Listen To Your Old Folks

Lately a reader of mine just welcomed his new born. This was a joyful occasion and we were all happy for him. As every parent, I believe the new parent also suffer some sleepless nights. There is always mixed emotion in parenting, excitement, anxiety, frustration....you name it. This brings back my memory when I was a new parent and I have few words to share with my friends out there on how to make your life better. It is simple, listen and follow what your parent did to you when you were baby.

When I first had my baby, I chose to go the opposite of what my mum told me to, thinking that her ways were out dated and no scientific prove to support that. For example, she urged me to put the baby into sarung for nap and bounce the baby but I said no because it would make the baby be accustomed to the motion and not able to sleep by himself. I also fight for a long time not to give pacifier but at the end, after listening to the PD, I let the baby use pacifier to help him to sleep better. I also against my mum's view of giving the baby a special pillow so that he could associate that with sleeping. Because of these fights against the old method of bring up a child, I found that I brought to myself more trouble and more work. Not only my son didn't get enough sleep, I also lost my sleep trying to claim him and sooth him to sleep.

So I learned from my experience of the first one. When the second one comes, the pacifier, sarung and pillow all come together. Not that my baby sleeps well and grow well, she is also a happy and contended baby. Is that really that good? no side effect? will she able to kick all those habit, I am not sure but it is already a blessing seeing her growing up well. 

So parents out there, sometimes those old methods may have some truth in it. Do not think that you studied more than your mum and ignore them. There is a saying, mum eat salt more than we eat rice. When comes to childcare, experience that counts.

Missing The News

I was in HK last week attending meetings. Before I left, I remember a kiasu tips which was to pre order the food on line with Singapore Airline. Just as what I expected, my food came first before others and it taste good. I think I will do the same next time.

HK was still the same, I was busy and couldn't meet up with some of my friends. I did meet up with one friend of mine who recently got connected again in Facebook. I was glad to see that she was doing well, probably getting married soon and live happily ever after. In our conversation, I learned about the Edison Chen scandal. I am not sure what happened in my life when the scandal happened, I missed the news entirely. Until now, I still couldn't see how I could miss such a big news of HK. D said it was because I did not red newspaper everyday. He did not know he is my newspaper. 

There is a price to pay to be famous. You have no privacy and you are constantly being judged of what you do and what you say. I am wondering if it worth it.

Next Generation

Today I finally spent time to open the ang pau my children. To my my surprise, both of them collected worth S$740 of ang pau. I am thinking, friends and relatives were generous but it could also due to inflation. 

I remember when I was young, I used to received ang pau in coins, 50 cents or 20 cents, I would happily put it into my piggy bank. My dad used to give us a piggy bank each to teach us how to save money. I am doing the same for my son but I wonder how he view money in future. The life of next generation is going to be so different than us. They are exposed to all the high end stuff and have little concept of saving penny. 

Parent in my generation are also very fortunately. Most of us are living a middle to high class life where we are not short of anything in life. Often, because the number of kids are less in the family, parent would not hesitate to buy the high end stuff for their kids. They think that they could afford, why not. I am not sure what kind of side effect would be bring to our next generation? Will they be able to live a simple life and still happy about it?