A dish best served cold

I don't like babies. They are so cute and cuddly, then the next thing you know they are adults. But, you are still responsible for them. It's not fair, for God to make these babies so cute that, as they were growing up, you just want to give them everything. We feel really bad when they cry and we are happy when they laugh. So, we want to keep them happy, and by keeping them happy, we are happy... I guess it's self-serving.... like everything else we do in life.

God made us such that we keep wanting things. When we were small, we want to grow up, when we're grown up we want to get married, after we're married we want to have babies... then we can't wait for the babies to grow up and when they've grown up they treat us like a bottomless ATM machine. And, they think they have a right over whatever we own. And, that the things we gave them, are their rights to have. And, you ask yourself..... why did I want babies?

I am envious of a friend. A very successful friend. He treats his children like adults. He doesn't worry where they are, or whether they'll come home or not, in fact he encourages his children to get out of the house as soon as they turn 18. They all turned out ok, I think, at least, from where I was, as we sat on the patio of his club, smoking cigars.

Me... I am one of those over protective dads. I get anxieties, thinking about my children. Are they safe? Will they be able to take care of themselves when I'm dead? What if they get into trouble and I can't get to them? I need to know where they are all the time..... It calms me to know they have reached their destination. When one of them comes home late, I have this imagination that they could be in an accident and bleeding to death somewhere.

But, in return, they think I am being silly. I think so, too.

The weird think is, all this seems oddly familiar. A dejavu.... from a different angle.

I read somewhere that, children are the grandparents' revenge. How true that is, at least in my case. This was how my parents felt while bringing me up. These are their anxieties, their anger, their exasperations. Only now as a parent, I am understanding what my own parents went through bringing me up.

If both of them are alive today, they will probably say... Serve you right!!

God bless their souls.

Comments

Pak Mat Beca

I started school in 1971. I went to Sekolah Ismail (Dua), as far as I am concerned the only primary school in the whole universe and every kid must go there or the government will put their parents away forever. The "Dua" or Two (2), does not mean there were two Sekolah Ismails. There was only one, except that there were two sessions, morning and afternoon. When I started in standard one, I was in the morning session. Apparently, somehow, the two Ismails alternate, and I really can't recall ever having to go to school in the afternoon. Every morning, my cousin, the late Hashimah Hashim (Allah bless her soul), and I would wait for Pak Mat to pick us up in his beca, his trishaw. And, until I changed school in 1976 (that's another story to tell), Pak Mat and his beca would take me to school every school day. I know of no other way to go to school and I did not really appreciate the distance that Pak Mat had to cycle to pick us up and send us to our respective s...

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