Spending time with your parents or in-laws

[winth]

游子吟 （孟郊）


慈母手中线，
游子身上衣。
临行密密缝，
意恐迟迟归。
谁言寸草心，
报得三春晖？

[Eagle-Ladybird]

. . . very touching sharings here (except the mandarin ones, cos I can't read them :stupid: )

[aprilsummer]

Hi Winth,


nice story. Do totally agreed with you that we should not compare. Guess you do not understand the context of my frustration. Its simple-minded to think that doing all housechores constitutes to favouritism. In a lot of asian countries, most of the housechores, if not all, are done by women. I have done all that and that won’t make me feel frustrated.

Wrt your nice story, my parents could totally afford my education at NTU. They, however believed that to educate a girl till that level is a waste of money. We had frequent quarrels during my A levels, my family believed I should start working and don’t "waste rice". The final blow was the fight with their eldest son, police were called. Many things happened, I moved out and supported myself. I paid for my degree course and took a big loan.

As for my "less able" brothers, they live in at least 5-rm or EC. They drive and take their families for overseas holidays. Their children have tutions. What make them less able to pay for my mom’s holiday?? Yes, I should be proud that I could afford to drive a Lexus when they are driving Honda and Toyota. However, does that mean I am so much better off that makes my brothers "less able"? It is naive to think that just becase one could afford, one should be happy to foot all the bill.

I have moved on and forgiven my parents. But, humans do not forget, unless they have dementia. I give them mthly allowance, take them for holidays, listen to their complaints. However, showing favouritism is my trigger point. It got me irritated.

I guess I just need a few weeks to cool off, before I call my mom again, and pay for that holiday.

Finally, don’t preach before you seek to understand the context. It is unwise and silly, it does not reflect well on one’s intellectual capacity.

[kiasimom]

I will visit my parents every weekend without fail, rain or shine.

That’s why my parents are very close to my two children. Family bonding is important to us.

[nkthen]

My mother and my mother-in-law are living very near us. Just 1-2 MRT rides away, literally.


We made it that way purposely so that it’s not too far for us to see them, and it’s not too far for them to come and visit us.

[cfan]

Hi


The arrangement now is that we are staying with his parents. I get along with MIL, no complaints from either her or me.

I bring the kids to my parents place every Saturday. I let them spend some time there. Sometimes, when my parents are able to make it, we meet for Sunday lunch or breakfast while one of the kids are at classes.

Of course, the meeting with my parents, DH is always conveniently "absent". Ha ha… never mind, it’s the kids my parents want to see and not him anyway…

[mrswongtuition]

cfan:

Of course, the meeting with my parents, DH is always conveniently \"absent\". Ha ha... never mind, it's the kids my parents want to see and not him anyway....

My parents like to see my hb. In fact, they see him more often than they see me!

[Andaiz]

mrswongtuition:

cfan:

Of course, the meeting with my parents, DH is always conveniently \"absent\". Ha ha... never mind, it's the kids my parents want to see and not him anyway....

My parents like to see my hb. In fact, they see him more often than they see me!

Ditto me too! My parents come over to help jaga my kids while we work. Often, DH arrives home earlier than I do so he spends time chatting and catching up with parents.

Just last weekend, as we are near their home, DH suggested buying them dinner so we all had fun! He's so keen to make this a regular feature.

With his parents, he is less forthcoming although he sees the need to \"play fair \"...guess what my mum said was right - when we got engaged, she asked him to start calling her mummy coz \"she's gained a son!\"

[janet88]

kiasimom:

I will visit my parents every weekend without fail, rain or shine.

That's why my parents are very close to my two children. Family bonding is important to us.

Hi kiasimom,
We go to my parents' place for dinner everyday. Hubby loves mum's cooking.

My son is especially close to parents as we stayed together until he turned 3 before we stayed at own place.

With his own parents, he doesn't enjoy the fun as they are not the type who jokes. He enjoys home-cooked meals but his mother doesn't like to cook. If she does, hubby cannot take the salty and oily food.

[tamarind]

Some of you may have watched this video on TV. The daughter-in-law threw the whole plate of chicken into the rubbish bin because the old lady said that the meat was tough :


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybxNkpS5q-g

There is a part of the video that brought tears in my eyes, when the mother carried her son to the hospital in the pouring rain. I remember that when I was young, I had an eye operation. My mother had to carry me on her back and walk home in the pouring rain. She slipped and fell on her knees and had to struggle to stand up and walk again, without letting me off.

Now I am very fortunate that she still cooks for me and I love her cooking. My hubby thought her cooking was not great but if he dares to complain, he gets scolding from me I cannot cook for my mother due to my very poor cooking skills, but I make it up by bringing her to eat in most of the best restaurants in Singapore and even famous restaurants in China.

Once I took a taxi with my boy to Mount Alvernia hospital at 3am in the morning, because he vomitted non-stop and had severe stomachache. I also struggled to carry him because he was nearly 20kg, and I was dead tired due to lack of sleep. I wonder if my boy will remember any of this when he grows up ? I don't have high hopes though.