Giving

How do you raise children? The Chinese has a saying, birth is natural, raising them is natural. Something like that. Hard to paraphrase without losing all the nuances. Wish it were that simple. In the old days maybe. When children were meant to be seen but not heard. The way my parents raised us - at least for the brief period we were together as a family. Mother and Father were not around much for us - it's a wonder we didn't end up psychological wrecks or wayward persons with no ballast. Most of what I remember of childhood was a constant reminder of being on the fringe of want, never having much of anything and sharing a single bed with my sibling, a succession of relatives and even a neighbour rotating in and out of our lives to make up for the absences of our parents, and lots of punishments from the mother rightly or wrongly. Hard to be the eldest, especially if you are not a son. A son is treasure, the eldest daughter expected to help with the burdens. Still can't say I have not been fortunate. I had education, and I had books where I could journey into different realms and discover other dimensions, much more than my mother ever had or could do. So each generation surpasses the previous, like the relentless waves of the ocean.

But I struggle with parenting. The old saying assumes parenting comes with giving them life. It's not so simple. In the old days, all you do is feed them, clothe them, and maybe impart some traditions and values - I remember mother sitting us down in a row at mealtimes when we were young, feeding us in turn from the same bowl. If I am allowed to be crude, like an assembly line or feeding farm animals. Barely literate, how could they be expected to help with homework, worry about getting good grades and not having missing assignments? Barely able to sustain the family, how could they provide the extras that hopefully will provide a more rounded, more complete exposure to the many facets of life, like music lessons, overseas education, golf lessons, hoilday trips to broaden minds and outlooks? There is no expectation of any returns on investment - you expense in the hope they have richer more interesting more fulfilling lives than yours and there is scant expectation that anything comes back. Meantime, the words of war and the stress age you, cause the body to increasingly fail because of the toil the acts of giving life itself and the stress take on the physical, mental and emotional.

In quieter moments, I thought there is a meaning and a purpose to all these, that someday when their turn comes, they will realise that their parents did all with the best intents, all because of a four letter word. In reality, it is just to numb the mind and heart and measure the days when the burden will pass and the Man and I can live as we will. But that day may come too late for us to really fully live it.