Give them roots and wings

As I was writing this, Samuel threw up in his sleep.  He was to throw up four times in four hours.  He may do it again, and I wonder how much sleep I am going to get tonight.

As I am writing this, I can hear Elkan coughing.  Elkan, my precious PSLE scholar has been having high fever since Saturday and now he is developing a cough.  

The brothers love to be together.  They love to share food. This is a plate of fish meat (with skin) which everyone contributed to Samuel. Any wonder that when one falls sick, another will too?

I should be panicking, since our PSLE weekend cram school syllabus had got to be cut short.  But I feel “zen” about it now. 

These things happen.  I fell sick too, near my ‘A’ levels.  I did not feel much the worse for it.  I mean, if you are sick, you are sick, the earth continues to spin, nobody is going to come and commiserate with you on how you could have done so well in life.  Imagine if you are Michael Phelps, and you fell sick just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics – well that’s just too bad.

I stumbled upon a blog post (Scattered words by Sui Qin) on the same article which I just wrote about (PSLE – Social Leveller).  

I liked all that she wrote but there is a part which I would like to quote:-

“In fact, call me sadistic, but I think exams are a great way to build up a student’s mental strength. I actually feel excited before every exam. The thrill of getting the paper, the thrill of reading the questions set by teachers all get to me. There will be tests in our lives everyday. Why not prepare the students for it, rather than letting them fail when they come face to face to a truly important test in their lives later on?” (emphasis my own)

I wrote briefly about snow-plough parenting earlier on (Allowing my child to fail).

I naturally would be a snow-plough parent.  Left to my own animal instincts, I would do everything that I can do for my child (for example, I sometimes erase errors in their work – they do it too slowly, and not “cleanly” enough).

HOWEVER, the problem is that I have three sons, and I have limited capacity.  So I cannot snow-plough parent.  This weekend is the best example of how I failed to be the snow-plough parent I would love to be.

I would love to spend all my time and energy coaching Elkan and Elias (because Elias is having his SA2 English and MT Paper 1 on the same days Elkan is having his PSLE papers).  But there was nobody to leave Samuel with, because my mother is overseas.  So we had Samuel delighting his brothers with the much desired distraction from studies whenever he came asking to play with either Gor gor Elkan, or Gor gor Elias.  This mother could not snow-plough her own son away.

I had my grand plans of how Elkan will, like a photocopier, memorise enough phrases just in time for his Chinese composition writing, but that has to be changed, because he fell sick! Again, sickness could not be snowploughed away.

Elkan could not sleep as early as he was supposed to tonight, because Samuel kept throwing up in his sleep, getting everyone excited and in a frenzy (“So poor thing leh, Sam”, both Elkan and Elias said).  It would not be right to snow-plough away the sense of concern they have for their brother.

Oh well.

I am glad that the circumstances of my life does not allow me to be a snow-plough parent.  I think it is the better way for the children to grow up.