Offspring
One of my cousins is celebrating his first child's first month today, and I'm not there because I'm not exactly feeling too good and it would kinda suck to pass something on to the poor kid.
In case you've no clue what is up with this first month thing, it's a Chinese tradition to sort of tell the whole world they've had a kid and involves eggs dyed red with food colouring and hair snipping and whatnot. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain how the whole thing works, and the ceremony differs from household to household, but the generals remain the same. Though now, people moved away from just red eggs to giving out cakes, which I like, because for some reason, I feel guilty about buying a whole butter cake and scarfing it down.
What? Butter cakes are nice.
The idea of childbirth scares me a little, mainly because we were made to watch this video of it from the gynae's perspective, complete with this sharp scary pair of scissors going in to snip the woman's perineum. Yes. WTFOMGOUCH indeed. We were also told that if the cut wasn't made (I think the term is epistomy), the area might get torn, which may make healing more difficult. To which we exchanged glances and thought, if a pregnant woman managed to get on board and give birth, someone at the ground staff level wasn't doing their job right.
Then again, considering the sheer number of people wandering around, I guess its not such a deal breaker after all.
The idea of having kids scares me a little too. What if they turn out to be a disappointment? Or complete total brats? It's this fear that makes people go around complimenting ugly babies for fear that if they speak their minds, they will get retribution in the form of fucked up offspring. Do you know how to not have ugly babies? Don't fuck ugly people. Don't fuck if you're ugly. Or fuck, but please have mercy and either use protection, or save up for the kid's plastic surgery fund. There you go, problem solved.
Rationally, I know this sort of stupid ass superstition is just that, some lame social construct we come up with to stop people from voicing out not-so-charitable thoughts that may be very well valid. Look, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie can go around telling people their kids are ugly but they're still going to have a ridiculously good looking kid because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And even if they do manage to get the worst mix of their genetics out, I'm sure they can afford to buy the rugrat a new nose.
But as much as I managed to turn out pretty, uh, enlightened despite my parents (I love them, but honestly, sometimes they can be a little cheena. That's the Chinese version of redneck), some of that shit still stuck. So while I'm looking at a kid thinking holy shit, those two should NOT have gotten it on, I have a lingering sense of guilt and fear that because I'm having that thought, I might black out when they present me with my offspring. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but there you go.
I do want kids at some point in time, that point being pretty far off right now. I want there to be people to cry at my funeral. What? And you guys want kids because the government says we need more people. Yeah right. Boil it down, and it's really just that I want to give birth to my own old age care system. It sucks being one of those old people with no family and no kin and no one to miss them if they should just die in their tiny one room flats or in a void deck somewhere, sleeping on cartons. If you have kids, especially if they're not too dumb or selfish, at least there's someone there for you.
It's like the ultimate guilt trip. I will give birth to you, bring you up, be all "unconditional" with my love, and you will wipe my wrinkled ass when I'm old and I can't do it by myself anymore. And everybody will be all judgmental if you don't do it. Woopee.
I mean, if you want love and affection and another living being who needs you, pets are way more low maintenance. But they lack opposing thumbs and don't really live that long, so you're very much on the care taker side of the equation. Only by spawning your own kind can you have the satisfaction of saying, "I am your mother. I can make you, and I can break you." Or rather, "Wah si lim lao bu. Li si leh kiam pah si boh?" That, and they usually go on to work, earn money and take care of you instead.
Of course, there always are those who go against the trend. It's especially true when you have a lot of kids.Three and more equals people pushing the responsibility around, and no one wanting to have the old bag at home. First borns and only children tend to have a greater sense of responsibility, but they also can get resentful when too much pressure is put on them. Especially if there are other children who get away with not doing anything. Why should I have to clean up Mom's pee when my little sister doesn't have to? they ask themselves. That's when the hot potato parent game begins.
The trick is to remain independent. Work out, live healthy, try not to have to be in a position where you have to depend on anybody, but set things up so if you need to there's a safety net to fall on. Plan B. Plan Babies. Doesn't always work out, but at least its there.
As much as possible, I'm trying to be there for my parents. Even though there are times I feel like running head first into a wall.
Like yesterday. I've been working for two weeks now, and one of the perks of being with this company is free newspapers and magazines, since, well, we print them. But like anything starting out, it's nice to hope for a smooth beginning, but it's safer to expect some false starts.
Our newspaper arrived for a total of two days. Then stopped for about five. I didn't really care because I don't have time to read the papers anyway. We never got papers before and I read them once in a blue moon, when the planets are aligned and there's nothing much else to do, so not getting it was not a big deal. My parents didn't exactly read them either. In fact, Dad's a lot more into the Chinese rags.
So I had probably one of the weirdest conversations with my mom yesterday that I've ever had with her. I'd picked up one of the two copies of the papers on the table, thinking the delivery must have arrived and someone went to buy one by mistake. Mom tells me that both she and Dad brought them home, and the delivery was not made.
