Organic-Ally

Not yet. But it was good to meet a mother from my toddlers group last Saturday. She was at my son's school "Open Day". She told me she would always remember what I said to her, many moons ago. Apparently she was trying to tell her son -- who was happily chattering away -- to shut up. Apparently I said to her that it is OK to let toddlers chatter away. Apparently I said that "we spend all their first months encouraging them to talk, and then when they start talking we tell them to keep quiet. It must be confusing to the poor child." For whatever reason this young mum remembered this, and my face -- for I don't think she knows my name -- will always be associated with that "advice" I gave her. I didn't think it was the right time and place to mention that we must also teach our children that "there is a time and place for everything", under heaven, if I might add.

This election has been so lacking in ideology. Max Hastings calls this the "ostrich election" as politicians and voters alike bury their heads in sand and hope that the real problems we face would just go away. It is like a toddler putting his little hands on his eyes and saying, "You can't see me now." Then toddlers grow up and realize, hey, other people can still see them even when they covered their eyes. So, too, we must grow up. None of the major parties seem to have any undergirding ideology in the recent years. There is no real 'vision' for this society. Everywhere there is just a bit of tinkering here, a bit of polyfiller there. Meanwhile the voters want lower taxes, higher benefits, higher pensions, better schools, better health care, better transport, but how do we pay for that? Many taxpayers (of which I'm one, just as women, of which I'm one) do not mind paying taxes to help those most in need. We don't even mind helping those wh...

In the parent-and-toddler group I help to run we have two fathers from Croatia who bring their daughters. They often chat loudly together during singing time. The lady in charge is afraid to tell them off because it could be viewed as racism. I spoke firmly to these fathers and immediately instead of talking between themselves they sat down with their daughters and did "Row, row, row your boats" etc with them. The young girls were delighted. I can get away with telling these parents most things because I am not-white. So I'm glad that there are people like Mr Sewell who dares tell it as it is: (black) boys need fathers . Check out also earlier post here .

Found ourselves reading this comment in the papers: Schools are churning out the unemployable and nodding our heads in agreement. Husband gets sent lots of CVs whether or not he is recruiting. Most of these go straight into the bin. If it's not Oxford, Cambridge or one or two from London University, he does not even bother to look. This article tells us how schools or rather teachers seem fearful to teach. They "facilitate". This morning I heard a trailer on radio of how a young man believes that while in the past teachers were respected purely because they were teachers, these days teachers have to "earn their respect". I'm afraid the schools must have had the management consultants in, paid them a lot of dosh, and then decided to "facilitate". As a former management consultant, I can tell you we are very good at teaching clients how to "facilitate" in the work environment. Assuming that grown-up workers have a basic knowledge, we teach...

Chatting with husband at lunch (still recovering ever so slowly from pneumonia) it transpired that our son had been smacked not once -- as I thought -- but twice. Husband recounted how he had to smack son when he was much younger after doing exactly what he had been warned not to do. It's like, "You do that one more time and you will be smacked." Son did it one more time and immediately -- smacking is only effective if it's immediate -- and was smacked on the back of his hand. "I had to do it only once. Never had to do it again," he said. And of course there is this other thing about "always carry out your threat". It must have been something quite serious to warrant a smack. Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

This morning at breakfast, husband still off sick, asked son due for a History exam this morning: "What is the middle name of Alexander the Great?" Son: Uh, uhm, "the"! So delightful he is now. Yet there was a time before he was out of nappies when he would keep pushing the boundaries. Well, he still does, actually. For reasons I cannot remember he was told he was not to cross the line between the hall and the living room. Maybe it's the staircase that we thought could pose some danger. What did our young man do? He walked up to the line/boundary and threw his toy into the forbidden area. Would Mum let me go out there to retrieve my toy? He looked at us and waited for a reaction from us. Can't remember what we did, probably ignored him. And he learned when mum and dad set boundaries, those remain as boundaries. Once while he was still toddling he took to biting, purely out of mischief. He was told off sternly, "Do not bite!" And every time he appro...

I stole this from The Telegraph . I've found myself saying to my husband what joy our silly-stage nine-year-old is bringing us. Every day. The proof of the pudding is when he turns 13, 15, etc, really. Meanwhile I am finding great joy in watching him grow up slowly but surely in learning to be more and more independent and learning greater responsibility with each passing day. This article reminded me of "the cane". When growing up in Singapore, "the cane" was ubiquitous in households with young children. This was usually hung up high on a hook on a wall in the living room. Do/Did parents use the cane? Of course. But only once. The cane, when properly used, needs to be used only once, if at all, in the life-time of a child. Before that, parents and carers would point and say, if you misbehave, disobey or did something that might endanger yourself or someone else, the cane will be used. After it had been used -- once, if at all -- parents point at the cane and s...

