Sheer joy of parenting

 What the writer and his wife love about being parents is that their children have enhanced their lives in so many ways

To the writer and his wife, parenthood is their greatest achievement although they have experienced difficult trials along the way.

FINANCIAL reasons is the normal excuse given by some who are not willing to have children. This is shocking.

Sure, having kids will affect our budget but that should not be the reason for not having children, or at least one child. To those who do not want to have children, I have reasons to change your mind.

When my wife, who was then earning as much as I did, decided to forego her job as a bank officer and concentrate on being a mother, it was our decision to prioritise our children’s upbringing rather than focus on our financial standing. We knew then that we really had to tighten our belts, but with careful planning, we survived.

Nothing else can produce the joy that parenthood offers. I can’t imagine going through life without feeling that spectrum of emotions. Feeling it all, good and bad, gives our lives as a married couple more purpose and challenges.

There is the pure joy of just watching our children be kids and reliving all those first moments when they discover how to do things on their own. Their smiles, giggles and pride in new accomplishments, even though some may be mischief in nature, were a sheer pleasure to watch.

As the sole income earner in the family, I could have had the worst day at work, but to come home and listen to our children, discuss their day with my wife, or to overhear them giggle while playing or watching television makes the worst day disappear.

I was 33 when I had my first kid. Though my first child wasn’t born normal, having children was such a life-altering experience. My wife and I were always looking for a purpose in our lives and when we had our children, we found it.

We love being parents. Seeing them do well in their studies and behaviour-wise, we know we are doing right thus far. That doesn’t mean we don’t have our share of mistakes but we are better persons for knowing our children and are very honoured to be their parents.

My wife and I love being parents because of the hugs, giggles and grins. When our kids are happy, so are we. As they grew, they amazed us every day with their new words, behaviour and discoveries. They have taught us to be more patient, more loving and much more appreciative of every moment we have together as a family.

Parenthood is a joy. Even while experiencing the hardest trials of our lives, we have learned to rise to all occasions. We’ve found ourselves lifted to new heights while stretching ourselves beyond our limits once we put it upon ourselves to guide them. With rarely a dull moment, we’ve experienced more adventures from parenting our children than we ever imagined.

Parenthood is our life, our passion and our greatest achievement. We also love watching our kids evolve into empathetic, kind human beings who can think for themselves, like spending their money thriftily and being involved in various school activities. You don’t realise the progress until far down the road but the wait is so worthwhile.

We don’t deny that parenthood is a hectic life filled with schedules, diaper changes, feedings, spendings and much more. There are so many things we love about being parents, but the one that stops us dead in our tracks is when each of our children turn to us and say, “Ayah Mi” (referring to me) and “Mak” (referring to my wife).

We love the fact that when our children were growing up to be adults, we were beside them every step of the way, teaching, helping, moulding and loving them.

Life may be great for those who do not want to have children but life will be even better once they have been blessed to become parents.

What we love about being parents is that our children have enhanced our lives in so many ways. We are a better husband, a better wife, better employees, neighbours, relatives and friends. We would rather have our worst days with our kids than to have our best days without them.

By DR ARZMI YAACOB

Shy boys given rooms to grow as they are lagging girls

 

Schoolboys do relaxation exercises in an all boys class at the government-run Shanghai Number Eight High School. Shanghai, whose school system produces the world's top test-scorers, has launched China's first all-boys high school program with an eye on elite overseas institutions like Eton. Source: AFP

SHANGHAI: Teenage boys in a Shanghai school are on the front line of teaching reform after the world's top-scoring education system introduced male-only classes over worries they are lagging girls.

Rows of white-shirted boys are put through their paces as they are called up individually to complete a chemical formula by teacher Shen Huimin, who hopes that a switch to male-only classes will help them overcome their reticence.

"We give boys a chance to change," she said.

The Shanghai school system topped the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) worldwide assessment tests of 15-year-olds in 2009, the most recent available, ahead of Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

But even so officials are concerned that some male students may be slower than their female counterparts in development and certain academic areas, such as language, and the shift towards single sex classes aims to boost boys' confidence.

Girls do better than boys in secondary school across the developed world, an OECD report found.

A prominent Chinese educator, Sun Yunxiao, found the proportion of boys classed among the top scholars in the country's "gaokao" university entrance exams plunged from 66.2 percent to 39.7 percent between 1999 and 2008.

Across the developed world, girls do better than boys in secondary school, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) found in a 2009 report on the educational performances of 15-year-olds.

"There are significant gender differences in educational outcomes," it said, adding that high school graduation rates across the OECD were 87 percent for girls but only 79 percent for boys.

In response, Shanghai's elite Number Eight High School is halfway through the initial year of an experiment, putting 60 boys into two classes of their own - a quarter of its first-year students - and teaching them with a special curriculum.

Schoolboys solve a math problem in an all boys class at the government-run Shanghai Number Eight High School in Shanghai.

 "This is a big breakthrough," said principal Lu Qisheng. "There's lots of hope - hope that boys will grow up better.

"Boys when they are young do not spend enough time studying," he explained. "Boys' maturity, especially for language and showing self-control, lags behind girls."

-- "We lack confidence" -

China shut most same-sex schools after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, and the only all-boys junior high schools in the country are privately run.

The number of male students scoring top marks in China's university entrance exams has plunged from 66 per cent to 49 per cent

Shanghai does have an all-girls state-run high school, the former McTyeire School for Girls, which marked its 120th anniversary last year and counts the three Soong sisters - Qing-ling, Ai-ling and Mei-ling - among its former pupils.

Between them they married two leaders and an industrialist. Qing-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China, while Mei-ling wed Chiang Kai-shek, who would also later become president.

Student Li Zhongyang, 15, said he felt less shy about answering questions in his all-boys class, but drew hoots of laughter from his fellows by suggesting an absence of girls let them concentrate more on study.

"We lack confidence," he said. "The teachers like girls, who answer more questions in class. This programme lets us realise we are not worse than girls."

It is something of a contrast to males' traditionally dominant roles in Chinese culture, but principal Lu said the programme "doesn't have much relationship to equality in society".

The scheme was launched after China's government called for more "diversification" in educational choices within the state system.

A Peking University professor has called for an even bolder reform, suggesting in September that boys should start school one or two years later than girls.

"The Chinese education system needs to improve and allow various education methods," Wu Bihu said on his microblog. Now Lu hopes to create China's first all-boys school one day.

"Ten or twenty years ago, there was no need for an all-boys class - just put everyone together," he said.

In an increasingly aspirational society, he added, some families saw the new programme as having connotations of top overseas private schools, and so promising an advantage in the highly competitive gaokao.

"The parents know: England has Eton," he said. - AFP