Goodbye 2011 and Welcome 2012.

The beginning of the year is usually a time for resolutions. One resolves to do better than in the past year. An evaluation of what has been accomplished and what has yet to be done or can be improved upon prevails in most minds.

I don’t know about you but I have decided to get rid of my lackadaisical attitude that was prevalent in 2011. Thinking back about it, I had almost missed the pleasures of a trip to Eastern Europe and another trip to Xiamen, China, all because of fear.

Age has caught up and there was the lingering fear in the background that if I made plans, what would happen if I’m not able to fulfill them because of the Grim Reaper? This held me back from making arrangements for trips to places that I wanted to visit. However, in the end I told myself that come what may, I would go ahead and book my trips. So I did and I enjoyed them tremendously.Definitely no regrets there.

For this year then, I will continue to go where the wanderlust will take me.

However, there are three things which I have resolved to adhere to, which had been very poorly managed in the previous year.

The first is discipline followed by focus and time management. No more aery faery floating. It’s time to do what I used to tell my former students to do. Make a time table and manage your time to optimize the hours you have so that the day is not wasted, ruminating and then rationalizing failure with excuses.
Once the time table is done, then discipline kicks in because one has to be disciplined to carry out the activities and to carry them out efficiently there has to be focus. I cannot afford to day dream the way I used to do or get easily distracted by little things that crop up ever so often.

There is a time for everything if one plans carefully and sticks to the plan.

For now, those are my main resolutions followed by the others like taking my medications on time, stop pigging out each time I return to Kuala Lumpur and get on the exercise bicycle daily. It’s a poor excuse to say that “You only live once”

to rationalize eating forbidden food especially when you know that it will blow your blood sugar sky high. One moment of weakness can have far reaching dire consequences.

A hefty decision but I think one that I can and must live with now.

Tweet

Should Grandparents Live with their Married Children?

The answer should be a no-brainer. Many married children would rather their elderly parents live apart from them. The primary reason is privacy. They want their privacy and having parents living with them would curtail it severely and even looked upon as cramping their lifestyle.

However, not all elderly parents have the choice of living on their own. One reason is that the married son is still staying with them after he has got himself a wife.

This could be the result of the son’s inability to purchase his own house ( houses being expensive these days ) or else it could be his mercenary streak, having calculated that it is cheaper to live with his parents and apart from that, he and his wife will also enjoy ready cooked meals at the end of the working day as well as having their laundry taken care off. Besides, when the baby comes along, he would have an in-house nanny in the form of his mother, not withstanding the fact that his mother is already old and taking care of a baby is very demanding.

Being Asian, his parents will not ask him to move out and they will stoically resign themselves to their fate. Saddled with a young child, they themselves will have lost the freedom of movement. They would not be able to go out as and when they wish, let alone enjoy travelling to other places.

Even those who are living on their own will also expect their parents to look after their babies and young children. It is common to see them carting their babies to their parents’ home before they leave for work and at the end of the day, return to their parents’ for dinner before taking their babies home, only to repeat the routine day after day. Some even leave their babies with the grandparents for the whole week, taxing them to the extreme.

Is this fair to their elderly parents? Shouldn’t they be enjoying their retirement? After all, they have done their duty bringing up their children and seen them grow into independent adults with their own families. They should be able to enjoy their grandchildren without having the extra burden of caring for them thrust upon their now weary shoulders.

To grandparents who would opt to live with their married children, think carefully before you commit yourselves to another round of drudgery, losing your freedom of movement eventually.

As long as you are healthy and fit, able to do household chores and baby sit, you will be welcomed but once you fall ill and need care, watch out. You could be farmed out to an old folks’ home and left to your own company.

Such is life in an increasingly materialistic world.

Tweet

Being A Mom

Being a mom is the most challenging role for a woman. She has to nurture the baby for nine months before bringing him into the world. These nine months can be a roller coaster of emotions and experiences, the likes of which she has never come across before. Needless to say, it can be overwhelming.

Then the new VIP in her life takes over her days and nights. She is on a different learning curve that will take her to heights of great pleasure as well the distressful depths of depression and sleep deprivation.

The different stages of motherhood that bring joy in tandem with the growth and development of the child are now shared by the father who previously stood on the sidelines, giving moral support and little physical help.

Nothing can compare with the anxiety a mother feels as she watches her child make mistakes that can scar him in more than one way, yet knowing that she has to let him learn the lesson so that he can grow.

Being over protective is damaging as it will constrict his development and make him naïve to the ways of the world. Nothing is more important to her than the safety and well-being of her child. No sacrifice is too great.

A mother’s world hinges on her children as she guides them and watches them grow. She feels their joys, their pains and shares their successes.

When they grow into adulthood and turn out well, she can feel that she has succeeded as a mom.

The next stage she waits for is that of grandmotherhood, when she will hold her grandchild in her arms and nostalgia overtakes her as she remembers another baby so long ago..

Tweet