don't you know me?

there's a primary 1 girl at my work place, let's just call her betty.

now betty is a great child, with a pleasant demeanor. cheerful, bubbly, smart (now that's rare, even for people our age), easy to teach, never causes trouble, obedient, affable, with features that makes you wonder just how many hearts she's going to break when she grows up, and a kind of indescribable dignified elegance.

the only thing is that her mandarin is crap.

if i ever do get to have a daughter, i would love to have one who's just like her.

you can see that i have a lot of time for her, but i realised that she had to attend enrichment classes during the holidays, speech and drama was one of them, and so, she was frequently absent from my work place.

before our wall-e outing, betty's mum called up my work place, and since my supervisor wasn't in the office, i took the phone. and she was so anxious about an innocuous trip to the cinemas that you would have thought we were going to jurassic park. she was asking about the route that we were taking (across the atlantic), the mode of transport (helicopter), the destination (some deserted island), the number of instructors going to be present (6. there were 10 initially, but 4 got eaten up by the dinosaurs) et cetera. like all of the details were not in a handout given to the children who were instructed to hand it to their parents to sign.

she always had loads of assessments to do, even when the other children (the ones with the shorter attention spans) were done with their work and were playing, she was still busy trying to complete the work set by her mother. worst, a lot of these assessments set were quite beyond her, quite beyond primary 1s. and so, i found myself writing a letter to her mum one day, explaining why betty was not able to finish all of her assigned work; they were too hard.

while writing that letter in betty's communication notebook, i saw a note written by betty's mother. at this point i want to explain this note book works. it's simple, parents want us instructors to know something, they write in it. we want parents to know something else, then we write in it. easy right? ok so i saw this note about how this mother is concerned about her child's dislike for breakfast, and how she would like us instructors to ensure that betty eats her breakfast. pretty normal stuff right? i mean even now, my mum has to nag at my sis to eat her breakfast. and she went on, saying that breakfast is important for cognitive and physical development (true), skipping breakfast results in deproved mental performance in school (true), and often causes grouchiness and mood swings later in the day (true again. but hey, this explains the behaviour of some people i know). all these again, pretty normal, if some what superfluous, the lecture on the significance of breakfast. and still she went on: saying that she would dread betty to be stupid and skinny.

stupid and skinny!?

that was rather uncalled for, i believe.

but still she ploughed on, asking if my supervisor knew of any children psychiatrist for her daughter's eating disorder.

eating disorder!? at 6 years of age?

this is a primary 1 child, a great primary 1 child in my opinion, who dislikes breakfast, like 90% of the children her age do, and that's an eating disorder? no, that was not an eating disorder. rather, it was her mother overreacting.

granted, i have no idea how betty behaves at home, but i have never seen her waste the food given to her. she always finishes the portion given to her, and like the other children, asks for seconds if it is something tasty.

betty said to me one day, that she disliked her mother.

i asked why.

she replied that her mum was always making her do things and scolding her.

i responded with the only thing that i knew was undeniably true: her mother loves her.

betty's mother overreacted because she loves betty.

betty's mother scolded her because she loves betty.

betty's mother set so much work for her, because she loves betty.

betty's mother wanted so much details because she loves betty.

betty's mother wanted her to go to enrichment classes because she loves betty.

but betty dislikes her mother.

i think that so many times, we love someone so much that we forget that that person needs time by himself/herself too (i'm going to use the generic male term from now on for convenience's sake. feminists, please don't start burning bras; think about global warming. you're free to body slam me on facebook though), to think, to experience, to just - feel sane. that it cannot be enrichment class after enrichment class after enrichment class.

we forget that loving one another does not mean owning one another. that not every move, every action, every detail must be reported to, like the mini-feed on facebook.

we forget that that person needs time to do the things that he enjoys, love even. that it cannot be just all work and no play. that he needs time to go out hang out with his friends, maybe play football or other sports/games.

we forget that sometimes, it is common that children do not like breakfast, that some of the problems that seem really big are actually small, and are actually common among our peers, and that we're making mountains out of molehills.

sometimes, i reckon, loving someone - that's the easy part.