Long Hiatus

Punishing Clarisse

It scares me that I have so much power over another person. This I realised after I punish Clarisse for disobeying me (she was being playful and kept on touching Erica's laptop's screen when she was told not to for the enth time). I saw the fear in her eyes, the tears of disappointment on herself for making mom angry. I vowed that the next time there is a need for me to punish her it is because she really was BAD.

So the following day when she's being playful, I tried to keep things in perspective, stopped being such a "fun-police" as hubby likes to call me, and play along with her. We came out both happy.

Life away from parents

I grew up in a culture where grown-up children stays in the same house with their parents almost all their lives. It is also to live with ones parents after getting married. With his parents or her parents is up to the couple. When I moved to Australia, I knew children here moved away from parents when they're 18 normally, sometimes as younger as the legal age allows. I wonder under what circumstances would Clarisse moved out of the family home, how young would she venture out, how would I react. When news about current trends of young people taking longer to move out of the family home emerged due to a few factors such as rising property unaffordability, parents-children relationship are different from the previous generation, I was rooting for those factors would keep Clarisse home when the time arrives.

I saw a brief advertisement of a TV debate show of the pros and cons of children staying in their parents' home longer. I said to myself, how can their be any pros for moving out. It says - children picked up life skills later than earlier when they don't move out. Life skills. What the heck is that. Then I saw it in my brother who just moved to Australia. He's here for almost a month now and I can see his struggles in familiarising this new country and at the same time managing life without parents.

Mom cooks for him/helpers clean up after him. Mom manages the home for him. Dad and mom probably makes mosts if not all of the decisions (of course we're allowed to make decisions on the fringes that involves what type of job i want get into, which weekend i want to go out, and such). Mom and Dad is responsible for any house/car maintenance jobs. Now he has to clean up after himself, decide on some important things that normally occurs to a person on his own.

My friend once proudly said to me "When i was 26 i already had a mortgage." Translated to mean "I was already responsible by age 26." because she made sure she have a proper job that can support her lifestyle, supports her to live in an area that she loves and not what her parents love, can support her to do things or go places she likes.

Life skills - being a responsible adult, making decisions, owning up the consequences of decisions made, improving as a person. I think that is what it all means. I know I'm happier to be living outside the family home. And I think it would be good for Clarisse after all. I won't be in a hurry to push her out of the house in 16 years time but if it's really for her to go then I should come back to this blog and read this entry.