Update to "Can THOUGHT alone kill?"

I was mistaken when I thought the boy lived with his Mom. Lucky for me! I wouldn't want to be that prophetic. I'd be hunted down as a bomoh. There hasn't been much update on that report in The Star but a reliable Chinese-paper-reading little bird told me the boy was being taken care after by his grandmother.

Well, I betcha there are more insensitive/disgruntled Chinese grandma-s than there are Maria Montessori grandmas in Malaysia. In fact, for me, 'The Grandmother Card' was really, a motivating force for me to quit my Content Editor job in KL and turn-away from an interview even though I had received an email that I had been shortlisted by a publication - as a food reviewer! (You have no idea how much I make up for my unexpressed creativity by indulging in Penang's cheap, fantastic, 24/7 hawker food.)

I didn't trust the woman who raised me to raise my daughter - I knew I was dysfunctional and damaged on many levels and I knew my upbringing style had quite a lot to do with it. The responsible thing to do as an Adult, is to stop running away from your past and to deal with the "Serpent" head on and re-live your childhood, as painful as it is.

I know I'm not the only Chinese woman who has been tempted to seek greener pastures and leave the young child in the care of the woman we've been trying to avoid ever since we achieved some form of financial independence. Leaving a child with the in-laws is already tempting if you're a DIWK (double-income-with-kids!), what more if you're a SIWK.

I have my skeletons in the closet; and one big one is how I have been trying to run away from the conditions I grew up in; my childhood and adolescence. The last thing I wanted was to live under the same roof of the very same person who made me grow up feeling that Life is not worth living. But somehow, in my early 20s, I had an epiphany that the only way I was truly going to grow up is to face things all over again, to understand things, and to grow bigger than the sum of what I had termed, "my past".

Many big fights later, I've gained some ground in my stand against, what my daughter nicknamed, "The Wicked Witch". Being a strong reader and loving Roald Dahl, she didn't need any help from me demonising the 'other woman'. In a recent fight, I gained a lot of ground when I said, "If I wanted to leave I could've! But I didn't want to give you the benefit of calling me 'ungrateful! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to live with someone like you!"

To which she replied, "Then leave me alone! I can survive on my own!"

I had gotten her exactly where I had wanted her to be since my '5-year-sociology-plan' was set into motion : "Human life is about Living, not surviving. Plants survive, alleycats survive, stray dogs survive, tigers survive....Humans Live. I've made a promise to myself that I'm not going to let being uncomfortable with my past and you, drive me further and further away in pain and conflict. I've made a promise that I'm going to leave when you truly don't need me anymore, and when I truly don't feel like packing up and leave! There is meaning in SUFFERING! And we must understand why we suffer like this."

I bring my own 'humiliation' up because I know this is a silent story every woman or single/divorced parent grumbles to their best friends but hides from the world. And I think this is a significant factor (trying to grow up away from mom-and-dad) in parenting and the nurturing of our children. If we're in any way dissatisfied with our own upbringing, we should seriously consider the consequences of allowing our less-knowledgeable parent/s to raise them for us. There is no such thing as 'no choice'. There is always a choice. And the harder the choice is, the bigger the rewards that come later on.

Trust me. Been there, done that.