She then went on to complain about some hypothetical newspaper thief who must be taking our papers sometime between when they arrived and before I left the house at 7.45am. And that I should just call my HR person and tell them to cancel the delivery if it was just going to someone else. She said she'd called the newspaper delivery number on Thursday, the day before, and told them I, new and hardworking member of the company, am entitled to and should get my daily paper on my doorstep, and they said they'd get it to me on Friday. But there were no papers on Friday. The outrage!
And I'm there, on page two of the main section, wondering where the heck did all that angst about not getting the papers come from. Firstly, its free, so it's not costing us anything anyway. Secondly, when the hell did they suddenly get so hard up about reading the news? Such PASSION in ensuring they get their daily dose of what's going on in the world. Thirdly, how the hell did she know what number to call?
In any case, the papers came again this morning. So I guess that'll be the end of that. Unless the delivery guys screw it up again.
I think one problem a lot of parents have resolving in their head is that after the first ten years or so, your kid is no longer an amalgamation of your spunk and her egg. They still go around thinking they're the Almighty Parents, Creators of Life, when the truth is, that kid is a separate being, with an independent thought process, which may come up with ideas such as the people who gave birth to it are pretty flawed. There's no special power you have over your kid that you can go, "Do this, or else..." and expect them to cower like you just held up a lump of Krytonite in a menacing manner. Or else what? You gonna vacuum your kid back into your hoochie and break him down in a bunch of cells?
If you're not a likeable person, better pray you have dumb kids, or make sure you ingrain a nice big dose of guilt, because if you have any common sense, you're not going to stick around if your dad's an asshole who gambles, drinks and beats people and your mom puts you down so hard, you wish your dad used protection. Same for your kids. Just because they were born in a different decade does not mean they'll think that differently.
How many people do you know like visiting their folks, or live near to them? Those who have a choice in the matter, that is? Housing is expensive enough in Singapore that we still stay with our folks till we're in our thirties or forties, not moving out until we get married.
It's quite a big problem, really. People don't talk about it, and there's no study for it, I don't think, but I believe the fact that people are still staying with their folks well into their thirties is infantilizing them. Like seriously, your twenties are meant for wild parties and exercising your libidos. That doesn't work out so well when you have to sneak home in the dead of the night praying no one's still up and having to have sex really quietly, shoving your partner out the door once the fluids have been tissued off.
And when that part of your life gets delayed, you find people in their late thirties still trying to act all young and hip at clubs. I'm not saying just because you're on the other side of 35 that you have to stay home and read with your bifocals on, but by that age, you should be the cool, matured, older person who chills in a corner, watching the desperate twenty-somethings rush around looking for something to hump with an amused look on your face. There's really nothing sadder than some nervous 40-year-old man with no game coming on to a hot young thing with his bald spot and his brand new Toyota Corolla, trying to get her into bed after tiptoeing past his mom's room in the little flat they share. At least have the decency to spring for a room at a hotel. It doesn't even have to be a good hotel. At least there's no worry of being caught by an old woman in her pasar malam nightgown.
That's probably why our society is repressed. A lot of folks here get uncomfortable talking about sex. I'm talking about those bland people who make up a very large part of our society. Those who have problems enunciating properly and adopt this weirdass accent when speaking to someone clearly from the States or other far flung ang moh countries. The women turn to sluts, thinking they can fuck their way out of this depressing life, the men turn to porn and misogyny, because if you can get them, hate them.
A lot of Singaporean men have this Madonna/whore way of viewing women; their girlfriends or wives have to be so pure, they don't even know where their vagina is, but the women they covet are those who really put their sexuality out there, in your face, making their two big points. And there's so much resentment/desire/envy all wrapped up in one scary serial killer combo A meal, it's a good thing we cane the crap out of rapists here, because prison just isn't a good enough deterrent.
Seriously, look at the forums and you'll be shocked at the sort of mentality some of these men have. This girl cried molest while overseas because this guy friend she was staying with in the same room in the same bed touched her inappropriately. Was it a smart thing to have a guy you have no intentions of sleeping with in the same bed with you? No. But naivety and stupidity does not mean she deserves being molested. That girl got shortchanged by the common sense fairy, but the way some guys attacked her on those forums when that news broke was just flat out cruel. They go beyond questioning her intelligence to saying stuff like how she should have been raped so at least she'll have something to complain about and how she's a whore who probably just got upset because she offered herself legs wide open and the guy didn't want to touch her and so on.
It's disgusting, how they play out their little fantasies based on the misfortunes of others, and feel the need to share them with the world. Especially when most of them are probably these grown ass men with adolescent little minds, buying teddy bears wielding big plush hearts for their insipid girl friends with their long hair and their makeup-less faces and their gold anklets and their stupid sissy names like Ting Ting or Ying Ying or some shit like that. Good god, woman, if your name sounds like someone just dropped cutlery, get another name. And WHAT is with the gold anklets? I know they put it on when we're kids for some random reason I have no clue about, but did you have to keep it on? And you can't claim ignorance, because there's no way that's the same one they strapped on you when you were a kid. It's ugly, it's cheena, so please, take it off even if it means sawing your own foot off.
And that's why I think I'll start off with maybe a dog before I really have kids.
