>>I am a young adult, and I think my parents are cool.
>>Got your attention, didn’t I? It’s a commonly portrayed idea that kids stop hero-worshipping their parents when they hit puberty, moving on instead to that bizarre stage in life where eye-rolling appears to be one of the only expressions to animate their deadpan faces, where every sentence is peppered with ‘like’, where parents are demoted to being merely the source of Vitamin M(oney).
>>Like, you totally have to deal with us leeching off you, because, like, you owe us. Like, duh.
>>But I digress. Admittedly, I was briefly drawn into the Dark Side that is teenage-hood. Now, I have concluded this: my parents rock.
>>However, don’t assume that I think this because my parents are unconventional, hip people. Because they’re not! (Sorry, mum; sorry, dad! But let’s be honest here, okay?) They’re not liberal—they’re as Asian as they come. No one I know has been raised with my parents’ particularly suffocating brand of Iron Fist.
>>My mother, like all others, is predisposed to Repetitive Advice-Giving, otherwise known as Nagging. This may surface at any time. It can be about anything under the sun. There need not be anything to inspire her; it all comes from her Mother Gene. You can run and you can hide, but she will seek you out:
That’s not how you boil an egg!
For God’s sake, do your laundry more often.
You’d better make your sister do her homework because she’s ignoring me again, the terrible child!
Be careful when choosing a man.
Your room is so filthy, it’s shameful!
>>She also has this habit: she calls for you from the other end of the house—always when you’re busy—then, when you reply, you discover that she’s suddenly lost her recent ability to yell. Her request starts off strong, then tapers off into an indistinct mumbling: “CAN YOu plea…”. This is your cue to drop what you are doing, scurry to her, and find out what she wants you to do. Otherwise, it’s Bad Daughter Day at the dinner table tonight.
>>On to my father. He has an uncommon paranoia: to quote him, “I’ll be damned if I raise spoilt children!”. Such is the strength of his fear; he has been so strict with us kids that no one actually believes me when I tell them how I was raised. I was not allowed to go out with friends until I was 15. Even now, I have to ask for permission at least a week in advance. Details required: When, With Whom, and Reason for Outing. Until recently—when I turned 21—my curfew was dinner time (6 pm).
>>All through school, I was threatened with corporal punishment if I was not one of the top 10 students in my entire year. To give my dad credit though, I doubt he would have set such standards if I had not demonstrated an academic inclination.
>>Later, he devised the brilliant idea of denying me of things that I loved if I Did Something Bad. Examples: prohibiting the use of the telephone, cutting my allowance, or banning the television. If I was especially bad, then it’s all of the above, all at once. It was a fearsome, fearsome thing. I kid you not—it is the most torturous, brutal, effective punishment known to Teenage-kind.
>>Usually, it’s one strict parent per household—the disciplinarian is offset by the “softer” parent whom you can run to for sympathy. Not here! A friend hit the mark when she christened my parents “Hitler and Mussolini”.
>>Regardless, I think my parents are cool. Their love for us kids is obvious; it shows in the way they want us to grow into decent people. I look at the no-holds-barred way they interact with each other, and it makes me smile.
>>It is my parents’ rapport with each other that has given me such a secure family life. They don’t know this, but I spend a lot of time observing them. I watch how my mother chatters on, and how dad listens indulgently (while surreptitiously exchanging looks with me when she says something for the 56th time). I watch how he pretends to want to drink some MSG-laden sauce, and how mum plays along by screeching at him not to do it unless he wants his hair to fall out. I revel in how they have the most offensive pet names for each other (favourites being lou hang “old hag” and lou yeh “elderly one”). Then there’s how mum humours dad when he deliberately asks random questions:
Mum: There’s this old man at the market, he sells mangoes. I asked him “Why so expensive?” then he said “Imported mah!”, but—
Dad: Does he sell langsat too?
Mum: No, only mangoes. He’s so old lah, lou ye, I think he eats too much salty foo—
Dad: Well that’s a pretty stupid fruit stall if he doesn’t sell langsat. Langsat’s how you earn the money. Maybe we should plant some trees and sell the fruit. You can be the rich Langsat Lady.
Mum: Please…you know how long it takes for the trees to bear fruit?
Dad: Oh! We can get the balding mango man to help.
Mum: He’s too busy, lah.
Dad: Hmm, actually we shouldn’t. All that salty food he’s eating must affect his blood pressure. Afterwards do business with us then die halfway, how? Eh lou hang, you should take him to the doctor, because mmph—
Mum: [shoving a piece of food in Dad’s mouth] Nah, eat some chicken and be quiet.
>>With conversations (which drip with love) like that to light up my days, how can I not adore my parents?
