Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Rabbit Parents

hi all!


I know that Zhebin has broached this subject before but I am pissed. Really really pissed.

Pls don’t have kids if you
1) Just like the sex ie. You cant wait for the condom to be worn before you got down to business.
2) Are Too young ie. You are still beholden to a Principal who sent you for detention for dying your hair.
3) Are Poor ie. You live off your parents and what you make can only feed you alone or less. Worse, you are unemployed and have sex with your gf/bf to pass the time.
4) Are seeing a married man.
5) Aren’t prepared. And this counts in all those who are pro-life ie, die die also don’t abort the child, must keep it becos of religion, moral, ethics etc.
6) Are violent. Having a kid won’t make a man start thinking pink elephants and tune down his anger, ok? Having a kid also won’t solve your depression in a marriage going downhill OR make him come back. If you can think like that, you’ll need to see a counselor. You are obviously more disturbed than you think.

You know why I’m suddenly talking about this? Becos of the Saturday edition of the Straits Times. The whole day started innocently enough with lil’ sick me watching Jimmy Neutron and Spongebob on TV, then bad choice, I had to pick up the papers and start reading the back issues.

Pages and pages of kids being introduced. Their background, their poverty, the lack of space in the house, the lack of privacy, the lack of education, the lack of parental guidance, the lack of love, the lack of food.

I can go on forever: the lack of a table to eat and do homework, the lack of a quiet environment, the lack of communication, the lack of everything that a child should be provided with.

Perhaps as you are reading this, you may think that I’m being too much. You may think that while some kids do have less, they are being brought up to understand that money is very important. If you are thinking like this, then pls go back and read the papers, I have no time for you.

The thing that really gets me furious, that really got me mad, was the recurring action the kids make in every one of these articles:

They load themselves with lots of tap water to tamp down their hunger pangs. During recess, during dinner, when they sleep.

Pls tell me this isn’t right, that no one should have to do this.

Because I’ve done it. And stupidly I did it because there were chocolate chip cookies in the bloody fridge but I didn’t want to brush my teeth again while preparing for bed. So I drank water. I remembered how the water bloated me and rolled all over the tummy and made me toss and turn in bed. i subsisted like this for a few yrs, when somehow at around 1030, my stomach will start to rumble.

And while the thought of putting anything in my mouth makes me faintly nauseous after all the water, it doesn’t stop the hunger and the feeling of emptiness. I hated that feeling and reading all these articles brought these feelings back to me. To know that these kids had to do it, not by choice but by necessity and having to do it every single meal-time irks me.

I hate feeling upset over social-economics, I hate feeling angry over stupidity. Because why these kids have to be read about in the news is due to their parents’ stupidity.

Example no. 1 and this is not the exact one taken from the newspaper, it is certainly like a summary of most the stories combined:

Mum marries dad and have 3 kids. Mum divorces cos dad beats her. Mum works to bring those kids up. Up till here, I was thinking, fine, wow! Brave woman! Then…mum meets another guy. Guy becomes step-dad. Then mum and step-dad have ANOTHER 2 kids. Now five kids squashed in small flat. Mum stops working to look after kids. Then step-dad loses job. Becomes violent. A family of seven squished in a small flat filled with anger matches and fights.

Example no 2:

Mum married Married man and had 4 kids. Married man went back to his country to his own kids and wife. Mum works as menial labour to bring them up. Met another guy, married him and had a MORE kids. Step-dad became abusive and they divorced. Last count: 6 kids,1 parent and no money.

Example no. 3:

Parents hold proper jobs like sale personnel and admin. Have 3 kids, but all foist onto the grandma. Every month, both parents rather spend on buying new handphones, pay for their extravagant phone bills, get gadgets and MP3 players and CDs and watch movies, rather than pay for the babies, diapers, milk powder, clothes and their education. Get subsidies from the gov’t.


