Dear Madam/Sir,

I REFER to “Military school, to curb delinquency” (Dec 6).

A military school will not meet the needs of our society, and will only result in us fighting fires as opposed to preventing them.

As part of my full-time National Service in 2002, I served as an instructor in the now-defunct Singapore Armed Forces Education Centre (SAFEC), the successor to the SAF Boys’ School.

SAFEC was an alternative educational pathway for the boys – not an institute to reform delinquent children per se.

The stories which many of the boys told me always had the same root cause: physically- or emotionally-absent parents.

The lack of parental guidance and supervision resulted in the wayward behaviour of the boys and therefore, their inability to focus on their studies.

This led to a vicious cycle of poor academic performance and further waywardness, resulting in them having to choose SAFEC over other less desirable options.

Hence, I agree with Mr Chua that the root cause of poor parenting is due to parental cluelessness and/or irresponsibility and should be dealt with in a commensurate and progressive manner as follows:

1. First, we as members of our individual communities need to take it upon ourselves to correct inappropriate behaviour, both on the parts of the parents we know, as well as their children.
2. Next, the ethnic and/or religious communities we belong to must step up to the plate by working with parents to implement parental-training clinics to instill appropriate values and understanding in our parents and parents-to-be.
3. Last but not least, the government can consider instituting compulsory, co-paid parental-training programmes via the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports. While tax-payers need to acknowledge the sacrifice that parents make to contribute to our Total Fertility Rate, parents also need to acknowledge that their children are a responsibility that must not be shirked.

With these measures, youth will be placed on the right path from the onset, thereby removing some part of the present and future burden of having to “steer juvenile delinquents back to the right path”.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Laremy LEE (Mr)

(Published as “Put youth on the right path via parental involvement” on 8 Dec 2011 in TODAY.)

The Laremy Lee version.

1. Human beings are animals.
   That’s why you can learn a lot about humanity by watching Dog Whisperer. That’s also why we need rules and boundaries to maintain order, especially when…
2. Human beings are like currents – they follow the path of least resistance.
   Not everyone is altruistic enough to do that which takes effort to be done, hence the solution in (1).
3. Every child is a reflection of her/his parents. Similarly, every student is a reflection of her/his teacher(s).
   A lackadaisical child/student is the product of lackadaisical parents/teachers.
4. From (3), the way a child/student speaks is the exact same way her/his parents/teachers speak.
   A polite, eloquent child/student is the product of polite and eloquent parents/teachers. Ill-mannered, uncouth and impolite children/students…
   
   By the way, not to belabour the point, but this is also why the Speak Good English Movement will never succeed – because it addresses the wrong target audience.
5. In most situations, less is more.
   That’s why I’m ending here.

What are some of your hard truths?

Also, if anyone can design/customise a picture for me (i.e. include my picture as well) based on the original text, I’d be very grateful!

(NOTE: For the young ‘uns, the title of this post and the image is a reference to a song by the Sex Pistols.)

I’m quite tired of people hijacking the event popularly known as the London ‘riots’ for their own agenda.

Some examples:

• “This justifies the strict laws against rioting and protesting we have in Singapore”.
• “This is why we need to love our government, regardless of whoever is in the government”.

I don’t think those two claims are relevant or appropriate to the situation.

The first misses the larger point – this is not a riot, but simply a case of looting and theft carried out by opportunists who have purposefully disregarded social mores and notions of prop(ri)erty.

The second claim entails a blind subservience without moderation or calibration; a one or the other approach seldom makes sense, especially in contexts like these.

In my opinion, the most pertinent issues that seem to have conveniently been forgotten are:

1. How this scumbaggery has been wrongly labelled a ‘riot’ or a ‘protest.
   This merely legitimises the actions of the looters and thefts and encourages them to be bolder in their impunity.
2. How everything including the kitchen sink is wrongful fodder for blame with regard to these acts of “feral” scumbaggery.
   When in actual fact, the adage of “Those who criticise [the younger] generation forget who raised it” has never rung truer.

These articles may flesh out my arguments better:

1. The UK riots and language: ‘rioter’, ‘protester’ or ‘scum’?
   (via Yu-Mei)

2. Britain’s liberal intelligentsia has smashed virtually every social value.
   (via Andrew)

BTW with regard to the second article, I disagree with the portion on the “destr[uction of] the traditional nuclear family”.

