Once upon a time, there were two best guy friends who met with two best girl friends. Guy A married Girl A and Guy B married Girl B and each couple went on to have many children and many happy (I think) years of marriage thereafter.
Unfortunately Couple B was afflicted with Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses Syndrome, more commonly known in Malaysia as kiasu. Their favourite people to inflict this disease on were their best friends, Couple A, who on a normal day, could not give a rat’s ass whether the car they drove, the neighbourhood they lived in or the type of china they used would enhance their status symbol or not. However, there was one thing in which Couple A, mainly Girl A, was very insecure about, which were her children and her pre-occupation with what was ‘normal’ society behaviour. Symptoms have been mainly kept under control due to both couples being busy with the needs of a growing family but once the children left the nest, things came to a head. Together with equally kiasu empty nesters who are also afflicted to the different but related syndrome of WWPS (What Will People Say?), they start to compare and one-upman each other with tales of how angelic their respective children are, what wonderful careers they have, how brilliantly smart they are and how many prospective suitors their very attractive children have got etc etc.
Girl A, who has grown into Woman A, is normally the kind of woman who does not suffer fools gladly but has a blind spot when it comes to her so-called friends. She is also a woman who grew up in a house where criticisms were plenty, positive encouragement rare and anything she did was never good enough. As a result, any good sense or ideas she has frequently gets shot down by her more materialistic and status conscious friends. Since these ‘friends’, particularly Girl B (who is now Woman B), are obsessed about presenting not only to the world but particularly to their friends how perfect their own family and life are, they failed to mention the delinquent things their children have done and the many times their children drove them up the wall. Woman A, in all her innocence, would pour out her troubles and misgivings while Woman B would listen smugly to all this then go on about how her own brood are the stiff of angels.
As a result Woman A has developed strange ideas of what is correct and proper behaviour from her children. Even though she has raised her children perfectly well enough and these now adult children are happily going about doing exactly the same things that other adult children are doing, Woman A felt she had screwed up as a mother and therefore her children were failures in this particularly insular society. Now, in her middle years, she felt compelled to harp on their imagined faults and has embarked on a program of re-educating her children, much to the horror of those unfortunate enough to be within spitting distance of her.
Having grown increasingly insular in their middle years, Couple A are of the opinion that their 20-something children are abnormal for not wanting to spend all their time with their parents. They also think it is abnormal for their young adult children to have opinions different from theirs, to be impulsive, to change their mind from one minute to the next, to get angry about the injustices of the world, to act silly over cute TV actors, to go out with their friends instead of their parents – basically all the things that normal young people everywhere do but because Couple A are so removed from everything that goes on in the normal world, they do not understand this. Their daughters tried to explain it to them, “What is the point of youth if you are going to act like old men?” – but Couple A still don’t get it.
One day, Woman A had a small revelation. She was visiting couple C, both doctors who have looked after all of her children. She has known them for more than 30-odd years but sees them probably about once a year. During this visit, on the eve of Chinese New Year, Woman A was accompanied by one of her daughters, who although is loathe to spend her time visiting her mother’s friends, did not mind this trip as she quite likes Couple C and would like to see them as she has not seen them for many years. (Also, as she is still unmarried she was hoping to score some ang pows).
After the usual greetings, talk inevitably turned to each other’s children. Couple C has three grown up children, all unmarried and all scattered in different parts of the world. Instead of spouting about how their children calls them dutifully every day and never gives them any trouble whatsoever, Couple C were quite candid about the hi-jinks of their children and their anxieties about them. Parents will be parents, they said, you can’t stop worrying about your kids but they gotta do what they gotta do. And so Woman A learnt that her children weren’t in fact, devil-children after all. They did exactly what the esteemed doctors’ children did – they travelled all over the world, they changed jobs at the drop of a hat, they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives, and they had different aspirations and ambitions than what their parents had for them.
Woman A took heart in this and realised she was not crazy and her children were not crazy and that Woman B’s words were actually poison to her soul. Of course, her children had been telling her these things for years but Woman A only heard what she wanted to hear. It was in fact, the very same fault that she frequently accused her children of having.
However, this was not the first time Woman A had heard of imperfect children. Firstly she used to be a teacher, so she should know better. Secondly, if she had cared to listen, there were plenty of screwed up kids among her children’s friends. She should be thankful that none of her kids turned out to be the k-snorting, bed-hopping, suicidal, devil worshipping law students that roam the streets of Klang Valley nowadays.
When told by her children that she should really ditch Couple B sake of her sanity, Woman A snapped in reply, “What do you young people know about friendship? We have been through a lot together.” Well, to this the children thought in silence, “Yes, we are young and callow but we know enough that the people who you call your friends shouldn’t shit on you when you’re down.”
So it came as a surprise one day when Couple A did not inform their friends, Couple B, that the reason they were selling the house that they had lived in for the past 30-odd years was to finance the building of an even bigger dream home. Couple B were left thinking that poor Couple A had fallen on hard times and had to sell their home to make ends meet, leaving their comfy semi-detached house in a leafy neighbourhood to go live in a tiny terraced house owned by their daughter-in-law in the unfashionable town of Batu Tiga, Shah Alam. They must feel bad for their long time friends but not without a hint of smugness and glee.
It seemed that Couple A had finally gotten fed up of Couple B’s showboating and were starting to have a little fun with their so-called friends. Next thing they need to learn – get off their children’s backs.
