Thanks dadelina. Can’t wait to get the letter.


Also i3mu, if you are thinking to get the books from Popular, do you know when we will know the book list or how do we go to the school bookshop website to order?

thanks!

Hi


My son is also in HPPS next year, I have a question on Name tag, so people print the full name including surname or just the Hanyu pin yin name, my son has his english name, but we prefer for him to use his Chinese/ Hanyu pinyin name..

I have not received letter for the class allocation yet though?

rainbows:

i find this unbelieveable! cos if he doesn't bond with the kids then the relationship with the daddy will be fragile. but i'm wrong. both my kids are very attached and listen to every word the daddy said. whilst me, they 'sort of' ignore me.

i'm speechless. maybe being a 'single mum' at night sometimes is no good enough for my kids. maybe i should disappear also at night for work then the kids will be attached to me?

Rainbows, I can completely empathise with you, so chin up
When my husband was away, and I was the only person around, the boys were close to me, but still the dad remains no. 1. When they re-united with their dad, the boys will blatantly show or tell me that they like papa best. Initally I find it upsetting, but over time, I feel that, just as we do not love our kids all the same, but to each in an unique way, the way the kids love mum and dad are also unique (or so I comfort myself lah!) They may just be more expressive of joy over dad as dad symbolises fun time mostly, while mum interactions are spread out across a variety of stuff - which include more nagging or scoldings sometimes.

Absence mays the heart fonder, and it is easy to be obscure to those who are always around.. It is not necessarily right, but emotionally I can understand how it can happen.

I always remind myself to be joyful that kids are close and attached to the father, as the fatherly influence in their lives is considerable and significant (based on the various parenting books I read). May not be necessarily fair.. in terms of inputs versus output, but so long as the output is the desired one (kids are close to parents), then be happy I guess..

Hi


Can I ask if the thermal pot can be used to cook porridge, say in the morning, for lunch, and then left in there for night as well? Will the porridge turn too watery?

For those who have experience cooking the soup, does the \"essence\" of the soup comes through, if cook on the stove for a while and then transfered to the thermal,the soup is kept warm or does it really continue cooking on its own?

Sorry if my question sounds idiotic. It is my first exprience with this, and I find it amazing and wonderful, if easy to use, will definitely check it out

thanks in advance

mathsparks:

You guys are probably missing my point. I was trying to convey the extreme stress we (society, parents and themselves) place on our kids. That's why I refuse to have a 3rd child. Not when most of them don't have much of a childhood to remember. I wasn't talking about the monetary sacrifice!


Ask around if you've kids/friends' kids who are all grown up what they remember about their childhood. It's endless rounds of tuition/music/ballet/projects/exams/competitions. Of course, the luckier/richer ones would remember the holidays they have at the end of each year.

Momoshop, you are entitled to your opinions but have you seen a child thru sec?

Mathsparks.. I do feel for you, in the tedium of raising teenager kids. We dun need to have put kids thru them to know what it is like. I was a hellish tennager who ran away from home, stole, and was so emo that I almost killed myself, even though I was considered smart, in the good schools and my parents worked real hard to see me through a gd education - so yeah, you could say I belong to one of those kids who ought to be grateful but I was willing to throw all that away. I saw my sis thru her sec school years and I also saw many of much younger cousins smoke and \"beng\" their way thru school and some eventually ended up in jail for some illegal acts. We read news papers everyday on sexuality issues with teens, cyberuse and its abuse, and all the problems associated with teenage angst.

It is stressful, and it is costly, not just in terms of fiances, but in time, in emotions. However, ultimately, there is so much that we can do. We are all humans, we do the best we can and leave the rest in fate/ God's hands, whichever you believe in. Having 1 kid carries that risk of a problem teen and having 2 or 3 carries the same risk. However, IMHO, having more than one gives us more hope, and also that the kids will rally and come through together. I know my sis was a source of comfort for my mum when I was a bad kid.. and years later, when my sis had her own bad patch and was really problematic, I was there to help her and my mum .

I think part of the stress comes from our expectations of the kids too.. It is easy to fall into the trap of cute tods = successful cheerful responsible adults later, or we wish for that so badly. Or we hope that kids will mature into adults without having to go thru the extreme dark side of life.

But in the very end, we know their life is their own when we pass on. If they have to come around after much hardship in life, that is it. We cannot always wish and hope to prevent it for them, no mater how hard we wish and try. And When they come of age, it is their life. Even as parents, we can't control that anymore.

It may seem very tough during the times when the kids are having problems and issues etc, but try to see it as a process, a part of life that some just have to go thru..

And I say this because, I feel that I will not be who I am if I have not been what I was.

take care Mathsparks

tony:

Momoshop, just read your post. You have a blog? Should be an interesting read!

I was referring to the latest entry of 孩子，請你搬走吧！in our forum

mathsparks:

I'm glad I stopped at 2. Our kiasu education system (less than 20% makes it to local Unis..pls correct me if I'm wrong) is VERY stressful on kids and their parents.


If you can afford it or are prepared to sacrifice yr retirement funds, send yr child overseas and he doesn't have to struggle to get into local U..This is the plan of my sis who has only 1 child.

If you can't, then hard and hope that yr child is intelligent, independent and hardworking enough to get a place in the local U; else with the way home prices are heading, the poor fella can't even afford a decent roof over his head. Plus, with the welcoming and huge influx of foreign talent (I've no issue with the need of foreigners), our poor child would just have to be contented having a job (regardless PMETs or not). This is the worry of most of my peers.

