We invited our neighbours over last week. They were a Malaysian family of 4. Their eldest daughter is a year older than Albany and younger girl just turned one. It was a simple pizza making event for the two toddlers. It turned out that the little girls were pretty interested in the entire process starting from spreading red goo to littering their messy patch with tiny pieces of colourful ingredients. "Hmm... that looked suspiciously like a piece of nanas I like. Why don't I take a bite?" Soon, both girls were distracted and began to munch on bits of pineapples and sticks of cheese instead of working on our dinner. Fortunately, the minor blip was a mere interference that didn't halt a decent pizza dinner.
There has not been any boring moment watching my own child at play. These perks were fantastic nuggets of being a parent, the reward of being tough enough to walk through the shitty paths of parenthood. The worst thing of my parenthood so far was to decide what kind of education I want to subject Albany to.
Albert, the guy living on a farm, added confusion to the dilemma by confirming that education in Australia is way inferior that Singapore. Since Albert had been a teacher with years of experience behind him in both countries, I could take his word for it. He even said if he had children, there wasn't a glimmer of doubt he would send them back to Singapore for education. If that wasn't contradicting enough, reading what he said about migrating to Perth in his blog should add to it,
"I guess that I've really come to appreciate that there's more to life than just a 9 to 5 job and living a life like a robot from day to day. Life to me is really there for us to grasp it and really experience it and I just don't seem to be getting that in Singapore. People are always complaining that it is so difficult having a quality of life and in many ways I do agree and I have this philosophy of don't just complain about something, do something about it."
The only logical explanation is, Albert is a fine educator, that I have no doubt about. But a father, he hasn't been yet. Same thing I would say for Sei, the Singaporean daughter in the South of Australia, another pioneer influence behind my migration, who said she would never hesitate to do any horrible but "necessary" things to her offspring. REAL parenthood changes everything. You can take my word for it. It makes dads stare aimlessly at sunsets. It makes pretty mums behave strangely.
My mum was more than happy to accept the arrangement of sending Albany back to Singapore under her care and suggested that umpteen times, albeit half in jest. I told her "Fat hope!" in a jokingly as well, only that I meant it. No matter how amazing my lifestyle I could create in the future here, it will be meaningless without Albany being part of it. I don't care how the others run their families. I wouldn't come to Perth leaving my wife and child behind even for a day from Day 1. So, I wouldn't do it on Day 2000. If so, I would be working in the mine 7 on, 7 off for big bucks now. There is one thing I firmly believe in. A child has only one childhood.
The sunset stares will go on for a while till something finally blinks.
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