Unfortunately Couple B was afflicted with Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses Syndrome, more commonly known in Malaysia as kiasu. Their favourite people to inflict this disease on were their best friends, Couple A, who on a normal day, could not give a rat’s ass whether the car they drove, the neighbourhood they lived in or the type of china they used would enhance their status symbol or not. However, there was one thing in which Couple A, mainly Girl A, was very insecure about, which were her children and her pre-occupation with what was ‘normal’ society behaviour. Symptoms have been mainly kept under control due to both couples being busy with the needs of a growing family but once the children left the nest, things came to a head. Together with equally kiasu empty nesters who are also afflicted to the different but related syndrome of WWPS (What Will People Say?), they start to compare and one-upman each other with tales of how angelic their respective children are, what wonderful careers they have, how brilliantly smart they are and how many prospective suitors their very attractive children have got etc etc.
Girl A, who has grown into Woman A, is normally the kind of woman who does not suffer fools gladly but has a blind spot when it comes to her so-called friends. She is also a woman who grew up in a house where criticisms were plenty, positive encouragement rare and anything she did was never good enough. As a result, any good sense or ideas she has frequently gets shot down by her more materialistic and status conscious friends. Since these ‘friends’, particularly Girl B (who is now Woman B), are obsessed about presenting not only to the world but particularly to their friends how perfect their own family and life are, they failed to mention the delinquent things their children have done and the many times their children drove them up the wall. Woman A, in all her innocence, would pour out her troubles and misgivings while Woman B would listen smugly to all this then go on about how her own brood are the stiff of angels.
As a result Woman A has developed strange ideas of what is correct and proper behaviour from her children. Even though she has raised her children perfectly well enough and these now adult children are happily going about doing exactly the same things that other adult children are doing, Woman A felt she had screwed up as a mother and therefore her children were failures in this particularly insular society. Now, in her middle years, she felt compelled to harp on their imagined faults and has embarked on a program of re-educating her children, much to the horror of those unfortunate enough to be within spitting distance of her.
Having grown increasingly insular in their middle years, Couple A are of the opinion that their 20-something children are abnormal for not wanting to spend all their time with their parents. They also think it is abnormal for their young adult children to have opinions different from theirs, to be impulsive, to change their mind from one minute to the next, to get angry about the injustices of the world, to act silly over cute TV actors, to go out with their friends instead of their parents – basically all the things that normal young people everywhere do but because Couple A are so removed from everything that goes on in the normal world, they do not understand this. Their daughters tried to explain it to them, “What is the point of youth if you are going to act like old men?” – but Couple A still don’t get it.
One day, Woman A had a small revelation. She was visiting couple C, both doctors who have looked after all of her children. She has known them for more than 30-odd years but sees them probably about once a year. During this visit, on the eve of Chinese New Year, Woman A was accompanied by one of her daughters, who although is loathe to spend her time visiting her mother’s friends, did not mind this trip as she quite likes Couple C and would like to see them as she has not seen them for many years. (Also, as she is still unmarried she was hoping to score some ang pows).
After the usual greetings, talk inevitably turned to each other’s children. Couple C has three grown up children, all unmarried and all scattered in different parts of the world. Instead of spouting about how their children calls them dutifully every day and never gives them any trouble whatsoever, Couple C were quite candid about the hi-jinks of their children and their anxieties about them. Parents will be parents, they said, you can’t stop worrying about your kids but they gotta do what they gotta do. And so Woman A learnt that her children weren’t in fact, devil-children after all. They did exactly what the esteemed doctors’ children did – they travelled all over the world, they changed jobs at the drop of a hat, they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives, and they had different aspirations and ambitions than what their parents had for them.
Woman A took heart in this and realised she was not crazy and her children were not crazy and that Woman B’s words were actually poison to her soul. Of course, her children had been telling her these things for years but Woman A only heard what she wanted to hear. It was in fact, the very same fault that she frequently accused her children of having.
However, this was not the first time Woman A had heard of imperfect children. Firstly she used to be a teacher, so she should know better. Secondly, if she had cared to listen, there were plenty of screwed up kids among her children’s friends. She should be thankful that none of her kids turned out to be the k-snorting, bed-hopping, suicidal, devil worshipping law students that roam the streets of Klang Valley nowadays.
When told by her children that she should really ditch Couple B sake of her sanity, Woman A snapped in reply, “What do you young people know about friendship? We have been through a lot together.” Well, to this the children thought in silence, “Yes, we are young and callow but we know enough that the people who you call your friends shouldn’t shit on you when you’re down.”
So it came as a surprise one day when Couple A did not inform their friends, Couple B, that the reason they were selling the house that they had lived in for the past 30-odd years was to finance the building of an even bigger dream home. Couple B were left thinking that poor Couple A had fallen on hard times and had to sell their home to make ends meet, leaving their comfy semi-detached house in a leafy neighbourhood to go live in a tiny terraced house owned by their daughter-in-law in the unfashionable town of Batu Tiga, Shah Alam. They must feel bad for their long time friends but not without a hint of smugness and glee.
It seemed that Couple A had finally gotten fed up of Couple B’s showboating and were starting to have a little fun with their so-called friends. Next thing they need to learn – get off their children’s backs.
Comments
firstly... devil worshipping law students... niiiice
secondly... maybe Woman A could also benefit from a few kind words from the A spawn clan. Woman A is after all a mere mortal whose mind can be kindly manipulated
thirdly... teehee on the house thing. That's friggin awesome. I'm so there for housewarming. Score me an invite?
KJ, kind words for Woman A? When was the last time you spend a long period of time together with woman A? Shaddap lah. Jauh di mata, senang dilupa sakit bloody hati.