Spoiled

I always write with the assumption that my readers actually know everything about me. Amazingly, I do get random visitors from cyberspace who don’t have a clue who I am. I would think that totally ignoring them and not giving a short background story before rambling on about an aspect of my life would be, for lack of a better word, stupid. That would be like turning on the tv and watching ‘Lost’ for the first time and starting at episode 27. You would lose interest pretty quickly...

So here’s a little background on me... (I’m not going to go on and on about my entire life story, just the part that has something to do with this blog post).

I do NOT like kids. I think they are messy, noisy, etc , etc... When I was younger, I would always say that the minimum number of kids I’ll have is none, with a maximum of one. Now you have to understand something... it’s not that I hate them and run away screaming when I see one. I’m actually quite nice to them (because it would be impolite to be otherwise)... and they seem to love me... really, they won’t stop hanging around me...

Now, I do have nieces and nephews who read my blog... you guys are probably saying “OMG! He HATES us!!” So before you go all grumpy on me, let me clarify something... I love you guys because you’re family... I’m just not too wild with the fact that you’re kids...

Anyway, back to me... even though I don’t like kids, I do have one... a five-year old boy... the love of my life... there are no words that can describe how much I love my son (you parents know what I mean). To me, he’ll always be my baby boy, and I love that he’s the cute kid that he is...

Now that you’ve got the background, let’s get on with the story...

I was at McDonalds with my son on Friday... it was just the two of us... so it went as usual... he wanted fries, so I made him promise to eat the main meal as well. Got him a happy meal... etc etc....

Anyway, I set everything up for him, so he started eating his fries. Now, he did not touch his fried chicken (we’ll debate eating fried chicken at a burger place instead of a fried chicken place later)... so I had to break of pieces of the chicken and ‘feed’ him... then I realised something...

He’s five-years old... he’s already going to school... he can count, add, subtract, read some words, write some words, play video games, watch videos on ‘YouTube’ (I’m not kidding... just load the page for him and he’ll browse through the videos he wants... he can spell the names of the cartoons he likes, so he can do a search), lecture me on the harmful effects of smoking and recommend a nicotine patch, and read a story to younger kids (this just happened a few hours ago at my sister’s open house... he faked it though... held a book and told a totally different story that he had memorised from one of his own books). But he will not feed himself for the main course. He’s only ok with side dishes and snacks.

The reason for this is, he is spoiled!

My bad...

I have had this great urge to spoil my son ever since he was born. He will get pretty much everything that he asks for. What makes it easier for me is the fact that he’s so well behaved. He’ll ask nicely... and if I don’t give him something (with a valid excuse, of course), then he won’t throw a tantrum... he might try to bargain (“just one time”), accept the answer (with a cute “ok”), or make a really sad face with the occasional tear (note that it’s ONE tear)... how could you not say yes to that?

I know... it’s not good to spoil your child, but I can’t help myself... I guess it’s how I was raised... you see, my dad spoiled me... he spoils all his kids, but I get extra special treatment. I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m his only son...

Now don’t get me wrong... my dad was (and still is) very strict with kids... he’s the scariest person I know. I’m pretty sure my son thinks the same way (he doesn’t really dare to misbehave when I’m around.

Anyway, back to my dad... from the stories my sisters would tell about me, it seems that I was really spoiled as a child... I got away with everything... but then, I turned out to be quite a well behaved kid. I guess it’s the balance between spoiling and being strict.

My dad’s habit of spoiling me didn’t stop when I became a ‘young adult’... when I was doing my degree, my grades were slipping... I was staying on campus and had a bit too much fun... so to punish me and get me back on track, my dad... wait for it... bought me a car...

Errr....

His logic behind it was so I can stay at home and drive to campus... that way he can ‘keep an eye’ on me... yeah right! But amazingly, even though with a car I had a heck of a lot more fun, my grades did improve...

I see a lot of similarities in my dad’s and my parenting style... there’s some weird logic going on there, but it turns out well in the end... I would like to think that I turned out ok... and my son is one of the most well behaved and well rounded kids I know.

Who would have guessed that a person who doesn’t like kids would end up being a very doting father...?

Sex

You perverts… as soon as you saw the title, you couldn’t help but clicking on the link, could you?

Don’t worry… you’re normal. I am going to blog about sex though, so you won’t be disappointed that the title was an awful attempt at cheap publicity. I’m going to talk about…

My first time…
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… teaching my son about ‘the birds and the bees’… didn’t you know this is a family oriented blog??

Anyway, I haven’t been asked by my son to explain where babies come from yet… he’s still fixated on the moon’s movement around the earth… and of course, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to ask soon.

I’ve never lied to my son when he asks me about any topic… I’ll stick to the actual scientific explanation (I’ve actually explained why you can only see parts of the moon some nights… I used a globe and explained the moon’s movement around the earth). I could have gone with ‘because it’s like that, lah…’ or ‘there’s a man on the moon and sometimes he switches of the lights to save electricity’… but that would just confuse him in the future. I find that kids are smart enough to understand scientific fact… they may ask you to explain it again for about 200 times, but that’s just a part of parenting.

Asians mainly regard sex as a taboo topic… I’ve never had the ‘sex talk’ with my parents… well, except for one line from my mom many years ago which was “no sex before marriage.” I was lucky though that I grew up in Canada, where sex education was part of the syllabus… It’s better to get your information from teachers and medical personnel than to get it from your friends and porn.

Contrary to popular belief in Asia, learning about sex does not mean that you’ll immediately go out and get those ‘birds’ and ‘bees’ to meet. Since the formal education already satisfies your curiosity, you don’t need to go out and ‘experiment’. In fact, the main theme of sex education in schools is abstinence.

Now back to my son. I don’t claim to be an expert in child psychology or even basic parenting. So I’ve got to do research on this topic first… I don’t want to be caught off guard when me son asks “how did the baby get into his mommy’s stomach”. Too much info and he might get confused… too little info, and he might get curious… and we all know how curiosity killed the cat.

This is tough. I wonder if I can just stick to my mom’s line. “Son, no sex before marriage!”