Days of being "wild"

I was a growing child of the seventies, a dull one. While many people can boast of a childhood with exciting stories like catching guppies in drains, catching spiders among thick bushes, swimming in the well, falling from tree-tops in their kampong homes…I virtually got none. Maybe, got lah…. playing that ridiculous game called “One-leg” in badminton courts or jumping up and down from the double decker bed that daddy bought for me and my older brother.

Maybe my wife might have a more exciting childhood, she grew up in a kampong home near the Bukit Timah hills. From young, I was a product of congested “high-rise” HDB flats. I’ve never flown a kite all my life…. apart from a few pathetic attempts to fly kite from the narrow corridors of the flat I used to live.

I’ve also never learn how to swim or go bike cycling. I guess I’m lousy…I also dropped out of NPCC in my secondary school days. I couldn’t stand the bloody marching. I settled for ku niang ones like chess and book reading. My youth, was limited to reading sleeping, eating, studying, reading Famous Five, Secret Seven and eventually, graduating to reading Agatha Christie’s murder novels. Hercule Poirot was like Sherlock Holmes to me. He could solve almost every darn thing. Damn good.

I still harbour a great deal of regret of not enjoying myself that much when I was young. It’s about as tragic as anyone’s childhood can get. That feeling of irrecoverable loss of being short-changed. I definitely would want my daughter to play as much as she can and stay happy.

I worry for her….must she chalked up an impressive array of extra-curricular activities in school? Must she go for gold, go for all the "A"s academically? Would there be a future if only she can jump higher, run faster, dance that perfect ballet routine, swim faster, score that perfect 10 in everything she does. Furthermore, sing that perfect note.

Things have changed, I mean, in education. I reckon there is a great emphasis on an all-round education by schools. I really shudder, to think that only the fittest kids will survive. That, it is a jungle out there.

I am all for fair play, or rather, the sound principles of fair competition and meritocracy in general. But, would this intense desire to be Number One, degenerate into a cruel rat race. I hope the intense pressure to win would not take away the joys of learning and participation. I hear horror stories of parents doing volunteer work on weekends so as to secure the choice primary school for their kids.

But what else would matter for me as a parent of an eight-month old baby girl. I believe that many others, in my generation, were left alone to stop and smell the roses, to watch TV shows and generally, left alone to indulge in fun and games.

Apart from the mid and year-end examinations, I was basically left alone to my own devices. I had the leisure to just grow up, albeit boring, and also to do things just for the heck of it. I must say I was terrified of my paternal grandfather.

I fear….kiasuism would strike me. So much so that I would thrust a set of Tang dynasty poems for my ah girl to recite. Yah, how could I forget Shakespeare. Not afraid to say, I’m no academic myself. I flunked my “O” levels, retook it and somehow still manage to get a basic degree later in life.

Singing. I also harbour thoughts of my girl to be the latest child singing sensation. What’s wrong with a precocious child emerging as champ in a phone voting competition among tiny tots? What’s wrong if ah girl could sing so well and boasts of a voice that can put adults to shame? I must be mad. Imagine the grueling process that maketh a child star.

It is all just wishful thinking. I’m sure that my wife and myself would only want our ah girl to be happy and to spent an eventful childhood that she can look back fondly. Hey, my infant and childhood years wasn’t that entirely deprived after all. To relive them, I think I could buy and then go fly a kite this weekend. Then again, I could live another childhood through my ah girl and yet stay an earnest adult.