I think the traditional nuclear family is ONE of the ways in which the problem of “a world where the parent is unwilling or incapable of providing the loving and disciplined framework that a child needs in order to thrive” can be resolved.

Also, I’m advocating a moderate approach to parenting/discipline – it’s okay to ‘let children be’, but at times you really have to rein them in.

Now, my mother is prone to over-reacting, and her first thought was to start crying when she heard the words ‘police’ and ‘your son’.

When I called her back to tell her that the police officers had passed my keys to me, I hung up the phone feeling extremely irritated – and for good reason.

I understand why she was upset, but I don’t think it was justified for her to get so upset over something like this. Plus, this isn’t the first time she has over-reacted to something like this, and she has a tendency to overly-dramatise not-so-significant situations. Most importantly, even if the worse had happened, what good would crying do?

I don’t think I’ll be able to tell her this, because she’ll probably over-react while I am trying to explain all this to her. I don’t know if I’ll have the patience to explain all this to her, either.

But what I am going to do is to bring her to watch this play. Hopefully it might open up some space for us to discuss what happened.

Recalling Mother
Presented by Checkpoint Theatre

Dates: Wed, 26 Aug – Sun, 30 Aug 2009.
Time: 8pm – 9pm.
Venue: ARTSPACE@Helutrans (39 Keppel Road, Tanjong Pagar Distripark #02-04)

In this funny and moving piece written and performed by Claire Wong and Noorlinah Mohamed, two women tell stories about two other women – their mothers – and the complexities of living with (and not living with) Mother.

The performers discuss the genesis of the piece:

“Neither of our mothers has much formal education, but they’re both highly intelligent, capable and strong women. Both are wonderful cooks and love to feed us.

“But they find it difficult to talk to us – and we to them. Neither of them is fluent in English. We, on our part, have only functional abilities in our “mother tongues” – Cantonese and Malay, respectively. So, we get by, functionally. But we can’t share our deepest, most complicated thoughts and ideas to our mothers in a common language.

“Yet through our telling and re-telling of stories about our mothers – and about ourselves with our mothers – we discover a kaleidoscope of memories, and of insights into ourselves, and into that strange, complicated and wonderful relationship that we think almost everyone has with their mother.”

Performed in the intimate setting of an art gallery to an audience of just 80 people per night, Recalling Mother is a unique and engaging theatrical experience. Nuanced, compelling, honest and surprising, Recalling Mother is a celebration of the joys and challenges of motherhood – and daughterhood.

Tickets: $28 (excluding SISTIC booking fee).
Discount of 15% for groups of 15 or more.
Buy your tickets starting August 6th through the SISTIC Website: www.sistic.com.sg, the SISTIC Hotline: (65) 6348 5555 or SISTIC Authorized Agents islandwide.

Supported by Valentine Willie Fine Art.

I think it’s necessary for parents and teachers alike to teach children how to defer gratification, but it’s the ‘how’ which always eludes everyone. I’ve been trying to find activities that teach the above skill but haven’t been very successful so far, though I’ve come across some tips that might be helpful and a good place to start.

Off the top of my head, some games that teach deferred gratification and which come to mind are: Jenga and Simon Says. Anyone has any other suggestions?

1. Don’t have any children, period.
2. If you must have children, for whatever reason(s) you may have:
   • Go for marriage counselling. You’re bringing another life into this world, and you sure as hell better make sure the two of you are emotionally stable enough to handle it.
   • Go for financial counselling. Calculate if you can afford having a child in the first place. Take into account stuff like college, before you even start thinking about what brand of diapers to buy.
   • Go for parenthood counselling. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns, and your child is not going to be perfect. (For the guys who’ve served NS, here’s my favourite analogy: No one is truly PES A.) For the people who want to argue with me, look in the mirror – you’re not perfect yourself.
3. If you’re looking for a marriage, financial or parenthood counsellor, my rates are S$100 for an hour.
4. If you’ve passed all those hurdles successfully, less is more, IMHO, but if you really must, stop at two.
5. Good luck.

ADDENDUM: I don’t want to sound overly-cynical, so I thought I’d mention that of course, I do recognise and acknowledge that parenting can be a joyful experience too. But don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re gonna be a great parent unless you’ve spent your life actively working towards becoming a good one. Of course, you can always come to me so that I can pass my very critical judgement on whether or not I think you’re qualified to be a parent. Cheers.