Bringing up children - the way I see it.

I love to share a lot of things with my children. Whenever I have time, I love to be with them, talked and shared stories. We got into the car and I drove them around our village or we went to the recreational area in town or a waterfall near my home. They are in their teen now. It was fund to listen to them. I learned to love the songs that they like. The movies that they watched and told me all about it. Basically, the songs in my phone is full of songs that they dedicated them to me. Any new songs, they will down loaded it to my phone. At times, we spent the whole day eating, talking and enjoying our time together. When they were small, I was just a medical officer then. I was in the master programme. The amount of work that I have to do, so many patients taht need to be reviewed, cases to be clerked, books to read and 10-12 calls per month, I didn't have much times to spend with them. However, my children seems to understand my situation and the nature of my work. They waited for me everyday in the evening. I will make sure the time I spent with them full of activities that both of them enjoyed. I fed them myself. Sang them a special song every night when putting them to sleep. I was very lucky to have mother and sisters who were willing to look after my babies during the day and at night if I was on-call. When I had free time or time off, I would used it to the fullest to be with them. Attended to their every need. On weekends, my husband and I took them for a picnic or holiday. If not, I took them around town in the car. We went to the shopping mall as well as to the amusement park. If you want to know, the popular place that I normally take them every year until today is "The Zoo". We either go to the Zoo Negara or Zoo Melaka. I love to go to the zoo and I will tell you why.

My children always enjoy their time in the zoo even though we go there almost every year. There are always new animals and new experience. Sometimes, my other family members went along, up to 5 cars full of children and adults. We brought foods with us, had picnic in the zoo and had a great time together. Basically, I have made standard regulation for the family. The regulation sounded funny where every newly born babies in the family will have to go to the zoo when they turn one year of age by all means. All of my nieces and nephews know about it. Surprisingly, all of them follow the policy without any hesitancy. I guess they have no choice or they do feel that going to the zoo is one of the way to be together and get closer with each other as one happy family. I want them to love each other the way I love all of them and my brothers and sisters. No doubt we do have argument and differences in opinion of certain matters but when it comes to the family matters, we are together. We will discuss about it in a very professional manner. We put our differences aside. Respect the eldest is what I was taught from young by my Mum and Dad. I have 4 adorable brothers that I love most, 2 elder sisters and 2 youngest one that we shared our jokes and secret. I am very lucky indeed.

Back to the zoo trip, I still remember the first outing my children had was a trip to the Zoo Negara. My sisters and brothers always wonder why zoo be my choice and not else where. I just smile at them. They warned me not to get too close to the animals, scared that you will become just like them. I said to them " all the animals are my friends". In all of us, there are animal sense and if you don't control it, it will manifest. I told them that by watching the behavior of the animals, it gave me a lot of insight about life and love. I saw how the mother of the monkeys took care of their small ones. How caring they are. She taught them how to cope with the changes around them. The birds teach their babies to fly. The monkeys teach their babies to climb the trees and jump from one tree to another. She will continue her duty till the babies successfully walk or jump. She teach them again and again.

I want to share with you how I look at life based on the observation that I have while in the zoo. How we bring up our children to this world and prepare them to face any circumstances that may arise along the way just like the animal does. When we have baby, I imagine that this baby is a caterpillar. The motherof the caterpillar will build a shell or cacoon around the caterpillar to protect them from harm and danger. The mother of this caterpillar will carry out her duty everyday in providing him with food, water and of course not to forget love. She taught him how to protect and defend himself from birds or other animals which will eat him when they get the chance. He has to be alert all the time. The mother of the caterpillar will continue doing this without feeling tired until the caterpillar grow into a butterfly and is ready to be on his own. As I mentioned before, genetic does play an important role in determining what sort of butterfly this caterpillar will turn into, but the environmental factors and influences from the mother also play a role in the transformation of this caterpillar. Based on these factors, the caterpillar will have to decide whether he want to become a beautiful colourful butterfly, or becoming an ugly moth or becoming an elephant butterfly. Of course, as the mother of the caterpillar, she wants the caterpillar to turn into a beautiful butterfly. This beautiful butterfly will fly away and make the mother proud of him.

Similarly like us human. Good mothers will protect their children with their life. I feed my children, give them good food so that they will be healthy, be there for them when I am needed, clean them up, brush their teeth, comb the hair, and put them to sleep. I will teach them the value of life and gave them education. I showed to them good examples so that they can follow. When they make mistake, I will correct them and teach them to think critically. Not to forget, teach them about our religion and believing in own self. There are many other things that I do and give to my children so that they will become an adult that I can be proud of. Of course, as I said before that external influences have a major role in the development of a child. However I believe that if we give them a very strong foundation and education, they will be able to make a choice whether they want to be a beautiful butterfly, or an ugly moth or an elephant butterfly. It is all up to them. What we mothers can do is to pray for their happiness and give them your blessing. In any way, if they have problem or a broken wing during their journey, they will come back to you because they know that you are always there for them. As a mother, you should be ready at all times to treat their broken wing so that they can fly again. This is life the way I see it.