On child-rearing and generation gap...

Every generation has its own attitude and ways of dealing with things: money, relationship, child-rearing... Ah, child-rearing! I read a coop piece in Sydney Morning Herald today about generation gap and child-rearing, and find some of the remarks quite revealing.

While I'll let you read the article at your leisure, here's what's happening in my family:

My parents' generation...

(1) My mom is a wise and very tough woman. You could say she's too tough. In those early days, my dad had to work 18-hour day, 24x7, to feed a family of 7 (more like 8-9, when you consider his full support of my paternal grandmother who never worked in her life, and my paternal aunt who's good at using someone else's money). My dad is a very loving, caring man. Me and my siblings didn't get to see him often (since he's out before we woke, and back well past our bedtime), but he tried to make it out to have some occasional outings with it. Those outings were memorable, happy and fun.

(2) Since dad wasn't around most of the time, mom dealt with everything: 5 kids running around, schooling, finance, you-name-it. Now that I have kids of my own, I know how tough it was for her, particularly since she's a full time mom, and there was never any "after-school activities". Most of the time, I would recall her either grocery shopping in wet market, or washing (laundry - lots of it, and dishes), or cooking (4 meals a day, including the supper for dad when he came back at night). AND she walked to school and delivered lunch to us EVERYDAY. She's quite amazing. So, if you ever think you can handle it, think of what you have to do, and multiply that by 10-fold. That's about the workload of grandma.

(3) Circumstances dictate, mom has to be tough. Very tough, to be honest. Of course she would beat us with rattan stick if we fussed. Although I don't like beating kids, I can understand the kind of pressure she's under, so that she demanded absolute obedience, military style. Not that we're very good at it. My elder brother and sisters were better at it, but me the younger one had more fights with mom than I care to remember.

(4) By and by, we grew up with discipline and code of ethics. Thinking back, I do believe that, even though I did not agree with my mom on issues, the things that she and dad taught me were those things that were unsaid. It's their attitude to life, not never give up, to try your best, to be resourceful (it's easier said than done, mind you). My childhood has been a happy one.

My husband's parents...

(4) Every family has their own issues. My husband, P, hasn't had a happy one. At least that's the impression he presented to me. Sometimes I wonder if his unpleasant memories of his childhood are all that he chooses to remember. In any case, he's had so many problems, even becoming suicidal at one point, that I'm at times surprised that he hadn't already killed himself (or someone, given the Columbine-style atmosphere in school these days of the marginalized). He has also had bouts of depression. It's almost miraculous that he's an upright, healthy being that he is now.

(5) There are memories that P would not let go though. He could still recount vividly how his mom would kill him out of the car and make him walk 8-9 miles back home in heavy downpour, all because he's not hitting the right note in the private after-school piano lessons. (She's a music major herself.) He would recall pretty much "stop eating" about 7-8 years old when he's getting unhappy. He could recall rather pooping in his pants due to overeating in dinner of some delicious dish, than to tell his parents that he had stomach ache. He also recalls those bullying in school, when he would eventually retreat to the library, eventually becoming an avid reader (or bookworm, whatever you call it).

(6) He moves to a most liberal school in order to get away from his parents. Prestigious as the school might be in Chicago, it had not been what his parents had wanted. He rebelled, and moved out. His parents, being the traditional Asian first generation, would pay whatever tuition there is for higher education. At college, he forced himself out of his comfort zone, and joined a fraternity. (That's how he made himself learnt the social skills that he sorely lacks in high school days.) Interestingly, when it came time to choose graduate school, while he had wanted either UCSF or Wisconsin, he relented and went to MIT (the best name any Chinese parents would want their children to go to). However grudingly he did it (in going to MIT), deep down he still wants to make his parents proud, even though he rarely talks to them.

(7) His family is so dysfunctional that I don't even want to get closeup look at. He hardly talks to his brother. His mother disowned him (that's another story on its own). His mother and father effectively separated, while still living under one roof. (It's one of those traditional arrangement, I suppose: no divorce, but separation is fine.)

