When filial piety is not enough
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Jul 10, 2010 - ST Forum
When filial piety is not enough
MY FATHER died 16 years ago from complications of emphysema, a disease arising from years of smoking. It was a pernicious habit that caused great friction in the household. Till now, not a single day passes when I walk by his previous room that memories of him are not revived.
He was a traditional Confucian father not given to much expression of mawkish sentiment to his nine children. The present-day philosophy of loving your children to death and embracing their character-despoiling traits or other warts was not one he understood or practised at all. When we were rambunctious and broke the golden rule that children should be seen and not heard, he let his displeasure be heard, silencing us with a gruff "harrumph".
If we were ill-disciplined, he let his temper be felt for he wielded a mean rotan. When we were good, there were no rewards, for why should children be rewarded for behaving as they should in the grand order of things?
We were never mollycoddled and never the beneficiary of the present-day parental habit of explicit confessions of affection from him. His responsibilities, which he fulfilled to the full to his most stringent standards, were in the provision of acceptable board and lodging, the teaching of discipline and moral values, and most importantly, the instilling of how paramount scholastic achievement was, making sure we applied ourselves assiduously to school studies.
Yet we never felt unloved, even if all the love was implicit only in action. Indeed, any oral affirmation of endearment would have been an embarrassment to fathers of yore.
When he was in his dotage and frail with illness, we cared for him as dutiful children with a bounden responsibility would.
How I wish we had freed ourselves from our psychological upbringing constraints and expressed our maudlin sentiments of love and affection for him when he was still alive and appreciative, involving ourselves more emotionally in his daily life as he aged and then died, loved yet not hearing it.
To the filial in all of us, parents may seem a burden and an imposition. Yet even when all has been done for them when they were alive, the feeling of being remiss and not having done enough persists when they are departed.
Dr Yik Keng Yeong
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Jul 10, 2010 - ST Forum
FILIAL PIETYThe invisible daughter-in-law
WHILE researching elderly Chinese living in sheltered housing in Britain, I was struck by how often daughters-in-law were rendered invisible.
They did not feature in family photo albums nor were they talked about, except negatively, which is probably why these older Chinese were living on their own.
Why, I wonder, would this generation of women, who had suffered the wrath of their own mothers-in-law, treat their daughters-in-law so unkindly?
It transpired that before our marriage, my husband told his parents in no uncertain terms where I, his wife-to-be, would stand in the event of any future conflict.
And I, from as soon as I was able to, had been preparing my son for life away from mum and dad (that is, be able to cook and clean), just as my parents-in-law had my husband. I wrote to them soon after we were married, thanking them for bringing up their son so brilliantly.
Clearly we are talking about different patterns of relating between generations, and in many ways, between cultures. The cultural shift in residential patterns had been immense in less than two generations: from new brides (especially of eldest sons) living with their parents-in-law, to young couples starting married life in new homes (leaving ageing parents to single siblings), to widowed or sickly parents moving in with daughters instead of sons.
There is no longer a norm but a question of pragmatic arrangements.
Of course, my mother-in-law and I have differences. However, because she treats me with utmost respect, I reciprocate. And whenever I find her 'annoying', I remember that she is the woman who made my husband what he is, for which I must be eternally thankful.
Filial piety manifests itself in different ways. We come from very different experiences of language, education, history and, yes, family conflict. It is futile to expect a one-size-fits-all solution.
However, if we must be prescriptive, I would venture that the flipside of filial piety is respect. And respect - mutual respect - cannot be imposed.
Dr Lee Siew Peng
Middlesex, England -
Jul 10, 2010 - ST Forum
Letting go is part of parenting too
THE TV advertisement portraying filial piety wants to "fix" a perceived social ill, but at the risk of another - broken marriages and divorces.
One day I too will be weaker, perhaps senile, needing physical care and taking my last breath. My children love me because they were loved. Neglecting their work and their own families to care for me would be an inappropriate expression of that love.
Financial stress, in-laws and infidelity have been the top three causes for the rising number of divorces. On my death bed, I want to see all my children holding hands with their spouses and children, knowing that their own family units are strong. They will not be among the statistics for divorce and broken homes.
The joy of parenting includes letting our children go to create their lives with their own families, just as we did in our youth.
Lee Choon Hong (Mdm)
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Originally posted by Clivebenss:
Jul 10, 2010 - ST Forum
Letting go is part of parenting too
THE TV advertisement portraying filial piety wants to "fix" a perceived social ill, but at the risk of another - broken marriages and divorces.
One day I too will be weaker, perhaps senile, needing physical care and taking my last breath. My children love me because they were loved. Neglecting their work and their own families to care for me would be an inappropriate expression of that love.
Financial stress, in-laws and infidelity have been the top three causes for the rising number of divorces. On my death bed, I want to see all my children holding hands with their spouses and children, knowing that their own family units are strong. They will not be among the statistics for divorce and broken homes.
The joy of parenting includes letting our children go to create their lives with their own families, just as we did in our youth.
Lee Choon Hong (Mdm)
Letting go is never easy, the old man is still not letting go.
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he is a parasite..since he owns nothing,makes no effort in producing his own flag even and takes what it assumes is his.......HE IS A PARASITE!I DONT COWER N BOW TO PARASITES!!I DIE FREE!
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