On the way back from Penang I stopped by my old haunt and visited with three old friends from my mothers' group eons ago.
We had lunch at a new noodle joint and chatted. Aida just came back from Harbin. She has had long standing problem with depression. Lately she is much better than many years ago. After all, her husband has chosen to return to this country after being away for at least 25 years abroad as an ex-pat manager.
Sheila was an IT expert turned homemaker since her husband makes a good living. She is a meticulous house keeper. While she was on the way to Aida's house after lunch, the latter mentioned that Sheila takes prescription drug to ward against panic attacks. I was shocked. While I have known for some time that she has had neurological concerns, I didn't realize that she was not coping with prolong stress.
Carrie is a very vocal and sociable person. She is bubbly and cheerful. However, my husband and I had lunch with her hubby not too long ago and Carrie's darling mentioned that she was having fits over the elder son's sabbatical break. We know that the young man was working while waiting to be accepted into graduate school. He was working in a completely different field to earn money for further studies. I can well understand the kind of strain he was under, working long hours in something he has absolutely no interest in. If he wanted a three-month break before another job or continuing his education, it is to be expected.
While I want to know how Carrie's elder son is doing, I did not want to bring up the explosive topic. I asked Aida and Sheila instead. Neither of them knew about the issue. Aida mentioned that her own problem was much worse than what Carrie faced. Aida's elder daughter has been working at a job that does not pay a living wage even though the young lady graduated as a medical tech. After much advertisement Aida sent to her daughter, the latter summoned Aida and husband for a conference. The daughter lives in a house the parents owned three hours away from the family home. For Chinese, such family meetings usually centred around a meal. The three some had lunch in a private room in a nice restaurant. Mom Aida walked out of the room to take an important call, she came back and saw her daughter crying.
The long and short of it was darling daughter wanted to leave that town and get a job in Singapore. She complained that her mum had been harassing her about resigning from her much loved job. Dad has been subsidising where her pay was not enough for her living standard. She has given notice and would leave that job at the end of the month. Now mom is the bad person that caused all the problem. Aida was very cool about it, she encouraged her husband to take a vacation with the daughter concerned. After all, the person who brought up children is usually the bad guy, the parent away seemed the good guy. She seemed to take all these in her stride, it is all in a day's work. It's quite ok her daughter is without a job. It's quite ok for her daughter to work any where she fancies, after all the girl is twenty five years old.
What I can't understand is why three women I spent 12 years with, relatively stable persons, all end up needing psychiatric medication after age 50. They are all good wives, good mothers and good friends to me. I suppose I am very fortunate that I have no complaints about any of my children. Neither do I need tranquilizer to get through the day and sleeping pill at night. Parenting could be hazardous.
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