Spent a short afternoon with Jen, Grace and Albany at Woodman Point. There is nothing outstanding about this place. It has a jetty and a mediocre beach, there are many better ones along the west coast of Perth.
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| Woodman Point Jetty |
The park behind the coast reminds me of West Coast Park in 2012. I have never seen a park here so crowded before. There seem to be groups of families nesting under each available shade. The weather was pretty good today, in mid 20s degrees in the afternoon. So you can't bet against families taking their kids to this place for a safe runabout.
A short afternoon here is adequate to see how different the kids are here from the young of Singapore these days. Perhaps, as well as the attitude of their parents and their style of parenthood. Regularly seen in Singapore are parents barking at kids. Don't do this. Can't touch this. Come down before I smack you. This is dirty. See, I told you not to do that.
Thus a small surprise when I see not a single parent run after their kids and wank their arms off the bush that the kid is getting too close for comfort to, or chide them for rolling on the grass. It's hard to describe the gist of things here. You have to experience it to feel the difference.
When Grace jokingly used the word "free range", normally used to describe poultry, on the children here, I can't help to think "caged" when the images of bespectacled Singaporean kids came into mind. I believe my sentiment is not beyond the pale.
I like this posting :). Reminds me of this website, see: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteGood observation. Reminds me of watching a couple of Singaporean children (primary school age) hitting tennis ball in a condo's playground with their maid as ball girl.
ReplyDeleteNow contrast this with battery-farm children here.
ReplyDeleteDay to night, moving from one factory building to another, variously labelled 'public school', 'tuition centre', 'enrichment class' etc.
Fixed hours. Rigid agendas. Narrow ranges of acceptable behaviour.
Compare this to chickens in cages, fed enriched food, required to produce.
The kinship is so snugly close.