True Believer

FBC has just expressed his displeasure at The Economist's view that euthanasia should be legalised by ripping the cover and front page of that particular issue of said magazine into shreds and leaving the draft from the ceiling fan to scatter them around the living room.

Jon finds this behaviour endearing, and speaks fondly of FBC "nesting". I find it a nuisance, which should be unsurprising to you because guess who has to clean up FBC's "nests"? 

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P asked me at dinner last night whether I she3 de2 go back to work (do excuse the ungrammaticalness of that last phrase and word, there is sometimes no better way to put things). I answered with a resounding YES. When he said that his wife felt sad leaving their 7-month old and returning to work, I told him that maybe she should have taken two more months off, because I have found for myself that the marginal utility of being a SAHM* reaches zero around the ninth month (just about equal to the period of gestation!); beyond that, the law of diminishing returns sets in.

*I refer, in this regard, to the pleasure the SAHM derives from being a SAHM.

This article had its day of shares on Facebook recently, which led to a friend pointing out (and I may be paraphrasing her response a bit too simplistically) that most mothers in this day and age, especially in Singapore, have a choice as to whether to stay at home to look after the kids or go back to work, so perhaps SAHMs should complain a little less about being un/ under-appreciated. After all, it was YOUR CHOICE. While I agreed in general with her point (and "Liked" her Facebook post on this to indicate my agreement, hardee-ha-ha), I did caveat that it would be nice to be shown some appreciation now and then. True appreciation, which to me would take the form of rinsing beer bottles after you're done and taking them downstairs to be recycled, or doing the dishes without being asked after meals, for instance. 

Then again, that's life for you - marriage and raising a child was never going to be a bed of roses; it may sound tragic but I have ren4 ming4, i.e. resigned myself to my fate, and can finally start counting down the days (weeks! Two-and-a-half months!) before I return to work (it wouldn't have made sense to countdown before now, there were just too many days). 

Was choosing the SAHM path, even if it's only until FBC turns one, a good choice for me? After ten months of ups and downs I honestly don't know, but I do think it was probably the best choice for our family at the time, and therefore the best choice for me ("best" being different from "good"). And while I haven't gone batsh*t crazy from being a SAHM (yet! And hopefully when the law of diminishing SAHM returns dictates that it's time to begin my descent into batsh*t crazydom, it will be time for me to return to work), I have learnt in these 10 plus months or so that temperamentally, I am definitely not suited to SAHM life. I think I could do it long-term if push came to shove and I didn't have a choice, but firstly I don't think I believe enough in the modern SAHM model to be one (point one of the Huffington Post article sums this up very well). As I'm typing this, FBC is standing in his cot dropping his empty milk bottle to the ground and bouncing up and down making noises for me to pick it up so he can repeat it. And if you follow my Facebook and Instagram feeds, I'm always thinking about what to cook for dinner, proceeding to cook dinner even if it means leaving FBC unattended to "nest" in the living room, or watching Korean dramas - sometimes with FBC. Which is a big No-no.

Or maybe, and I know this is what people may secretly think, I am just lazy, selfish, and unwilling to make sacrifices so that my child can have the best. To my credit, though, when FBC chuckled loudly when L put his arm around Ha Ji Won in episode two (three?) of The Time We Were Not In Love on the pretext of reaching for her mouse to help her find something on her computer, I immediately turned off my laptop in horror, told him that he must not do such things to girls next time, and persisted with singing him to sleep*.

*Which takes anything from 15-20 minutes. Sometimes I just lie down next to him and sing both of us to sleep. I must've sung Be Thou My Vision, and all four verses at that, about a hundred times in the past 10 months. Coming in a close second is probably My Beloved Is Mine, And I Am His.

People say over and over again that you should bring up your children in the best way for your family and beliefs - and then proceed to give you all sorts of unsolicited advice about what is the best way, usually based on what they believe in. Sometimes, of course, being suckers for pain and perfection, we solicit advice ourselves, usually from parenting articles with clickbait titles. No matter how lax I may seem about things, in the long run, the pressure I would put on myself to be someone I'm not would probably be unhealthy for the family, especially my relationship with Jon.

Also, nice as it is to see your child's smile first thing in the morning and witness his "achievements", the latest being discovering that he can climb onto the sofa and coffee table unassisted (not sure how I feel about this, but so long as FBC can clamber back down in a civilised manner, I suppose it's still okay to leave him unattended?*), there is, for me, a limit to the pleasure such things bring. 

*Just to clarify, I am being tongue-in-cheek. I'm not sure there are many mothers out there, including my own, who appreciate my sense of humour in this regard.

I hope, when I go back to work, that I will continue growing and maturing as a person and as a Christian, so that I will be able to show FBC (and our subsequent child(ren)) what it means to be a mature, God-fearing person. And I hope and pray that I will be able to be there for him/ them whenever they need a listening ear, a hug, or just someone to watch TV or a movie with.

***

FBC fell out of his Ikea high chair recently because I neglected to buckle him in and he managed to stand up and then decided that it would be interesting to explore the kitchen floor, which he is usually not allowed to crawl on. My first thought was Wah lau, so mafan. Need to go hospital anot? After he'd stopped bawling and gotten over the initial shock, I rang a doctor friend who told me to just monitor him for signs of lethargy (ugh, first time ever that I was worried he was napping) and/ or vomiting. After ringing said doctor friend, I decided to ask Google what other parents did when their kids fell off high chairs, and came across a blog post where a mum said she cried her eyes out because she felt so bad when her 10/11-month old rolled off his Ikea changing table (only slightly higher than the Ikea high chair). You can imagine how bad that made me feel. 

I am sharing this in case some other mother has like me asked Google the same thing, and if you are that other mother and Google directed you to my blog, the fact that your child fell from his/ her high chair/ changing table/ wherever and/ or the fact that you don't feel flustered, just an overwhelming sense of troublesomeness, doesn't make you a bad or uncaring mother. That being said, every fall is different, and I think FBC actually landed on his side first. So please, get your kid to A&E if you can see that something is really wrong.  

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FBC has, in the time I've taken to write this, managed to drag an entire pack of Stage 4 Pampers from underneath his changing table and to the living room (amongst other monkey-like 10-month old behaviour). I leave you now to clear up another nest, and will hopefully be back in this space soon to share some things I've cooked lately.