After reading about these articles, I have come to a few conclusions and I shall be nasty about it:

These parents are uneducated. I don’t mean education as in go to school and get your Ns and Os and As paper. I mean education as in condoms, contraceptives and the simple mind exercise of actually bringing yourself to think a bit further than your current situation. To them, life is a tunnel-vision, they cannot see the horizion, they only see 1 pinprick of light. They don’t plan what to do and how to do and where to go, they just go with the flow, just drift along. Spend now and heck the future. Oh dear, I’m pregnant. Again. Let me cum in you, we won’t be so suey. Mum, I love him and I want to marry him. In any case, there’s always divorce.


These parents don’t love their kids, they love having them, but they don’t love them. If you love your kids, u’d want the best for them, at the expense of your own happiness, yes? Then why is this kid having to drink tap water just to fill his tummy and yet watch you balloon every single year to give him a brother or a sister who will only fight for his food and make him drink more water so he can give up his share? Why must there be so many kids???!!! Most couple I know stop at 2 or 3 and they are already strapped for cash and these people earn 2-5 times more already, so why doesn’t the mums from these examples just stop producing? They are like, like, rabbits!!! They can’t stop rearing!


Don’t give some crap about the joy of motherhood, the look of these cute babies when they were young.


Pls see that each and every one of these children are not like pets, they are not bunnies! They have a life span of 60 and above and are entitled to at least have 3 square meals, a proper education, clothes on their back until 18, and this is only the logistics. How about the emotional needs? To at least let them have something to be proud of? To pick up their heads? A form of self-respect? Like ‘I may not have books, but my mum stopped her handphone subscription just so that we have the money to buy newspapers everyday/every other day/every weekend.’ In case you don’t know, a monthly subscription of the Straits Time/Lianhe zaobao/ hand delivered to your home at 7am in the morning is $23/month, less if you just buy off the stands everyday. Or ‘I don’t have $2 for pokemon cards, but I’ve got $2 for recess.’ Rather than, ‘ay, buddy, you have money to spare, my dad used the last dollar to buy toto.’


if you can't provide for them, then DON'T!


Finally, I’m going to say something really bad right now. It’s bad because it’s my honest-to-goodness opinion and because nobody likes to be told the obvious. If nothing new is done and no effort is made, then poverty literally begets poverty. Poor people birth more kids than they can handle. This is absolutely inherent in all the examples in the newspaper and in this entry, baring the one example where poverty is a result of a fatal accident or illness of the parent.


If one is poor and one has just 1 or 2 kids, then things would really be less taxing, won’t it? Compared to 4-6 kids? In fact, another article in the Times has another example like this: Dad and mum have 1 kid. Combine income, after CPF, after house loan, after ultilities, household expenses etc etc, enough to get by. Then couple wants to have another kid. Now got two kids. Dad tells mum to stop work and rest. Income cut by one-third and family member increase by one-third. That's half the pay for per member of the family.

At this point, things would have gotten worse (I truly believe) because this couple wanted to have FIVE kids, but heng heng, they signed up for this Home Ownership Scheme where, in order to enjoy $50,000 off their HDB loan, they must agree to stop after 2 kids. In fact, it is legally binding only if the mother went for ligation to tie herself up.

Can you not see what I saw? The gov’t itself believe that poverty is perpetuated by breeding more than one can care for and that poverty itself, breeds more than it should. The whole deal is in 2 parts. Why does the gov’t give this scheme to low-income groups and not to high-income groups? Why ask us to have more kids and give more babies and still have this scheme to stop low-income groups from having more? Why not tell high-income couples to stop at 2?

Because low income couples tend towards birthing more babies and more babies by low-income people increases the poverty line and create more poverty-stricken adults.

If you still want to argue, then think 3rd world countries versus Japan and Europe.

Everyone loves to hide behind words like ‘stereotyping’ and point accusing fingers, saying that not all examples are like these and that there are others who have successfully emerged as winners through poverty and hardship. Of cos there’s always a hero in every category. Of cos there is always the winner in all these examples.


