How would I describe what I am feeling as I start my blog today? Well, if a "Gulp" doesn't describe it all nothing would..from a set of eyes, watching all that is happening around us today, encapping those that had taken place over the past 2 weeks or so. Gee, I dunno!!!
I have a question to ask? Where is the economy heading for? From all the news and blogs I surfed, I can hardly find a write up to show or describe the livelihood of us, the one lying low, with the current increase of price of petrol and foodstuff knowingly will soon follow suit. Us, I mean, are the ones who have no luxury of hanging out with friends in The Starbuck, or eat dinner at Pizza Hut.
We are the bottoms of all classes of all races in the country. We are the previously known as chinese, indians or malays, yet silently, in the underworld, we had long ago blended. We are the low-lying Malaysian. I am sure, we will make it. We have survived before and we would again, unless.....
But, what about our kids? Do they have questions they want to ask? What are they thinking about? How do they look at all the things that have been flying around quiet recently?
I am watching my kids, with their books, in a dimly lit living room, reading their books, doing the works the teachers asked them to do, not knowing what is lying ahead for them. Will they make it to colleges or U's. Will they find a job after that as their father does not own a business.
These are the kids, we taught them daily, to listen to their teacher attentively, to do the things their teachers asked them to do..follow the books. You will surely be successful kids, that's my promise. Go by the book...I told them.
Yet as I opened my windows and watch it right before my eyes, it's all not books and rules. It's not at all about truth or facts. Its all bends and turns of manipulation and wrong-doing.. Shall I go back and re-train my kids to become twisters and spinners, as these are the ones who'd seem fit and successful in our country.
One of my kids told me he had just got a new friend on the web. He is from Singapore and they sort of got into one another in a net-game. After introducing each other's self, his friend asked him where he is from. He answered the guy, with some sort of embarassment painted on his character in the game, and said Malaysia. And his friend asked why he is embarassed. He answered, I thought people all over the world are laughing at us. His friend asked him why? He answered, politics..And this is how a 13year saw our world, his country, while I could say the time he had on tv in almost nil, newspaper hardly, but on the net perhaps maximum of an hour, allowed by me after he is done with homework, tuition and study programmes.
Well, I don't know about your kids, sir, but check on them. It may surprise you and you would in turn..gulp!!! While I do not intend to give you a lecture on parenting, but the things that they saw around them at this age where they manage to sort of draw their own inferences, would leave a significant mark in them and it will dwell in them for a very long time. We'd only hope, the otherwise will turn up, they would become better persons than we are so that they could bring the country to better heights.
Much has been published and spoke about in the news and blogs. Is there anyone concerned with our kids and how are they dealing with the current hussle and tussle and all sorts of obscenity that either made the news or being delivered to their innocent sacred little pair of ears as we spoke? Will some expert in child psychology please share some light here? I am sure there are many parents who would not even know how to explain if suddenly a 5 year old asked them what politics is..
I mean enough will all the sacrifices we have to make with the recent fuel price hike. Well, the hell with the shades and air-conditioning luxury of car! I am taking my old lady a ride on my kapcai. Afterall we haven't had a chance to do so when we were first courting cause we were both from a freaking poor background. Some sweet talk and joke here and there will make the old lady forget about the heat, smoke and melting make-up!She'll stop complaining, afterall, we are helping save the environment. The ozone will less be erodoed this way, honey, for god's sake! And the global warming stuff too I would have to lecture while muscling my old limbs to handle the bike with her sitting behind.
But I would never sacrifice my kids and their perception over all these. They can be reasoned out as we take our cut cost measures. But what about all the hot stuff making the news. I think many parents are equally worried as I am. But the fact is that almost everyone in our country right now is thinking big and extending their foresights deepest in the horizon ever. As long as the kids go to school, remain healthy and do things they are supposed to do, we tend to think they are ok. I don't think they are.
It seems that our country has recently been attacked by some sort of a 'psychological virus'. Much things have been painted in the freakiest forms in our perception. Some writers even go out and fantasized and what we have is all sort of theories and conspiracies that many of us spoke of irregardless of in the presence of a kid or not. It's okay if the kid thought that we are talking nonsense, but in case he/she picked up what we spoke of, and continue with his/her own reasoning and wonders. I don't know what kind of a grown up person he/she would make.
Our kids are mostly unlike the kids from western countries. There are not very open and outspoken. Yes, they are more outspoken than we were at their age, but not outspoken enough. Most of us parents, like them that way with 'hush' has always been on our mouths. The fact is that there has already been a gap between us and the kids, we simply just have to admit to it.
Now when an existing gap being infested by this psychological virus, it will further severe our relationship with them. As we know our kids are perhaps more stressfull as we compare them to us when we were at their age. The school stuff, tuition, KOKO, etc., wore them off day by day. Did you make it a habit to check on them at every 12am? Look at their faces at that moment, you would know how tiring each day had been for them, so, let's try to quickly bring around a healthier environment for them. Our kids deserve it, they are the future leaders and we want them to grow right.
I am not a great writer. I only have a message to deliver. Everyone has kids. The poor and the rich. The lawyers and the business people. The kings and the ministers. For one moment, just bring all these to a stop, look at our kids straight in their eyes and think:
How is the current state of the country, be it politics or economy is affecting the kids?
How would they in turn paint a picture of each an everyone of us when they grow up?
Are they any prouder to be a Malaysian recently?
Will they become good adults as we teach them with our current practices?
Will they become better leaders?
Will they build the country higher or continue ripping it apart like we are doing?
Remember, we have always told them to go by the book. Just do as your teacher says, you'll do just fine, buddy!...The Book, The Teacher that is....
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