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Caleb would go nuts; and burn a hole in my pocket, if I brought him here This one costs $12.99. Maybe I should have bought it? Opening and closing the door switches the cargo inside! It’s on sale ‘cos it’s … Continue reading
Short post, from memory…
There was once an event at Grandma’s church. I think Grandma had to volunteer at this event, and Caitlin, her uncle and I were left in the hall waiting for her to join us. It was a rather big crowd there too. Caitlin must have been only about 3 or younger then. I think she hadn’t even started pre-school yet then.
We were seated on a long flowerbox or something. Soon after an older girl, perhaps 5 years old, came to the flowerbox near us. She took out a colouring book and colour pencils from her backpack and started colouring it. Caitlin, being always curious of other kids at that age, was watching this older girl. The girl knew it, and I guess she was also showing off her wares.
Caitlin started getting bored, and we weren’t prepared for this long wait- could have brought some toy or something to occupy her (I didn’t have an iPhone of games then either). So I went to the car to retrieve my small notepad and a pen; thought to teach her how to master holding a pen or even start writing. I really did not have anything for her.
She started doodling in it. Up and down strokes. It was quite pathetic really, given the situation we were in at the hall bored out of our minds, and the girl near us enjoying herself in full view of Caitlin, with her up-down strokes of blue ink in a small pocket-shirt sized lined notepad.
“That’s not nice” said the girl about Caitlin’s doodling. Caitlin was stumped, perhaps even hurt. For a 3 year old she didn’t know how to react. She just looked at me.
I guess this was also my first incident of someone else teasing my child, even if it’s verbal.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“I am 5 years old”, she said, without looking up from her colouring.
“Well, my daughter is only 3, and she can already hold a pencil properly. Could you do that when you were 3 years old?”
She didn’t answer me.
“No, I didn’t think you could.”
Caitlin has turned 6 in Nov 2010, Caleb has just turned 3 in January 2011.
Caitlin is of a certain intellect already. We “connect” as we talk about stuff- and we can do that just by sitting down, in the car, at the table, and lately, over the internet on Skype. In fact with this latest medium, we also type messages to each other whilst I coach her on spelling them 
Caleb however, is not at that level of intellect yet. We don’t “talk” per se- we play together. Though he understands stuff that is being said to him, he is still distracted by physical, tangible, more touch-sensory perception of the world and people around him than about to sit down and talk.
And so, he doesn’t miss me, not as much as his jie-jie does.
This was evident tonight. I got a message on my iPhone’s chat program from Caitlin, asking me to get on Skype to videochat, peppered with emoticons that she has recently taken to giggle at
And so we did, like usual, hearing and seeing each other on screen.
While talking to Caitlin and Hot Mummee for a while I saw Caleb in the background of the video chat. HM asked him to come talk to Daddee.
He didn’t want to.
I don’t blame him. There is no fun, at his level of intellect, to talk to Daddee in a window in the computer screen. There is no play involved like how it was with physical-Daddee; like how I’d play with his toys with him, kick the ball around with him, goof around with him.
I have said before that he will grow to not know his Daddee if we don’t hurry along our plans. This is perhaps the first step down that path.
I don’t have much time left.
It’s no real secret that I am here in Melbourne as the first step in our overall plan to relocate here.
I have studied, lived and worked in Australia before. I grew up in Malaysia, and spent my developing late-teen years here.
In individualistic ways, I am a minority. Having obtained secondary and tertiary education here and having worked on both shores put me a unique position- of outlook, experience, cultural and language backgrounds. These are perhaps the qualities that past immigration policies stressed on when they look at multicultural policies and also during attempts to address the skills shortage and its ageing population, in the competitive (now comparative?) global markets.
But I am not getting into politics here.
I can therefore speak a few languages and Chinese dialects as a result- I always tell people that one of the “given” advantages of an ethnic Chinese growing up in an Asian city is that one would automatically pick up at least one dialect. In KL it is the widely spoken Cantonese, Penang would be the local flavour of Hokkien, Malacca would be Mandarin, etc., without actually needing to attend a vernacular school (but which I did- thanks mum In Singapore ethnic kids are required to also take on their respective mother-tongue as a language subject, on top of English.
But as you have rightly guessed, I am now wondering what my children will be like when they are growing up here, eventually.
In a lot of ways, I don’t want them to be “typical”. Not using myself as a model, I do wish for them to be upstanding unique citizens. I know all parents want these for their kids too, but if you take me and HM in this context- we are different in the local context; and I am looking at this in an optimistic light.
But what about the kids? They are still young, and will still be when they move here and be just another “product” of the local system.
Of course, this is almost-literally two sides of the same coin: They too would be a product of that system over there.
So then we come back to the original question: Am I doing the right thing for the kids? Am I doing this for selfish reasons of my own preference for wanting to live here, and thus “dragging” them along without the maturity and knowledge to offer their own opinions and preference too?
At this stage I can only offer that what will shape them to be un-typical would be our methods and values in raising them in the local environment. Yes I am generalising here, but I would wonder how many (“young”? 
parents out there have the kinds of background that HM and I have? A few, but not many, I would think.
And if I sound arrogant, I am not. I am looking out for my kids given what tools I have for this job.
Posted in A father's POV, Education, Just saying, life skills, Parenting musing, The future
When I was home my kids would be all over my iPhone for the games. I have blogged before about how Caitlin plays a particular zoo management game; and Caleb too would have a few of his favourites.
Games, or apps for that matter, usually get updated by the developers. Either to add in new features, bug fixes, to be more updated; in particular with games, new scenes or characters would be added. With the zoo game that Caitlin plays, I have seen new animals and rangers being added when they are updated.
So now that I am away from home I have removed most of the games that were on the iPhone. For that matter I have also removed some of the security features- there were a few times when Caleb had unintentionally deleted my apps and info; he didn’t know better, of course.
So now when I check for updates of my apps, some of these installed games would indicate that there are updates available.
I don’t update them now.
And I kinda feel guilty, and sad.
Guilty because, even though they are games- I only install educational games or at least non-violent games; they do teach something to the kids. Hand-eye coordination, math games, basic strategies (the zoo management game), or simply interacting with “tools” that will become even bigger parts of their adult lives compared to us now. Guilty because I have taken away this opportunity/”toy” away from them.
And sad. I miss them.
Posted in A father's POV, Caitlin the heiress, Caleb the heir, Ergonomics, The future
Tagged games, growing up
You are walking around window shopping and you see something you like.
And you thought Hmm I think my kid will like it too.
So you buy it. You bring it home to your kid(s). You give it to them. They go “WAAaah! Thank you Daddee” and proceed to play with it not the way you’d like it to be!
I have had toys, stationaries, cards, even my own toys, not played with “properly” (“properly” in this context is of course relative. What’s a little crashing of the remote helicopter, dirtying of a pair of perfectly white shoes, pressing too hard of the new colour pencils, or even creasing of a nicely made origami??)
I have come to accept that, however much you like the item yourself, and thought your kids might like it too, you have to “surrender” to the fact that they may not think the items is as great as you do, and not cherish or look after it as well as you might yourself!
I have seen the gifts that my parents bring for them after their trip overseas. My mum has bought Caitlin kiddie handbags before. Not that Caitlin trashes them- she does use them and store things in them and carry them around. But after a while, new broom sweeps clean, something new and better comes along and she forgets about this new item.
After giving this some thought, I should make it a point to highlight to them the effort that people have taken, to pick out the gift after giving the kids some consideration (that people are thoughtful of them), the money involved in buying it, and the whole idea of not wasting things.
.. Cos I have just bought them something too