But I am talking, not about them, but about the normal, the majority, the 99.99% of the rest of those water-imbibing kids. I am talking about the kids who need help, who cannot but feel terrible about themselves, whose tummies rumble even when it’s packed with water! I am thinking for them!


So never never ever ever have kids when you are poor! only have kids when you are truly prepared! Prepared meaning a proper shelter, a nest of savings wholly for the child, insurance and RESPONSIBILITY. Don't let your kids be bunnies!



argghhhhhh!!!!!!!


out!
AKK

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just reminds me of someone I know.. she said she wanted to have many kids because having one or two would be too lonely.

It irked me to hear such a shallow reason. Clearly, there's more to raising a kid than just that. grr

F¡яєвџяN said...

kids are fun actually, dun you think so?:)

Wallace said...

wow, i can feel your anger... Sometime ago I would have bothered about this, but nowadays, I don't care. Its not my concern what other people do - I ain't the prime minister, and I probably can't do anything about influencing poor people not to have babies.

What I can do, however, is to have MORE babies. hahaha.. time to sow some seeds...

Ang Ku Kueh said...

milktea:

i really hope she's not poor and comfortably well-off.....

fire:

hmm? i never said kids aren't fun. i'm on their side. they are more fun when they are nourished and in a happy environment. having lots of them, but starving them isn't fun for them and having lots of them just for fun is wrong also.

wally:

yes yes. heng u are ok and can manage, but are u sure your other half wants so many or to give up her path to look after them? becos seriously hor, money and no time will amount up to the same thing.

ah fatt's fan:

well, i actually think they are very astute to creat this kind of scheme to help. if they didn't, the couple would have birthed more kids no? and also, sad to say, it is a social-econ issue, something that all gov't have to deal with with taxpayer's money, hehehehe...no choice.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I read those reports and feel amazed by why those people wanna have more kids when they don't have the money to bring them up.

And what's worse was this couple in which the woman has got damn painful and heavy periods that don't seem to stop. So they resort to having kids to stop the pain. In the end, they have like what? 16 kids? And no money of course. Had to cramp in this tiny little house and stuff. Till this got reported on the wan3 bao4 and the woman went for treatment.

I was so damn angry over it. Just 'cause the woman wanna stop her pain, she brought 16 kids into this world who will suffer more pain physically, emotionally and psychologically? wah piang eh. these people are nuts I tell you.

Adrenaline said...

Unfortunately, one of the most common reasons why these "poor" people have so many kids is because they enjoy the process of making kids. Enjoy first, think later.

Then when the woman is pregnant, no money to get an abortion. So they become poorer and poorer.

And u were a very lazy kid, eh? heheh ...

Dark Prince said...

Would you say countries with GPDs less than a peanut should stop producing children for the time being until the children can be raised at our standard of living? Propagation of your own species is a godgiven(for the lack of a better word, even though i'm agnostic), primal right, and mechanisms from millions of years of evolution ensures it.

On the issues of what constitutes child abuse and maltreatment, some might say it boils down to a problem of morality. Moral values naturally differ from country to country. Then again, in some the world's less well off countries, social services systems are simply not there to protect the basic human rights of children. Personally, I share your view that children should be taken care of to the best of the parents' ability. But somewhere else across the world, children and women are simply loved(or not)possessions. Can you justly say your and my values apply globally, around the world, and internationally? I couldn't help putting the bushjoke, but I suppose my point is clear.

If you really believe only well to do folks should have children, you are dangerously toeing the line, across which lies the philosophically scorched and barren realm of eugenics. Stay far far away from that line. I plead you. No seriously, I beg you. Before anyone calls you neo-nazi. I'd be damn scared if there was an eugenicist biologist running about trying to shrink our gene pool.

ivanny said...

YES!!! this article proves my point that we all shouldn't have kids just so that they wont suffer in this world after life has been given to them, like we did!

and i absolutely can't stand children... so thou shall never have kids! lol...

