As a young child in school, my parents restricted who I could be friends with, as they thought no one was trustworthy enough in this world to make friends with.
My parents didn’t like me hanging out with friends of other races, as they felt most of them were going to be racist to me as an Indian. This continued even in secondary school.
After school ended, they would message or call me to ask me to come back home early, so that I wouldn’t have the chance to even hang out with them.
Even though my parents were worried, I never felt the racism around me in school. My classmates and I would hang out together to play a game of football, or eat at McDonald right outside our school.
Of all the restrictions that my parents enforced on me, one that irks me the most is how they constantly prefer me to be at home rather than out with friends.
I ever had a conversation with my dad about that, and he just said that he didn’t like it when I hang out with friends and prefers me to be at home for all the meals as a family. I do understand where his reasons are coming from, but I don’t agree, as when he was a teen in his own family, he had much freedom to go out and visit his friends, so why can’t I?
Even for those times I could meet with friends, I would have frustrating curfew timings, like having to come home one hour after leaving the house—definitely not something I could keep to considering most of these activities were sports-based, and travel time doesn’t help!
I’m not gonna lie and say that I’m not frustrated with them being so restrictive. There were times where I couldn’t go out to play football during the holidays in secondary school but I would just stay home. I felt so lonely and I refused to talk to my parents because I could not understand what was the point of keeping me at home.
I’m not gonna lie and say that I’m not frustrated with them being so restrictive.
I never truly understood why my parents limited my curfews and such but I have found a way to come to a consensus that I will be at home when I’m needed to help with the chores, which can be tiring for my mom to constantly do. But there are times where I feel that certain priorities may be greater than the ones at home. I do hope that my parents can understand this in the future!
However, something I had serious issues with is the idea that success and stability in the future only come with educational success right now. I find this idea prevalent in my parent’s generation.
This is something my parents completely believe in. Hence, from a young age, they gave much attention, money and time for my education. I was pretty good at a young age, being able to grasp concepts pretty easily, but oftentimes I was just the average dude who was capable of doing what most people can do. I couldn’t crack puzzles, solve difficult problems or memorise concepts.
Most of all, I was kind of lazy. And man, there are other things to do in life, like playing a game of football, becoming better at music in my CCA which was Concert Band—these things were interesting to me! Maths, Science and a couple of other subjects weren’t something I was interested in pursuing.
However, My parents expected me to become a software engineer, or a doctor, or anything high-flying. I didn’t meet their expectations even though I had once gotten the highest in class for one or two subjects as they wanted an A for all my subjects.
I got scolded and punished badly especially for failing my mother tongue because I couldn’t achieve their expectations despite going for tuition and trying my best by practising and preparing for my exams.
Their reason for being upset was that I had the whole semester to study, yet I always “play, play, play, and never study until the last moment”. In reality, I had done a lot more than study at the last moment, especially for Maths and Science, and tuition had helped me to improve a great deal for other subjects.
Unfortunately, my parents don’t look at improvement, but only at my failings, and it disappointed them quite a lot until they consistently threaten to send me back to India, make me quit school and gave me a lot of beatings. That took away my confidence to work hard to achieve targets that were not even mine.
Success, in their own eyes, is termed by grades, which is partly true in the real world. However, their intention for doing so, as plainly stated by them, was for me to have a good future and traditionally honour my family’s name.
My family followed the culture that they were brought up in, believing that it is the best way to bring me up too. They believe it is to toughen me and to make me a man, to come to the resolve to work hard, struggle and progress in life.
My parents gave me the limited liberty of choosing my course in Poly. They were disappointed that I couldn’t go to JC as I failed my Mother Tongue. They were determined to have me take up an engineering course as they believed it was best for my future. If I were given more freedom to choose, I would take on courses related to Chemicals, Aircraft Design or Airport Management.
Singapore Poly’s Aeronautical Engineering offered Airport Management as a path you could choose in the final year and that’s where I went! My parents always argued with me about how I chose this course but didn’t give my best as I didn’t do well in my second year.
To say that my parents didn’t change would be an understatement, but to also say they changed would be a real overstatement. Until now I still have curfews, despite being in the army. These times are understandable as my parents don’t get to spend much time with me, and so these curfews are understandable, and I try to spend at least a day with them when I book out from camp.
Unfortunately, my parents still do not feel the importance of friends and company, and this is pretty daunting, but I have understood that this is the generational gap that comes about, and even more so as my parents came from a different culture from India, and they have their reservations in adapting the Singaporean culture.
One thing I’ve learnt to be important is to understand the current times that we live in and adapt to them.
Despite all this, there is one big hope that comes from this. I've seen my parents use their way of moulding me, and I feel it doesn’t necessarily work in this day and age. One thing I’ve learnt to be important is to understand the current times that we live in and adapt to them.
I constantly think about what I will do as a parent next time. I still do not have a concrete answer about how to be a good parent, but as I gain experience through age, I hope the answers may become clearer in the future.
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*Author’s real name has been changed in this article