No time to think (cold symptoms linger, husband has pneumonia and flu, bah!), so only this to support what I think (when I have time and energy to think). No respect, no morals, no trust - welcome to modern Britain sp

This morning I woke to the end of the an interview with Mr Martin Narey. What he said is basically: 'More babies should be taken into care to protect them from poor parents' . I don't think the sub-editor meant "poor parents" as in financially poor, but parents with "poor" parenting skills. This comment was raised following the awful, awful case of two brothers who pleaded guilty of torturing two other young boys. The previous post was referring to this case. Martin Narey speaks the unspeakable. Remember the furore he last raised about 'feral children'? Husband and I discussed this case at length and we said exactly that: take the babies away and put them up for adoption. Yesterday I witnessed two incidents which left me wondering what sort of people become parents. At a busy shopping centre a little girl, perhaps two years old was lying prone on the floor, having a tantrum. The parents -- big people, both bulky six foot something -- and anoth...

Recently I came across posts which seem to be coming down hard on Christians in Singapore. One that caught my eye was the displeasure voiced by netizens on the suitability of the principal of a church-based junior college, Mrs Belinda Charles, to speak at a Christian conference. It touched me because though Mrs Charles never actually taught me, she was the person who handed me my 'A' Level results many, many years ago. I don't recall her trying to convert anyone to any faith. I penned the following letter to Straits Times , but it was never published. So I am reproducing the contents of the letter here. =============== (Untitled) My Dutch friend Sheila once said, "Only in my car do I feel safe. Then I have the freedom to go any where." Sheila’s freedom comes from all motorists, including herself, obeying the Highway Code, a set of rules. Imagine someone insisting on driving on the wrong side of the road "because it is my right". Likewise when whole commu...

When we take our kid out, we make sure he behaves himself. I remember my sister-in-law saying of her children (now grown up), "Rather they behave badly at home than they behave badly in public." Us Chinese have this notion called jiajiao (literally "education by/in your family" which can be translated roughly as "parenting" or as I prefer "family honour"). So if a child behaves badly, a grandparent is likely to mutter, "Don't do that. No jiajiao ." Those words alone were often enough to stop most young children from misbehaving. So when we go out with son to an event we make sure he is polite. We also help him with his food when he was much younger, and wipe up any spills, etc. to ensure that we do not trouble the hosts too much. Last Friday was a very emotional day for me. I was in tears a lot in the morning. I was finding it hard to get over how our neighbours' eldest son had died so suddenly, and it was his funeral. This dea...

Son's piano teacher tells us that he has "lazy fingers" and should consider playing the organ. Is he joking or what? Dunno. But some time back he brought to my notice my son's tendency to "swap fingers" and I blogged about it here . Then he organized for us to go to his church where he is organist for son to try out the organ ( here ). The conclusion was son is a 'natural' on the organ. Okay. What do we do? It's good news, but let us not be rash about anything. My feeling then was: thankfully we still have six inches of time. Son was too short to reach the pedals and we will just carry on with his piano and clarinet. He's had a growth spurt. First he was tall enough for us to despatch with the car booster seat. (We highly recommend Freecycle.) Then last week even other parents started telling us that he had "shot up". His mate who has been much the same height as him suddenly looked small. I measured him a couple of days ago and he ...

This blog post refers: Last Toddlers session this morning for this school year. My son came along to help with the 'money-changing'. He's very good at this. I was wondering if Mum-without-a-clue ("G") would turn up. Childminder ("J") was there and said, "O dear! Maybe she won't come again. But her girl needs to keep coming here." Mum with blonde hair (let's call her "B") arrived. She told me that we have better watch out for "that little girl" ("M"). She could see her, she said. "Where?" I asked. My responsibility was to check in parents and toddlers and any visitors. I need to account for every person who is in the building for health and safety reasons. In the event of a fire I am to blow the whistle, lead the folk to safety. Most importantly I must grab all the attendance cards with me so that I could account for everyone. I hadn't seen M. "There she is in that blue dress." "...

Funny sort of morning yesterday. At the end of what appeared to be a fairly calm toddlers session, a childminder came up to me to say "Did you know you have a very naughty girl here?" It turned out that this little girl has been pinching cheeks, slapping faces and pulling hair, etc. Usually these incidents get reported to us fairly quickly so I was surprised that it had not come to our notice till then. And then, apparently, in a matter of ten seconds after this report, this little girl had traumatized another three kids. The mother? I had always thought this mother rather strange. Sometimes she sticks around for nearly 20-30 minutes after our closing*. All of us here are volunteers. We have other business and family to take care of. We rather like being able to clean up after a session and head home. Soon I had two or three mothers telling me how the little girl had misbehaved. Well, we expect two-year-olds to go through a certain phase, don't we? But what came across to...

