cca decision-making might be important because it shows whether
the parents enforce their decision on the child or give the child
the go-ahead, however, compared to the importance of life, cca, or
even many other matters, getting into the school of dream, or
similar seem absolutely trivial. there are many more things you can
do with you life.
a child is definitely not just an investment, of course by
parents care and nurture their children because they truly love
their children. i did not say that children are only
investments, although there is a certain element of it. but the
main issue goes back to the parents' love, as you mentioned for the
child. by taking his own life, his parents will be heartbroken
because deep down in their hearts, regardless of the arguments they
had with him, they still truly love him and to lose a son because
of a reckless decision he made, they feel crestfallen as if some
part of their life died down.
of course the love for the child plays the most crucial and
significant aspect of the parents' feelings. however, there is a
small aspect which is the investment part. the chinese saying goes
"yin shui si yuan". repay the elders as they have once nurtured and
raised you.
also, pressure for singaporean children is nothing compared to
those in korea, china and japan. because of the limited number of
university places in these countries and the vast numbers of people
applying, children there are given more stress as the entrance
ratios in cases are 100:1, but more often 30:1.
in singapore, 30% of each cohort gets the opportunity
to get to university. it is a 5:4ratio, 5 people
competing for 4 places, considering only those who applied for
university. there is so much less challenge in getting a place in
that secondary school, JC or university of choice because the odds
are so high. and every parent is definitely guided by 1) love. but
you should never count out the investment bit which plays a 20%
role at least in raising of children
The boy was 15 years old. I believe he should have a say
in what CCA he wants to take part in or not. Forcing him to
remain T&F when he already has no interest or already hates,
was overstepping the bounds of parenting. If the parents
themselves thought the CCA to be a trivial thing, they should have
left it to his perogative to decide and let it be an experience to
him in decision making, and bearing the consequences of wrong
decision making. Parenting teenagers is not about, "What I
says Goes." Thats applicable to 5 year olds. Parenting
teenagers is about preparing them for adult world, learning to give
them responsibilities and teach them to face up with them.
Should parents even see their children as "investments?" I
think there is a flaw in the motivation of parenting when people
start to think that way. When we talk about investments, we
are talking about personal self-interests. The motivation is
a selfish one that revolves around personal gain in the
long-term. "Investment" parenting is a fundamentally warped
concept for a parent to think and worse to utter to a child.
Parenting should never be about self-interest but best-interest of
the child. While practically, there is a thin fine line
between the two words, the connotation and motivation of it is
worlds apart. Perhaps you do see your children as an investment,
but please don't tell them that. Teach them values that would
help them to "repay" you in kind as your old-age social security
net, but DON'T TELL them that they are an investment, whether 20%
or not.
Sad to say, there are parents who tell their kids about them
being investments. Their first sin is to even think that way,
their second is to actually tell it o the kid. If i was the
kid, I would feel that I'm just an object of utility to their
interest. If i don't serve that utility, i would have no
value. It takes away any love that I would have recieved once
I realized the source of the love. I was loved for the value
in which I could provide. A sad thought don't you think?
True, all children should look after their parents. Yet it
should be a process that is proactive on the part of the child,
after having seen how his parents took care of their grand
parents. It should not be the other way round, or
communicated to be the other way round, that they are "groomed" for
that purpose.
I do agree with ORIGAMIST that its a punishment too harsh for
their parents. But it is not about the punishment or the
blame now. Its about fixing some of these stupid views that
spoil relationships between parents and kids.