(8) While I understand it takes two to tango, but for his parents to create such hostile atmosphere at home, it's no wonder both P and his brother moved out the first moment they sensed their freedom.

(9) One time, P told me back then, his dad threw a boy from his dad's village into a pond, almost drowning the kid, "just to teach him a lesson." His dad's "teaching tool" is to hit him. He's all big on math and science. He had pursued a science PhD but failed (and got a masters instead). So, he weaved his own unfinished dream to his two sons, force-feeding them to excel in math. P would get beaten for getting math problem sets incorrect. His way of learning is, if you get it wrong, you get hit; then repeat that over and over again. It's no wonder he stopped eating at 7-8, given the kind of stress a kid faces. His mom, according to P, has not been very emotional stable, marrying early in order to get away from her own unhappy family (her mother being the 3rd concubine). She's such stubborn person that she refused to attend her father's funeral.

Now my family...

(10) Such as it is, the upbringing of P, and what level of child-rearing skills of his parents. You can imagine how I "value" (or if I'm being cynical - how I won't value) their input, when it comes to child-rearing of my own kids.

(11) I would say it here, that I'm disappointed at P, in a sense that, way back then, when we're contemplating marriage, he acknowledged the shortcomings of his own upbringing (or proper, normal childhood that one would have hoped), that he said to me, he would defer to me when dealing with our own kids in the future.

(12) But that didn't happen. I now know that, when stress comes, when one's subconscious kicks in, one practices what one knows best. For P, all he knows is, if you get the wrong answer to questions, you get hit. And he's repeating the same kind of high-stress treatment to our kids. The kids still love him as father, but they don't want him in the house, particularly not when they're learning or doing work. Put simply, they don't wanna get whacked.

(13) I would admit that it's highly effective, to have the kids to be "fearful" to one of the parents. It's effective for the good-cop-bad-cop routine. Herein lies my divergence with P, who dislikes being the bad copy, and reckons that I have put him in the position to BE the bad copy, simply because I'm "ineffective" or soft on the kids, when it comes to discipline. So, his argument goes, he has to do it, ie. he has to hit them when they don't listen or misbehave, because I "force his hand to do it."

(14) I strongly disagree with him on that, to a point when I don't think either of us are listening anyways. So, we pretty much stop talking these days. Cold war, all the time, so to speak.

(15) One time, after my brother had a long talk with P, my brother told me we probably had a problem that runs deeply than child-rearing. Maybe so. We had even had marriage counseling, but I stopped going after some 4-5 sessions. That's because all P bambled about was his childhood. So, one time during a session, I stood up and told the therapist and P that there's no point trying to disguise this as a marriage counseling when P couldn't even get pass his childhood. I don't want to relive as his mother figure in his childhood. It's just plain ridiculous. So I walked out. Now and then, I would ask him, what age they're dealing with now (in the therapy session). The last I heard, it was 10. But he stopped going to therapy. I can't really force him to. I don't even know if it's helping him.

(16) P's dad came to visit on occasions, mostly to see the kids. One time, P hit the kid when they're not doing the homework right. Now his dad told him, he should be kind, he should be gentle to the kid, blah blah blah. I got so upset. I thought, THAT was the kind of things P learnt from him, and now this hypocrit marched into our home, and told us you should do this, you shouldn't that?!?! I almost wanted to kick him out right there and then.

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One of these days, when my kids read my journal here, they would understand all those that were unspoken. Perhaps they could come to appreciate not to repeat what their father has done, although he's powerless to stop what he had gone through in his own childhood.

My childhood has been a happy and memorable one. I hope my kids would share theirs with me in the same light. As to P, I'm still undecided where he would fit into the picture. No, I don't subscribe to divorce, if I can help it. But I know I would not hesitate it, if P goes too far with the kids. And I had walked out, and had him kicked out once. Perhaps that had sough bad seeds between us.

As the ancient Chinese saying goes, Every family has a book that is difficult to read...