So, I'm glad I don't put another child and myself through this immense pressure to succeed. Yes, they're cute and fun when they're young, but once they start upper primary....

While I do emphathise and agree that it is indeed stressful to bring up a child, and it is so in any society (not just in SG - ask the Americans and the Japanese, each society has their own norms of success and a pressure cooker in their own way, and which parent do not want their child to succeed?!) but I feel that it is precisely this kind of mentality that brings about pampered kids who may not be tough enough to survive, as Skunk mentioned.

Many of my friends told me that they will only want to have 1 child, even though they are financially stable and of middle income with private housing and cars etc, so they can save and afford the best for the kid. They feel that it is better to groom a successful one than to struggle and not be perfect with many children. That seems rather flawed in my opinion.

My stand is simple, nothing,NOTHING in this world beats kinship. No matter how much wealth you provide and leave for your child, siblings are the ones that stand by each other no matter wat, and siblings teach the kids values. So many parents in SG scramble to send kids to childcare to socialise etc etc, what about socialising at home with their siblings? That is the best place to start!

One day, we are going to leave our children. It is for sure. Do you want to leave them with all the materials things that will seemingly assure them of comfort, or will you leave them with a family of siblings, with the same blood that flows through their bodies?

We do not know the future, we do not even know the world in which our children can grow up in 20 years from now. So how can we know how much materials things we can provide for them? And material things do get de-valued and wasted away, by the way.

But we do know that feelings, kinship and the ties that bind have always survived through times. These are the only things that last through the years. You can fight and hate your sibling, but you will never deny that you spent 10 over years at least together with shared memories of love and hate together. If the parents teach the kids well and ensure an environment of allowing them to form strong bonds, then to me, that is more valuable than anything else we can leave them in tangible terms.

Yes, it is a fact from young then, that in a family with more than 1 kid that THERE IS LIMITED RESOURCES, so make the best of it! Even if I have limited resources, I always wanted to tell my sons, \"Mummy may not have a lot of money, but mummy has given you the best thing in life that money cannot buy. Love and kinship with your sibling, who will be there for you in the latter half of your life, when mummy and Papa are not around.\"

I do hope parents wake up to the idea thay providing the best environment for the kids, the best schools, the best everything is the best for the kids. I just feel that sometimes we are too selfish and too afraid of hardship ourselves, that we breed this kind of mentality in our young too. Even if parents do not have a lot of resources, the kid can be successful in their own way.

Ultimately I leave everyone with this question: What, what, really makes us think that in 20 years time - university degree will guraantee success? So why are parents so frantically investing in education fund etc etc for university education? Our world is changing at such a dramatic rate today, I will rather invest in skills and values that will allow them to cope, not just the tangibles of education/ materials possessions.

And one of the tenets of those skills is the ability to face up to challenges and not be sugar coated. Parents who plan too much for their kids, are not doing their kids a favor. Our latest blog entry points to that so well already.

karmeleon:

momoshop:

However, a plus point is the Chinese are generally very tolerant of kids and will go out of their way to make the kid feel welcome, of course, subjected to the limits/ parameters they are in,:)

They are, huh? The only reaction I got in Beijing was \"are the kids ALL yours????!!!\" (in Mandarin). :roll:

Yeah, we get that a lot, as my tods are 1 year apart, I keep getting questions of \"Oh, are they twins?\" or they will insist my no. 2 is a gal (when he is SO Obviously a boy with his Thomas shirt, Thomas shoes, army cap... sigh, we gave up explaining already).

We also have to \"endure\" quite a bit of the \"Can i take a picture of your kids/ with your kids\" and itis a struggle when my no.1 refuses. So I thought they must genuinely like kids.. I never fail to get a seat on the train when they seeme with the boys.. That is more than I can say when we were back in SG

skunk:

i grew up in a family of 4 boys hehe

Wah!! Can I interview your mum? How does she feel man!

tony:

I grew up in a family of all girls, so I never understood the male psyche. Now, we're stuck with all boys, which brings me to a better understanding. But I'm reluctant to change that mix leh. The thought of another baby now with all the bending down for diaper change, for handholding while the little one learns to walk etc is enough to make my brain shut down!

I grew up in a family of all gals too. I recall when I knew that my no. 1 is a boy, I went to buy Steve Biddulph's book on Raising a Boy just to prep myself. And well, you are right, my tods were 2 and 3 when I was expecting no 3, and even then I kept telling hubby that we could have a much easier life already, and yet we are going into all that baby routine again... which I am currently now in - all the puree, all the prepping of meals to bring along for baby if we go out.. *faint* sometimes. Butthe joy of cuddling a baby, with that unfant smell, and seeing how baby crawls, sit up and play is a welcome relief from rationalising with the tods. I do enjoy the baby more the 3rd time round, after all the tods are grow. But no. 4 will be a totally different matter I think..

buds, if I ever decide for no. 4, must be SURE gal. As it is, all the men in the household drive me crazy sometimes..

Thanks Schellen! That we have a partial episode to quench thirst!!


buds, I am now running a fever of 39 degrees.. some kind of withdrawal symptom hor?!! I have been lying in bed thw whole day nursing the fever, and am glad to have stories to kill time..