You’d WANT To Be Involved…..

Another one of those posts that’s long coming… The good thing about that is since I’ve talked to so many mummies after, mummies involved shouldn’t be easily identifiable even when my girlfriends read this :)…

One of Rockstar’s sometime friends is a 5 year old boy whose Mainlander mum works late moonlighting as a Putonghua tutor for extra cash. As in, tutoring til 9-10pm, and yes she’s gone throughout the day too. At the HKD 500 an hour she charges, that’s almost double the going rate we used to pay way back when Rockstar had a relatively sought-after personal tutor. Her son is enrolled full-time in two kindergartens (not that bizarre for Chinese-speaking families, they do like to pick one English one), attending one session in the morning and the other after lunch – but also umpteen tuition classes thereafter as well (though if I were gone all the time I wouldn’t want my son facing the helper all day either, just not sure what activities I would pick to fill his time though). He caused a bit of a stir when he was accepted very recently into Chinese International School. (Taken to mean he must be extremely academically sound and disciplined – oh btw, Rockstar didn’t get an offer from CIS, I say at risk of sounding like Sour Grapes, but then I also mentioned we’d paid up everything for ESF ages before the closing date or CIS interview result anyway… And yes there’s a part III I’m still sitting on sorry…)

Thing is, for some time now at birthday parties and larger group playdates, Rockstar’s Sometime Friend is nicknamed Crazy Curtis* (*not real name). When he’s not schooling or tuitioning, apparently he’s nuts. I haven’t seen this – Rockstar plays fine with him very occasionally at parties and such where they both happen to be invited and I can’t even imagine him that way – but not a few mums have told me separately he can get extremely active and boisterous as to really live up to his nick. As in OMG that kid is just nuts.

I don’t think his mum knows because she’s hardly around, he’s always with a (fairly competent at least) helper. That wasn’t even what really struck me, this was – at playdates and stuff, Crazy Curtis actively goes around the other mums looking for a cuddle. Even me. (Which was how I first noticed him – I’m  not a touchy-feely mum, nor is he a very good friend of Rockstar’s.) CC’s mum apparently has told other mums I know that all that tuition money she’s pulling is for Curtis’ education and future, but I’m not sure anyone told her what CC’s like when she’s not around. If his mum and I had been friends, I would have told her. But we’ve never met, I don’t even know her name.

To some extent I know what that’s like for CC, because my mum taught high school English and was so dedicated she would stay behind and give free tuition to any kids who might wander into the classroom, during stints in poorer public schools. She’d repeatedly declined offers at private schools. Her students loved her. But as a result, there was a time when she was around very little for me. I resented some of it and acted up for a bit (especially when she took my New Kids On The Block cassette tapes to give to her students humph), but frankly I was already older by then. Up until I was about 10, she’d been there.

One of my first and favorite memories of my mum was when Assunta Kindergarten (yes in Petaling Jaya) asked us to bring eggshells to school for craft. She thought whole eggshells might be more useful, so she meticulously pricked half-boiled eggs in their shells with a needle, then slowly sucked the egg out. I proudly went to school that day with a bag of “intact” eggs. I remember my teacher’s face, “I said empty eggshells. Those are empty?? How did your mum do that?” And then we crushed up all the eggshells to paste on a giant turtle picture to make its shell. I remember her groaning when I told her what we’d used them for. I even remember the giant turtle picture with the different shades of green-painted shells.

The point is, 30 years later, that’s what I remember. 

Crazy Curtis isn’t the only story I know of parental involvement (or lack thereof). Rockstar often comes home observing whose parents have been volunteering at school. I don’t think he does it deliberately (he is very un-manipulative because as a point of principle he believes strongly in his entitlement to certain attentions and what-not), but it really keeps me involved in school no matter how lazy I want to get.

The Rockstar claims he is not the only child who observes this, a lot of the kids do make observations about whose parent shows up and whose doesn’t, when they talk amongst themselves. Which is probably why even though he might ditch me at the Writing Practice table because he’s “Busy chasing bad guys around the playground,” he still wants me to show up. I suspect when it comes to something like that, even the less chatty kids make the observation, even if they don’t say anything. And….. I didn’t want my kid to be one of the few whose mum or dad “never” shows. Probably also why I know working parents – mums and dads – who will still go in on lunch hour or in between business trips at some point or other.

Then there’s Show n Tell. The range of stuff kids apparently prepare/ bring appears to be quite wide, from various accounts. There are proud parents who will sneak in to film their kids “Show n Tell-ing” with a violin or whatever, and then there are kids who just bring anything their helper stuffs in their bag. Or the same thing every single time. Or they leave a “spare” item in their bag. If at all. If they/ the helper saw the note from the school that it was their child’s turn to Show n Tell. (In our case I used to leave a beanie starfish in Rockstar’s bag because when we started K2 he kept claiming, straight-faced, that everyone else had to speak but he didn’t <suspicious>… This soon morphed into “All my friends are smart, all my friends do a good job,” when I ask him how he does at school… And another girlfriend told me her boy kept “losing” the notification sticker…..)

Dress-Up Day’s another one. In weekly school emails we used to be reminded that even if we didn’t want to participate in some of the dress-ups, we should not send our children to school in school uniform because it can be quite upsetting for the child when everyone else is “dressed up.” (There are often Pyjama themes as well, but Rockstar is particularly judgmental of the girls, many of whom instead of choosing to be “cool” firemen or policemen or even “bad guys,” really dress up – poufy princess dresses, pretty cheongsams with fur trim, elaborate hair clips/ bands…) Again if you’ve ever dropped your child off on a dress-up day, you will see a very wide range of level of participation – from the parent who wears a matching cow suit/ hat to drive their similarly suited up child to school for the day, to a small handful of children who will still get sent to school in school uniform.

It’s not all bad, missing a Dress-Up Day – I remember one little girl in uniform whom I felt sorry for, while the vast majority of kids were dressed up. On the eve of the next dress-up, I then overheard her asking school staff repeatedly to confirm the theme and that it would be next school day. She probably didn’t allow the helper to dress her in school uniform the next day, she must’ve been stewing the entire time between dress-ups. Sure enough, she was exquisitely dressed, next time round. She’s one of those Rockstar has dismissed as “too girly” to be friends with. (I take note of this now because I would like to see when he “turns” and starts liking the girly girls who dress up, as he grows up :D)

Pic I took of Rockstar in school last volunteer session, to send to Kings... I think that station is "Independent Collage"... This time he didn't ditch me to go play with his friends, which seems to be some kind of consideration on his part... When I said goodbye was when he went, "Ok, NOW I'll go look for some bad guys to chase in the playground"

But… I still shudder to think how differently I would’ve viewed all Rockstar’s activities and festivities when I was too involved at work. Taking pride in one’s work is one thing, I once found my job intensely gratifying. To the point I told Kings he never had to show appreciation because I could get that fix at work (can you imagine?! Of course husband must show some appreciation right, yes I am not a good “husband trainer”…) But I wouldn’t want some asshole in the office to be the reason my child (and his friends) never saw me in school, brought lame stuff in for class work, or got left out when everyone else came in costume…