Ang Ku Kueh said...

ollie:


it's a headlong course of action that is being replayed again and again just becos an alternative cannot be thought of.

adrenaline:

you are right, the process of doing without thinking.

winter:

you'll see that I deliberately left out the example where the breadwinner encounteres a 'fatal accident or illness'. I am very careful with the things I say, even when it is in anger. my point has never been about good parents who are poor, but kids who are neglected.

dark prince:

a very long discourse and I thank you for your thoughts. I think you have missed the point of my entry. my entry specifically points to irresponsible parents who give birth to more kids than they can care for. if a man is capable to feeding all 6 of his kids, it's fine with me. i'm talking about the man who already can't feed one kid, but manages to beget 5 more when there is NO REASON to (ie. no farmland to work on).

and er, i agree it's mostly a moral issue. afterall, a child is born utterly helpless and is human as you and me. just becos somewhere else in the world treat their women and kids like property doesn't mean that just becos the whole country is a big majority, i should try to understand and accept that they can do anything to their women and kids just becos they rightfully own them. it is like saying that slavery is accepted.

as to the word 'well-to-do', pls note I've not used that word in my entry, only the word 'poor'. because well-to-do can be defined by different degrees by different people. you may say that the word 'poor' is also in different degrees, but i've already made myself clear what i mean by 'poor'. 'poor' simply means you cannot AFFORD to have the child. i'm not saying that only well-to-do ppl have kids, the 2 points are not mutually exclusive. cannot afford means cannot afford, very simple. affordability, of cos, pertaining to the economics of different countries. if you need 10x the amount of money to raise a kid in country A than you would to raise a kid in country B, does that mean B-ian can have 10 kids? of cos! if the B-ian is earning the amount the A-ian is and is staying in country B. if B-ian is staying in country A, he can only afford 1 kids....so what's this about neo-nazi or eugenics? u are thinking too far off and boxing me up along with ppl who are radical elitist. I'm not elitist, I'm thinking for the kids and I'm asking ppl to be responsible for their actions. as for shrinking the gene pool, u are way off mark. fricking poverty is not GENES-shrink what pool? I am asking for the human's basic ability to think, to ponder! the consequences of their actions! It's inherent in all of us to think and project, no? it's not a variable genetic trait, it's INHERENT and present in all homo sapiens, no? becos we can think and predict and project? Some parents have kids for FUN and nothing else. Well, I'm asking them to act like humans and think, and not procreate just becos the heat is on and behave like rabbits!

neo-nazi and eugenics, you CHOI! if u ever accuse me of such a thing, you've not read the entry carefully at all! since when does a heartfelt plea to tell parents to get their act together to improve the well-beings of starving, under-cared-for kids be labelled under such ugliness! aarrgghh!!! Afford it, go and birth away, cannot afford it, DON'T, where the hell is it controversial??!!!

ivanny:

hahahah....u careful lah, sweeping statements like opening can of worms, man. actually, i think this world is still good and beautiful.

Zhe Bin said...

AKK: I can fully understand each and every word you say. You know sometimes, I read the papers, with regards to most articles, I tend to feel a lil something. I just can't treat it as though it is just an article. True, it may be that I'm kpo, and that I have nothing better to do, but at least I am not entirely unfeeling. Despite that I am someone v.野蛮. Haha.

Dark Prince: Let's not compare ourselves and other countries. Because the environment the kids are brought up in are vastly different. Imagine a Singapore kid has to make himself full by drinking water, whereas all the other kids are leaving behind large portions of Happy Meal unfinished. Then those in poorer countries are ALL looking for food. Of course, that particular kid was borned that way. He lived all his life searching for food with other kids. He might feel hungry as well, yes, but that Singapore kid has to deal with looking at others eat.

For our country it's different. Cos there's this gap. And it's this gap AKK is highlighting here. It is v.much this education thing she's talking about.

Ang Ku Kueh said...

zhebin:

i stopped reading the papers for a while during my teens, when i was pretty angsty, becos i know i shall get all upset and worked-up by ppl i dun know. i so much more mellow now, but it still pinches sometimes.

