Before I rattle about the above, congratulations to my dearest friend Seri and of course Greg who just had their first bouncy baby boy, Dayan Tay. She called me all the way from Singapore to tell me that it was one of the biggest challenges of her life. It's amazing how some women have easy pregnancy tales to tell while others like me and Seri, doesn't. And I'm sure it's just the start of a long road ahead albeit an exciting and nerve-wrecking ones for the new trio.
That's what been getting me these days... for the lack of an all-encompassing word or holistic word that best describes what we, as parents, are doing for our child(ren).
When we talk about homeschooling our child, that's like being a real teacher and creating a classroom-like atmosphere in the home with your only student and teaching all the subjects (and more) that are taught in school at home . But when your child goes to school and you still do some activities with him at home, what do you call that? I mean I don't supervise any homework for now cos there's none but I do activities that I created myself or in which I feel Afzal should be learning. And even when we are doing the home activities, there's lots of disciplining going on as well. Besides "teaching" or "playing" with him, I'm constantly "nagging", "making him conscious of the consequences of his actions", "giving alternative views and opinions", "telling him what's right and wrong", "inculcate in him what's morally right"...blah, blah, blah and then there is the religious aspect that I'm trying to instil in him, "before you eat, let's say this doa", "before you read your book, let's read this doa", "what do you say when you are full?" etc etc and of course I also would like him to be able to speak, read and write Malay, and if he could also dabble with Mandarin and yadda, yadda, yadda.......so what is the "holistic term" that describes what I am doing with my child?
Guess that's the whole crux of the matter. We are parents and we are parenting our child the best we know how and the best we could...including teaching him his abcs, phonics, maths, general knowledge, his mother-tongue and his culture, his religion, what's right, what's wrong, say thank you and please, asking for orders over the counter, paying money and getting the right change, sleeping in his own bed in his own room etc etc and for new mommies, things that may seem simple like breastfeeding is a whole new learning experience for both mother and child which may turn out great or totally screwed (like mine), and for toddlers even peeing right or not peeing in their pants is a great deal of learning, educating, parenting... aren't these all part of home educating and parenting and schooling? ... so what's the fuss am I kicking? Perhaps Greg, yes that's Seri's hubby, described it best when he said, "I'm from the University of Life". Wouldn't that be something you want to give your child as well? The University of Life. Think about it.
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