4th
When I recall my childhood days, I would always remember how garang my mom used to be. We both (my sister and I) would be afraid of her if we did something wrong, or we watched too much TV, or during the times after school where we had to do our homework together, or during one of her spot checks of our bags and she found incomplete homework or anything wrong. When it comes to the important things like reading and writing and doing chores and obeying our parents, my mother was very strict. She was the one who taught us both how to read and write. There was no compromise when it comes to schoolwork. We had to turn off the TV, sit together and finish our work. If we already finished our work my mom would revise with us whatever it is we learned in school that day. I remember this one incident where both my sister and I were watching too much TV so my mom switched it off and sat us both down and we had to study together. My mom would question me the times table (dulukan kena hafal2…satu kali satu satu, satu kali dua dua, satu kali tiga tiga, bla…bla..bla…). Kalau tak ingat sure kena marah cos byk kali dah diajar. That time mmg otak asyik tgh ingat nak tgk Jem and the Holograms jer (hahahahahahahahahah…siapa ingat???) so times table ntah ke mana sumer… sumer benda luper… Kena marah lahhh… pas tuu nangissss…I’m the youngest, so I admit mmg manja laa… so bila nangis tuu mesti over sampai muntah2 sumer….hahahahahah…..
But at the same time I also remember my mom to be super protective of us. And she is also the type who would openly show her affections to us. She makes sure she kisses us and hugs us (sampai dah besar dah kawin dah beranak ni pun). I remember this one incident at the pool in the apartment that we were living in this one old lady who complained to the lifeguard on duty that my sister and I were splashing around too much! Padahal we were in the kiddies section and that old lady had the deep section all to herself! My mom punyalah marah bcos tak pasal2 that old lady nak complain2 pasal anak2 dia (my mom thinks that old lady just purely didn’t like anyone who wasn’t as white as her)…So she confronted the old lady herself! Takut org tuu… hahahahahahaa…
My mom (and dad) did everything right with us. Her balance of being garang and loving and protective during our childhood instilled a strong foundation inside of us. So in our teens, even though we lived far apart from our parents, we had enough respect for them as parents that we still asked them for permission to sleepover at our friends place, or to go out past curfew or to go out to concerts with our friends ;-) even though we didn’t have to. They lived far away, any other rebellious teenager would just do what they want and come home at any time they wanted to with no parents to monitor.
As we got older, my mom relaxed bit by bit. She wasn’t as garang as she used to be. We could talk to her like adults. She knew our (then) boyfriend(s) and trusted us enough to know our limits. She is still as protective as ever and would defend us whenever we needed her.
My point to this is I just hope that I can be at least half the mom that she is. I hope I can instill the same strong family values to my child(ren). I think that my mom is the greatest mom ever and I just hope that when my child(ren) are my age, they would feel the same way about me.