Words Of Wisdom

Generosity, like musical virtuosity, is a gift. Not everyone is born with it.

Still Mothered Even As Adults

We Asians are a spoiled, handicapped lot, generally-speaking.

We may be top-notch university graduates with envious jobs, but when we get married and start having babies, we rope in our mothers as full-time baby-sitters and nannies so that we might continue the pursuit of our careers unhindered.

Is this what they do in the West, or is it just an Asian thing, to not only commandeer our own mothers as full-time baby-sitters and nannies but also expect them to do it out of a sense of responsibility and not a cent more as if they had no lives of their own prior to the births of our babies ?

Yes, we may be top-notch university graduates with envious jobs indeed, but when we decide to get married to whoever our intended spouses might be, we rope in our parents as event organizers who in turn are expected to drop everything else and attend to our wedding arrangement needs so that we might not be burdened with the headache and stress of organizing our own weddings, not to mention the financial costs involved too.

Is this what they do in the West, or is it just an Asian thing, to not only commandeer our own parents as wedding event organizers but also expect them to do it out of a sense of responsibility and not a cent more as if they had no lives of their own prior to the day we decide to get married?

If indeed these are customs peculiar only to Asians, it is no wonder we lag behind the West in almost every sphere - because when it comes to arranging our own weddings or baby-sitting our own babies, we Asians do not even know how to tie our own shoelaces without parental help.