Papoose

I wanted to relate a lighter parenting moment that I witnessed after last week's moaning about maids.

Talking of maids and my firm stance on the subject, I just saw an amazing film called "Ilo Ilo".  It won the Camera D'or at Cannes and was a beautiful tale about an ordinary Singaporean family and their newly hired Filipino maid at the time of the Asian economic crisis.  I came away from it feeling totally confused about my feelings to the hiring of maids in Singapore.  It did seem like everyone loses in the end but part of me felt we should hire someone because we will be so nice to them and make them comfortable so they can earn money to send home to their children.  As I read that back all I think of myself is "yes, you really are a stupid simplistic expat prat".

Moving on. 

On arriving at Singapore Zoo when it was in full family filled flow we saw a young family with a three year old and a 1 year old.  The 1 year old was in the buggy and the three year old was forward facing in a Baby Bjorn sling being carried by its mother.

Needless to say this clearly very fit broad shouldered young Mum was buckling under the weight of this enormous child as its head sat just under her chin and its legs dangled below her knees.  Before you all start squealing at me, I know that it is hard to pin point children's ages and maybe she was just a very young child and was just really tall and we should not make assumptions blah blah blah.  Anyway, in my capacity as thorough fact finding amateur journalist I am making up the fact that this girl was definitely around three years old.

I didn't really understand why they didn't just put the baby in the sling and the toddler in the buggy.  Anyway, this is one of many unusual things you see when you move to a different country.  Little behaviours can prove an oddity at first. 

In fact I saw a man taking his dog for a walk the other day and the dog was wearing baby shoes.  One colourful little leather booty on each paw so his feet didn't get wet on the damp grass.  The fact that he was probably going to get his own urine on them was neither here nor there.

I have no doubt as I gradually make Singapore my home and become more assimilated that I will probably end up carrying my 7 year old in a papoose even though like this 3 year old she has those remarkable things attached to her bottom, called legs which I believe are quite useful in enabling one to get from A to B.

Wushu

There really is something quite extraordinary in watching a lady bend your child's legs backwards so they actually look like they are broken while sitting on their chest to get it flat to the floor at the same time.  I am assuming for this reason most parents do not stay to watch their children take part in the Chinese Wushu classes that we subjected our children to this weekend.

Now that I am native Singaporean Chinese having been here for two months I am speaking local.  For you non-Chinese folk, I am talking about Kung Fu.  The beautiful, disciplined and powerful art of Jackie Chan and Po the Panda alike.

Singapore provides a multitude of activities and sports for children ranging from "speed pot stacking" (this is genuinely an extra-curricular activity at my children's school and before you ask, it is not related to illegal drug manufacturing) to the usual football, tennis and gymnastics.

Even though I have invested a small fortune in swimming, football, rugby and gymnastics lessons for my children these last four years and was keen to continue those lessons to not make our investment a waste and help them build on their skills, I began to feel it would be a missed opportunity not to get them trained in a sport or activity that had its origins in Asia.

I looked into Taekwondo, Judo and Karate but all are combative which I knew my daughter would not like and given my son spent last week being beaten up on the school bus, I didn't feel anything with a shade of fisticuffs would be a great idea.  Kung Fu or Wushu seemed ideal.

I tried to find a class not run by expats as unfortunately they do try to make the classes fun for the children and our children have had enough fun.  They need to do some of that hard learnin'.

We wanted something very local and found a class not far from Little India taught by a Chinese lady, expert in Wushu who is extremely nice to the children but is strict to the point of giving them a smack on the legs if they are not listening or being disruptive.  My kind of girl given I was chased around the house frequently by my Mum and her wooden sewing ruler in my youth. 

This really was a grilling in discipline, flexibility and gymnastics.  They were instructed in English and Mandarin which we thought was wonderful. 

Of course before the children can really take on some of the dynamic moves of Kung Fu they have to become flexible and given my son is like a five day old cadaver in terms of flexibility he did amazingly well and his teacher in fact thought he was very good and had potential (could not see it myself).  My daughter did well too but as she attempted some of her stances, my husband and I could not help but be reminded of the fabulous episode of Blackadder when Prince George is learning from a couple of Shakespearean actors how to stand with authority when orating.  If you have not seen it, it is very much crotch forward.

Their teacher informed us at the end of the class that within a few weeks the children will become very bendy but each week she has to keep pushing them and forcing them physically into these contorted positions.  As a parent it really was eye watering watching their legs being bent backwards and their feet pointing the wrong way.  When we returned home I tried one of the moves myself and got stuck in the position, ended up with horrific cramp in my thigh and calf I had to be untangled by the children.