Dark Prince said...

:) Didn't say I wasn't on your side though. Always good to disclaim a lot of things as you go along when writing more emotional pieces. It's just that I think in terms of why things are done, instead of why things are wrong. Personally I fight for youth rights and sufferage, and I can relate to what you're saying. All in all, it is very commendable that you do not exhibit apathy like most others, and take the effort to write on the issue. It is in my very personal opinion however, that your writing might reach further and be less inhibitive if it was presented in a more objective and less emotionally-charged manner.

I thank you on behalf of young people and all those who remember being young, for caring.
Huang Lu (17 years of age)

Finsology said...

How insightful... I read one disturbing blog of this fat ugly girl once that she has a dream of becoming a mother at 17. In the blog, she gave her you know, away to her ugly skinny boyfriend and assumes she'd be pregnant.

And the boyfriend who is still serving our nation told her that if she IS pregnant, to abort cause he can't raise the kid (at least not at his or her age).

Girl blogs entries and entries about how she's be a great mummy and how she was disappointed that boyfriend doesn't want kid. She disgustingly mentions she was the one who insisted on getting herself pregnant before marraige just so she can reach her target.

This is a true excerpt from a local blogger, who canot write proper sentences one.

Uneducated? Itchy down there? Or plain senseless? I think all lah.

Ang Ku Kueh said...

dark prince:

'more objective' and 'less....emotionally charged'. i believe this is the reason why i never studied social sciences or law, because telling me to write objectively and to tone down my obvious biasness for intellect and self-conscience is too much work for me.

I can never be objective about such issues, because I already have a firm stand. why should I try to make excuses or to analyze in detail why parents choose to do things irresponsibly? why should I think for them and create fake sympathy when I only care all about the children?

it is no longer acceptable that these parents or society should create excuses for the existence of these uncared-for kids. perhaps that the main culprit should be the lack of education? that education basically teaches human project and mental exercises? or perhaps backgrd? social standing?

i'm not writing to find out the causes, there can be many many causes, from poverty to low IQ. but you know what? if i write those, ppl are going to just snatch that one useless word out of a whole meaningful sentence and start saying i'm elitist, radical, unfair yadda yadda yadda. it is so easy for ppl to get indignant and in their indignance to prove a point, they focus on the one word or phrase that once out of context, still fits their purpose.

i'm not talking about the causes that lead to ppl doing such things, I talk about the EFFECTS. when u see the effects (ie kids suffer), then you cannot be objective or empathsise with the parents (ie causes) anymore.

i do have an openmind. i am totally ok about single-parenthood, divorces, multiple marriages and all those stuff, as long as ppl don't get hurt. when ppl get hurt, then it's just wrong, simple as that. don't make excuses or analyse anymore, becos wrong is wrong is wrong.

oh yah, as to reaching further, i don't think i can liao. you are 17 only, full of verve and passion. I think that's good. i used to read up on religions, from Islam to Christianity to Buddhism, so that missionaries will find me a difficult contender to convert because i am well-informed and happy in my own faith. i can be objective and see the goodness in all of them, but i am firm in my standing that my faith is best for me and that others have their own. i hope that in order to be more objective, you will not lose your original standpoint and that your stands are informed decisions garnered from real facts and figures and real works and from all sources, so that no one can sway you from your arguement. this is what I wish for you in your fight for youth and human rights.

i am really glad that we are having this conversation, to know that someone out there is actively doing something about it. are you involved in any society? like amnesty, WWF, RFF or anything similar? if so and you need any help for word-spreading, i shall do my part by putting them up here if they fit. :)

averil:

we are all made differently. some ppl tend to be very personable and full of ideals and made their life by them. this blogger seems to want babies alot to a point of obsession. it may not just be irresponsibilty anymore, it may just be a mental illness. but then, since i never read it, i cannot say so much.

Anonymous said...

My parents are rabbits too!

From the house rabbit