass ceiling soared. In her 1997 landmark book “The Second Shift,” Arlie Hochschild reported that most women who worked full time still did most of the housework. Many others found they were working to pay for child care, so they could keep working: to pay for child care.

No wonder more and more of us began to reconsider the stay-at-home option, or variations thereof (flextime, working from home, extended maternity leave, etc.). As Mary Snyder, co-author of “You Can Afford to Stay Home With Your Kids,” told me, “It's a total priority shift. Women don't want the Supermom Syndrome. It looked great from the outside, but once you were in it, you were miserable and you couldn't excel at anything.”

Making the most of naptime I have ridden the waves of maternal angst with the rest of my peers, and the stay-at-home option has always appealed. Plus, I am a tutor and adjunct lecturer, so I could always work (marking, preparing for assignments, night classes etc...)while the little ones nap. I would not even have to lose much professional ground.

So I was a prime candidate to get my butt kicked by Ann Crittenden's new book: “The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World Is Still the Least Valued.”

A former economics reporter for The New York Times, Crittenden documents in painstaking and depressing detail all the ways in which government policy, the tax code and corporate culture penalize mothers who work and the parents who stay at home. The stats are such a downer, for example, working mothers earn 20% less than working women without kids.
But those who pay the highest “mommy tax,” as Crittenden calls it, are those who choose to stay home. Cost of giving up a career: $1 million She uses herself, a writer , as an example of what happens when women decide to leave the workforce. Most not only forfeit their income, but also retirement savings, pension and other benefits. All told, Crittenden says, she gave up about $700,000. Shocking? Yes. Unlikely? Nope. Economists say that the stay-at-home parent who relinquishes a career may lose about $1 million over the years.

Crittenden does not regret a minute of the time she spent with her son; nor do any of the mothers she interviewed. But the financial tradeoffs she lists are a stunning indictment of a mother's financial vulnerability. To combat these realities, Crittenden recommends a slew of smart policy changes that would reduce the financial penalty of having kids, especially for stay-at-home moms (or SAHMs, as they're increasingly abbreviated). But if you, like me, would like to consider staying home before the glacial pace of government acts on your behalf.

Figure out if you, personally, can afford this emotionally, never mind financially, we all have a lot invested in our careers. It is vital to spend time weighing what leaving the career track will mean. It is difficult to go from changing sales strategies to changing diapers full time, and many women take a hit in their self-esteem and sense of identity. Luckily, many, many women have done it, and they have either formed or joined organizations designed specifically to support your choice.

Reflections

Recently all I have been pondering about is how every action I take and words I say will have some kind of consequence on my children that will last forever. One thing I do know for sure is that my parenting will make them who they are and will leave a long-lasting impression on them. My parenting during these years will establish so much of their permanent personalities.

If I am guilty of anything right now, it is spending too little time with them, despite the fact that I took a few years off my lecturing post in the university. I want to love and hold my children as much as I can when they are little because I know as they get older they will not want this attention from their Mummy. I know when I was a child; time was all I wanted from my parents.

When I first became a mother, I did not comprehend how tough being a mother was going to be. When a child is under three, it is so much easier and all that parents have to do is feed and play with them. As they get older, parents have to do and be so much more. After my oldest child, Darren turned four this year, I finally realized that it is not all fun and games anymore. I have to teach him, guide him, and help him make the right decisions. What I do will have an impact on him. It is my responsibility to help him turn into a well-rounded, perceptive, unbiased, and most of all, loving child, teenager, and adult.

I relish everyday and not take anything for granted. I try and live each day to the fullest because I honestly do not know what tomorrow will bring. I have not always been this way but I sure am glad that I am now. Having this frame of mind allows me to be unperturbed and optimistic almost every day of my life. I want my children to have few rules, less structure, more fun, free expression, and not be stuck with what the current competitive society calls "normal". I do not want them to be concerned with all the little issues, tension and problems around them. I hope for them to see the bigger picture and appreciate all that life has to offer, to continue to be thrilled about life and learning for the rest of their lives.

