To all absentee parents out there.. How do you do it? How do you manage to swan off and live your selfish dreams without compunction? How do you live in material and emotional comfort knowing you have abandoned a past life? How does your conscience rest easy knowing you took care of yourself without lookingContinue reading “Hubris Miasma”
Category Archives: parenting
Backward and Forward
I’m at that stage of life where I find my emotions oscillating between a curious mixture of hopeful excitement for my own sons vis-a-vis quiet acceptance of my own uneventful future. Of course, I know that hope and excitement isn’t the exclusive rights of the younger generation. Those in my age group have every rightContinue reading “Backward and Forward”
Changing Places
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of activity in our household in terms of who has been moving in and out. My sons are now all young adults and university has been the preoccupation for them in recent years. I’ve got four sons who are all at different phases of theContinue reading “Changing Places”
Like a Water-Lily
In trying to capture how I view life right now and my place in it, it occurred to me that the celebrated water-lily serves as a very good comparison. Just Googling the meaning of ‘water-lily’ and I immediately can see the analogy to my life. It is a flower that rises out of the muddyContinue reading “Like a Water-Lily”
My Mother’s Footsteps
Looking at my elderly, octagenarian mother whose health has seemingly taken a downward turn in recent months, I reflect on many things and many years gone by. Firstly, I think of the sacrifices she made to come to this country as a fresh-faced, naive yet optimistic young married woman, looking to start out a lifeContinue reading “My Mother’s Footsteps”
Standing Up for Justice
Remaining silent in a time when injustice is endemic around us is not something I think any normal person would tolerate. Right now, in the world there is a lot of injustice prevalent on a global scale, societal scale and individual scale too. Usually, when someone has been directly impacted because of an unjust decision,Continue reading “Standing Up for Justice”
A Double-Edged Sword
One thing I hope never to do is to dissuade my own sons from the idea of marriage. Regardless of my own not seeing it to the end of time, there’s no need to be completely cynical about this institution as a whole. (Maybe the word ‘institution’ needs to be revamped. It has such negativeContinue reading “A Double-Edged Sword”
Motherhood: Part 3
As my youngest son prepares to sit his final exams at school next week, I prepare to enter a new phase of motherhood. No more parent meetings, no more emails from school, no more direct involvement in his education. It is a watershed moment in my life. I welcome it with open arms. The questionContinue reading “Motherhood: Part 3”
A Successful Son
We all have different perceptions of what a successful son might look like. For some, it’s about having raised a young man to stand on his own two feet financially. For others, it’s about academic achievements and yet for the rest, it may be about neither of those things necessarily but more about good characterContinue reading “A Successful Son”
Fight or Fight
No, this time it’s not a typo…although my writings are filled with them. Today, I am reflecting on several things at once but the one thing that dominates my mind is a message for women who, like me, are facing life alone at the head of a household. We don’t have the option to flyContinue reading “Fight or Fight”
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