Bragging Rights

We had an internal game of dart yesterday during lunchtime and I arrived late as I went off to run some errands first. Our group was a bit behind – my poor team mates had to cover for me until I arrived, bless them - but we soon managed to catch up and were neck to neck with our opponent team. We had twenty more points to finish when it was my turn again. ‘Finish it, Adek,’ said a chap and I turned to the board to find the slice of the board with 10 points to aim my arrow at, squinting hard and asking aloud as I tried to locate it.

I took an aim and would you believe it, I immediately hit a perfect double 10! A brief stunned silence followed before we realised that I’d won the game for our team and the next minute I was shrieking and jumping up and down! (Yes, I am shamefully capable of public self-congratulatory celebration).

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I met my mate’s teenage daughter last week – this wasn’t our first meeting – and she told my mate that I looked.like.a.kid. Oh, what a boost to my ego indeed, to be told I look not only much younger than my age but like a kid instead of an adult (and err, I do behave like one sometimes too instead of as an adult). It is one thing to hear your mates and colleagues say that you look young but it’s quite another thing to know a teenager thinks the same too.

Yes, I am vain. Pardon me, but please allow me to cling on to this feeling of indulgence for a little bit more. (That SK-II does work wonders after all if I am a living proof - and it’d better after all I paid for it!).

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I’ve always known that people have children for various different reasons – the natural consequence of marriage; to fulfil others’ expectations (parents, parents and siblings in-laws, society, spouse); as bargaining power to ensure the spouse/partner stays in the marriage (sounds more like blackmail to me); to ensure their lineage will continue; to accept responsibility for their irresponsible action (by this, I’m referring to those who have children out of wedlock); or even to save another child (think those conceived to be bone marrow donors for their leukaemia-stricken siblings).

I was reading the book My Sister’s Keeper and it made me wonder whether such an act (conceiving a child to save another) is ethically correct and morally acceptable. At the same time, it also made me realise that parents will do anything to save their children and will take any risks so long as their ill children can be made better and as long as they can spend more time with their children. But I can also understand why Anna filed the lawsuit for the right to her body even though she loved her sister.

So there are many reasons why people have children. What I don’t understand are –
- why some people have children and yet are so unnecessarily fierce and strict with their kids (I had the misfortune of witnessing some parents scolding their children angrily and loudly in public a few times);
- why some parents neglect their children (to pursue other activities, having extra-marital affairs, placing work above family, or indulging in drugs, alcohol or gambling); and
- why some parents seem indifferent to their children (too self-absorbed in own problems or feel their spouse loves the children more).

And yes, some have children so that they can ‘live’ through their children – by imposing their unfulfilled dreams and ambitions on their kids – and claiming bragging rights too by bragging on and on about their children’s achievement.

Yea, there are smug married people and there are bloody smug parents too.