I guess most of all is that when my children look back, I hope they will be able to say that my hubby and I gave them all the time, love, and understanding they needed; giving them choices, allowing them to make mistakes, not forcing them to conform, and showing them the way to having found meaning in their lives.

Golden RULES of Parenting

As I look back on my decade of work with children and teenagers, I often wonder what , of all the fads I have been through, was really significant. Obviously it was not all the huff and puff over breastfeeding versus bottle, bonding, early education or coporal punishment. Most of what has come and gone was more than an orgy of academic nitpicking, but beyond these provide the fundamentals for strong and emotionally secure children.

I believe strongly in the following golden conditions and climate which our children thrive best in:

They feel loved.

"The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved."—Victor Hugo

Being loved is not the same as feeling loved. It is not suffice just to know you love your children. You have to be sure they know it, too. You have to show them you love them just the way they are, just because they are. Loving your children, then, is largely a matter of getting the message across. Children who feel unwanted act very differently from those who feel wanted and loved. They spend lots of time trying to reassure themselves and other people of their worth. They are cautious about trying new things, for failure hurts them deeply. Children who know they are loved, on the other hand, do not have to waste time proving their worth. They are not afraid to try out their wings. They know that even if they fall, they can still count on your love and respect.

To be sure your children feel secure about your love for them:
• Look at what your words and actions may be telling your children about themselves.
• Find ways to show your children that, no matter what, you love them.

This does not mean that if you ever get angry or frustrated with your children they are ruined forever. Children do not need perfect parents. If the overall climate you create is one of love and respect, your children will learn they are valued:

just the way they are,
just because they are,
no ifs, ands, or buts.

They are provided with consistent childcare and discipline.

" There is only 1 set of rules in this house" - Children will be confused and unhappy when they live in a home with conflicting and inconsistent messages and discipline being meted out. If Daddy says "Do this" and Mummy countersmands the request, then you have just witnessed the proscecution of effective discipline. If one occasion they get away with a wrongdoing and the next moment, they are crucified for half the offence, they become confused and brainwashed.

They learn by observing good adult example.

As parents, we have the major influence and stakes for our children's standard of behaviour. Our children learn a great deal by identifying with and imitating us, which is known incidental learning. Through incidental learning, "children develop the basic survival tools they need long before they enter the world of formal schooling." Incidental learning takes place throughout a child's life, but a child's first teachers are his parents, and they are his most profound inspiration. Young children usually identify more closely with the parent of the same gender. They absorb crucial lessons about social and moral behavior by studying that parent. If parents want their child's incidental learning to be as beneficial as possible, they should demonstrate, as often as possible, the qualities they want their child to imitate like being polite, cooperative, helpful, generous and compassionate.

They are brought up by calm, firm and confident parents.

It is not an easy feat nowadays to be parents with many worries: jobs, rising costs, inflation, etc..I myself have no magic cures for all these worries but we can work on minimising the negations they generate. We can do so by just being aware of just how infectious tension from our problems can be and do our best to prevent it stirring up our children.

My 4 Jewels

"When choosing to become a parent, you are choosing to forever go through life with your heart walking around outside your body"

I earnestly believe this is the case...I never knew the extent to which I could love or care for any one person or fear so much for their well being until I became a parent myself. And for the record, it is one of the few choices in my life that I have never regretted and I would not change it for anything else in the world. Each one of my kids, let alone all 4, are worth more than that to me...(still hoping for more if my biological clock permits me.)


Hahaha.....a not so 'perfect' picture of my 4 jewels here...

A more justified picture of Sheryl... =D

To me, parenting is a compromise. All parents start out with incredibly idealistic expectations but as tension and tiredness take their toll, we tend to lower out sights to more of the middle road position, a state of equilibrium. It is not for others to criticise and compare but for parents themselves to feel what is the right way to bring up their children as any. If you love your children, enjoy them and do what feels right for you; noone can do better.