I am now looking forward to my children becoming the next Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh and spent the evening watching the fight scenes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with great hope.  My daughter spent her evening practising the new moves that she learned and my son overjoyed with his new Wushu kit spent the evening prancing around in his black satin trousers not doing any Kung Fu moves at all.  Once again, money well spent.

Touchy Subject

I am entering a big minefield but I am going to attempt it and hopefully not get my legs blown off.

Help or live in maids is a delicate area for discussion amongst expats out here.  It is hard not to come across as judgemental but of course, I am going to be judgemental.  Just as much as those folks with live in help are very dogmatic in their belief that as an expat I should have a maid.  I feel fairly justified in taking an equally firm stance to the opposite.

There are many reasons why we do not feel it appropriate for our family.  Mainly because our children are now in full time school, we do not have a massive home and like our privacy and as far as I am concerned the small windowless cupboard in the wet kitchen which currently stores all our luggage and domestic detritus is not a fit home for anything requiring oxygen.  Yet, we are most certainly in the minority in making this decision.

Don't get me wrong.  For those families with very young children, for parents who work, the elderly or infirm or the downright lazy,  I see the value in having somebody to take the domestic drudgery off your hands. I think I would have sung a different tune if I had a little baby as I would most definitely appreciate the cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping done as it would mean I would have all my time free to spend with my children.  That said, based on my parenting skills, that might not be such a good thing.  However, in theory it is a wonderful prospect.

Based on this, two things I saw this weekend baffled me.

We had a superb meal in a great food hall on Saturday at a place called Vivo City.  It has one of the best Hokkien Prawn Noodles I have ever tasted and I shamelessly drank the remaining prawn, noodle, chilli sauce liquids from my plate like an ill-mannered oik because I could not bear to waste a bit.  But I digress.

Vivo City is primarily a big mall and has a nice little play area for children including water shooting fountains in which small people can cool off.

It was here that we saw another family with a little boy, probably not even a year old.  The child was playing in the water in the sunshine with the maid while the parents stood in the shade and watched laughing, smiling and clapping.  Once I saw the mother run in to give the childs hat to the maid and then run back into the shade to sit down.  It is possible that both mother and father are allergic to the sun or to water or to their child. In fact, I am sure I have seen a Channel 5 documentary entitled just that,  "I am allergic to my children".  In this case however, the parents looked perfectly healthy but did not spend one moment engaging with their child but instead looked on very happily from the side lines.

I certainly will not win any awards for outstanding parenting of the year but I do love my children in my own unique way and the weekends living here are blissful. The fine climate and family friendly places make it a wonderful place for really quality time with the children.  Our weekends in the UK were boring most of the time because it was always raining or cold or glum.  Most of my friends would suck it up and say, nope, we just went out and jumped in muddy puddles and had a great time.  Well, good luck to you.  Not my idea of fun.  I refer to my point about good versus bad parenting.   So being the bad parents we are, we would watch back to back movies and nod off drunk on the sofa instead of taking our children out in the rain for some healthy outdoor merriment.

Here, however, we relish our weekends.  The island is so small, going anywhere is no hassle and transport is cheap and quick.  We have not spent a single weekend in since we got here because there are so many nice things to do and to eat that even if all you do is jump a bus and grab some food somewhere, it is still a really lovely experience and great time spent as a family, mainly because I am not cooking and am therefore instantly in a good mood.

So why on a lovely weekend would you choose not to be with your child while they are having such fun in the sun and the water and instead just enjoy viewing them from the distance as your help does, what I can see, is the really fun part of parenting.

A second case in point was a couple who left their maid with their child in the buggy outside and went into a coffee shop for about half an hour and then came out again and walked off together.  Parents in front, with the maid pushing the buggy, behind them. 

This is a lifestyle that is totally foreign to me but to some degree I should not be surprised by some families out here behaving in this manner as it is perhaps exactly the same way they were raised and their parents were raised so is the only life they have ever known.  We have heard some stories of newborn babies sleeping with the maids so they can manage the night feeds.  For me this is rather unsettling and unfathomable to our perspective on family life.

That said, the fact that I managed to notice all these goings on shows I clearly was not spending any time engaging with my children, because I was too busy staring at everybody else.

Also, a young Indonesian girl pushing a buggy behind a family out here is probably no different to some bonnet wearing aristo walking behind the Queen carrying her bunch of flowers.  In fact the maid probably has a better deal as the aristo most likely doesn't get paid to carry her Majesty's gerberas.

I don't really know what to think of it all.  It is a choice that people have made and I do not begrudge them.  I also know some families adore their live in help and cherish them dearly.  My struggle with this is reconciling caring for somebody so much as a member of your family and yet still being comfortable with them walking behind you in shops carrying everything you have bought while you carry nothing.