Son's school sports day today. We had the best weather and son was amazingly positive today. Two mothers came up to congratulate me on his achievement in gaining the Chief Scout's Silver Award (mentioned by the Headmaster in the school bulletin last week). Somehow we got round to talking about my making him tidy up from a very young age. This is really the 'luxury' of a stay-at-home mother. (One mum expressed how because she always had an au pair , her son never had a chance to do this.) I had the choice of tidying up for him and get it over and done with in two minutes, or making my son learn how to do it, even if it took 20 minutes. I opted for the latter. When life got a bit messy I used to say, "Let's see if you could put five toys back in the box." He would then count five toys into the box. "OK, I think we need to put another seven in." Sometimes it was nine, ten, or whatever number of toys. Sometimes it was five green colour toys (eg five...

The relevant link from the Telegraph : Ben Kinsella murder: why gang members choose loyalty to each other over family Allow me to highlight a few extracts. The emphases are mine: ''Members are usually from dysfunctional families and broken homes,'' he says. They are failures at school who end up playing truant at an early age and joining groups. From around 11 they join gangs and these become alternative families. But they are ruled by brutal discipline that spills over into extreme violence.'' ''The majority, like Michael Alleyne, come from wildly fractured families - often they are the offspring of single mothers - for whom the gang becomes a surrogate family,'' believes Peter Andrews, author of ''Britain's Gang Culture.'' Often membership, he explains, grants status. ''But it's more than that. It offers an extended family with all the fierce, loyal protection that exists within blood families - something few...

Don't like the term 'housewife'. Married to a man, not a house, so why 'housewife'? In Singapore the preferred term was 'homemaker' for a while. But all the potential homemakers migrated to the corporations and the home had to be made (maid?) by FDWs (Foreign Domestic Workers). In 2004 I undertook research on 'stay-at-home mothers' or SAHMs in Singapore (thanks to a grant from the British Academy). The results of this research have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal ... because I am still a SAHM. This term has gained popularity in Singapore (since then? maybe it wasn't anything to do with me, who knows?). An interesting finding was most of these SAHMs did not do much 'housework'. They stayed at home, but they still had FDWs to cook and clean for them. So while they might do the food shopping (called 'marketing' in the 'wet markets'), SAHMs often only supervised others in homemaking. The whole objective of being...

OK, this awful MPs' expenses scandal is really quite cathartic. Today another two female MPs said they are stepping down in order to "spend more time with their families". These are MPs/Ministers in their late 50s/60s. Their children are not nine years old, like my son. What I found particularly galling is Patricia Hewitt saying: "I did initially want to serve another term. But I feel the time is right," said Ms Hewitt. "The truth is that after 13 years as an MP and ten years in Government, I have not seen enough of my family. They have paid a high price for that." THE TRUTH IS thenext election (if she's voted back in, no guarantee of that) will take her to past the 15 years in Parliament which qualifies her for a much more generous pension. She would now have to forgo that. O, poor thing! As for not seeing enough of the family, isn't it a bit late to spend time with family and children who have left home, or are leaving soon? My husband is als...

On Tuesday I heard a BBC programme in the afternoon (hands on the sewing machine, ears to the radio, that's multi-tasking?) which made me feel completely vindicated about not letting my son watch TV for the first two years of his life. Well, not all TV, but children's TV. He was allowed to watch sport and news. The psychologist (Arik Sigmund) on the programme confirmed my hunch that children's TV is bad for the developing baby/toddler brain. According to scientific studies children who watched 'educational DVDs' were not any better in their comprehension and vocabulary when compared to those who watched The Simpsons and Oprah Winfrey. The only group with superior ability were "those who watched none of those but simply incidentally hear background conversation of their parents with others". He concluded that listening which forces us to 'paint pictures in our mind' is better at fostering cognitive development. Well, there! I remember feeding my bab...

We have not changed our family name, but 'potter' is a good alternative. We spent the Easter Term break doing what potters do, pottering, or should that be what potterers do, in which case the headline should read "Here comes the Potterers". We've never had the guts to get away at Easter. Husband had been a regular at A&E for three or four Easter weekends in a row. Last year we managed to stay away. This year we kept clear. Thank God! But husband did manage to get away for two whole weeks from work (yay!) and we pottered. Caught up with son's godmother. Pottered. Had son's mate over for a sleepover. Pottered. Took them to the Imperial War Museum. Pottered. Went to Kew Gardens. Pottered. Went to Stratford on Avon. Pottered. Now we're back! But life won't return to 'normal' till Thursday when son returns to school. Point is: there is so much to do in this great big country. So sometimes a bit miffed by the working parents at school who co...