I have not been cooking meals at home for the past fortnight, even on my days off. I find it more convenient but certainly not cheap just to go out for meals outside.
My family is small and only two persons – my 80-year -old mother and my 18-year-old niece – remain at home while the rest of us are working.
Most of the time, they do not eat what I cook.
In the office, I eat whenever I am hungry and drink whenever I am thirsty. I cannot wait until I go home to appease my hunger or quench my thirst.
In the office, sometimes I eat cooked food that I buy from nearby coffeeshops or eateries and sometimes, I just depend on my stock of instant cup noodles.
Not so long ago, I used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking good and delicious food before going off to work. Often, the food remained untouched when I went home late at night or even early morning.
My mother, an Alzheimer’s patient, eats and cannot remember she has eaten.
She also cannot remember how to serve herself. My niece, on the other hand, is so addicted to the handphone and social media that she sometimes forgets to feed the old lady.
Personally, she is on a diet even though she is as thin as bamboo.
My best friend has described this niece and another niece, who are addicted to mobile phones as “useless.”
I often remind this 18-year-old niece many times what tasks she should complete for me at home when I have left for work. When I ask her to wash the clothes in the washing machine, sometimes she remembers, sometimes she does not.
The same thing happens if I ask her to sweep the floor. That is why if you visit my home unexpectedly, you will find dirty clothes in the washing machine and rubbish on the floor.
If I were younger, I would have lost my temper easily over dirty clothes and unswept floor. But now, I don’t. I try to get my priority right and getting angry is not a priority. I tell myself that anger is bad for health.
If they have forgetten to feed my mother, I just tell my nieces that one day, they,too, will grow old. One day, their grandchildren will also forget to feed them. “Don’t do to others what you want to be done to yourself”, I remind them.
When I was as old as my niece, I tried very hard to complete all the tasks given to me at home. I feared the rotan very much and in those days, capital punishment was the norm, not the exception. If you were disobedient, your parents would beat you to teach you a lesson. If you were beaten, you just had to bear the pain. You could not complain to the police or to your teachers.
When we were studying in a primary co-ed school, my elder sister used to get into fights with other boys and girls. I never fought with any other boys or girls because I could not stand the searing pain of being canned.
My mother, who controlled the household while my father was away working, would beat my elder sister and anyone of us if she knew we had been fighting at home or in school.
There were six children in my family and my mother used to tell those who fought: “Don’t fight. When you are older, you will not live together.
Instead, you will need money to see each other.”
Today’s children are more fortunate compared to the children of long ago; most are not disciplined through rotan caning. Since caning is seen as a big “no-no” and greatly frowned upon by today’s so called civilised society, you have to be patient with today’s children even though they are not obedient or disciplined.You don’t beat them up. You try to be tactful. You try to talk sense to them and make them understand why they have to be responsible and do what you ask them to do.
If they do not change after you have tried talking sense to them, perhaps all you can say is “Don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to yourself” and hope that life eventually will change them for the better one day. It is indeed hard to raise today’s children.
