Q: The family dilemma - any suggestions?

Hi guys, since my blog has become rather popular of late thanks to some Facebook groups, I'd thought I'd share a dilemma I have right now and see if you guys may give me a little more insight into the situation. My regular readers will know that my nephew is autistic but in a normal primary school. He is going to be in primary four next year and let's just say that when it comes to his studies, he's barely getting by. I almost find myself having to having to remind you that he's doing pretty well for a autistic kid - but then I have to remind myself that he lives in Singapore. It's not the kind of country that is particularly kind of people with any kind of learning disabilities.

Frankly, I don't give a damn what he does at primary school - I say, the kid should be out having fun, he should be doing sports, camping, playing with other kids rather than going for maths tuition. Nothing is really important until it is time for him to do his O levels, but my parents are really stressed out about his grades - well, they are retired primary school teachers who want to help out, as grandparents. I find myself constantly telling my mother to chill out and relax, that these primary school exams don't mean a thing but to no avail.

Frankly, who gives a shit about this? Apart from Primary school teachers?

The way I see it - my mother is nearly 70 and she feels totally lost in a world which is all about Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and iPhones. But next to my autistic nephew, aha, suddenly she is the wise old teacher who has all the answers. She feels very intelligent and clever when teaching my nephew - who is a difficult kid with severe learning difficulties. Don't get me wrong, my mother couldn't be a better miracle worker when it comes to my nephew - but recently, I think she has taken this role just a bit too seriously. She's said things like, "Your nephew will only respond to me, you can't just hand him over to any other tuition teacher out there! Only I can do this very difficult job, no one else!" (Sorry, but I don't agree with her - she is exaggerating. Her English isn't that good to begin with.)

Now my parents have a group of friends - mostly retired teachers as well, all around the same age - who travel together on holidays. They want to go to Sri Lanka next March and since I've been to Sri Lanka, they asked me what I thought of Sri Lanka. Of course I told them to go, it's brilliant, I enjoyed Sri Lanka! It's a great country, it's such an adventure. And then my mother checked the dates and said, "no I can't go, it is not during school holidays, who's going to give your nephew tuition?" Duh. Don't these other retired teacher friends of yours have grandchildren too?

Sri Lanka is absolutely fascinating!

I immediately spoke to my sister about it and she was like, huh? What difference would it make if the boy  didn't have tuition for a week - we all told my mum, please lah, if you want to go on holiday, please just go lah. Please go and 去享受享受, have a great time. Even if the boy really needs help whilst you're away, we'll find a way to cope whilst you're on holiday. Heck, it's the primary 4 syllabus at the end of the day, duh. - it's not exactly rocket science is it? Besides, it'll be in March - its not during his exams anyway. But no, she would hear nothing of it, she was adamant that his studies were more important than some holiday and she knew her priorities. And we're like - whaaaat? Are you joking? Good grief.

This put me in a moral dilemma. I don't have a problem with my mother taking on this "tuition mission" to give her life a sense of purpose (she is after all, retired - y'know, whatever makes her happy) but good grief, is she taking it way too seriously? After all, I know for a fact that my dad does want to go on this Sri Lanka trip - but he said to me, "Aiyoh, 如果她不去，我怎么能去呢？" (If she doesn't go, how can I possibly go?) My dad is 74 - he's not young any more. If he doesn't go to Sri Lanka now, would he ever go? He has said to me whilst we were on holidays last year in Indonesia that he wanted to travel a bit more whilst he can still walk unaided, before he becomes too old and frail. Yet being such a devoted husband, he would never ever go on that trip without my mum - he is sensitive to her feelings, whilst she said, "if your father wants to go, he can always go without me."

Would my dad go to Sri Lanka without my mother?

I do think that he is holding back because he doesn't speak English and in a place like Sri Lanka, I know he would depend on my mother to be his translator. So my older sister (not the mother of my nephew, but my other sister) announced that she has signed up for that Sri Lanka trip, so my dad can go with her - that means she can effectively be his Mandarin-English translator. Still, my dad said he wouldn't go on that trip unless my mum agreed to come along.

Between my mum and my dad, I know my dad is the one who yearns for holidays and is more adventurous, whereas my mother is the one who can be quite paranoid about any country - even Malaysia. My sister is currently having a short holiday in Malaysia with her husband and son - and my mother is saying some really stupid shit like, "What if your nephew lao sai (gets diarrhoea) in Malaysia?" Groan. I'm like, so? What's the big deal about lao sai? Oh please. What do you want to do, cook every single meal for him for the rest of young grandson's life? He's autistic but he still has to go through life like everyone else, you can't wrap him up in cotton wool, duh.

"What if your nephew lao sai in Malaysia?"

What am I to do? Even after my sister offered to take my dad on holiday (without my mum), he still said no, I'm not going without your mother. And my mother refuses to go because she thinks the tuition she is giving my nephew is so bloody important. Can you see why I am frustrated? Now we don't know if my nephew is making any progress with my mother's help - there is no way to tell. I've seen her tuition session - it's bloody hard work. My autistic nephew has the attention span of a fruit fly, she is running after him with a book, trying to get him to focus and I'm convinced it's not making any difference whatsoever. However, being humans, we feel that we must do something in the face of a crisis, however ineffective and useless. Why do we have this blind spot? Allow me tell you a related story.

I'm balding. I've said it. Limpeh's going botak. I'm 36 and my hair is thinning, it has been over the last three years. I accept it, it's part of being a man approaching his 40s. I cut my hair really short now just to hide the fact that my hair is thinning but last year, I gave in to temptation and spent a lot of money on some hair regrowth tonic. Did it make any difference? No. So I went back to the pharmacy and said, "this hair regrowth product you sold me? It didn't do anything, there is no difference, see?" The pharmacy replied, "But sir, you still have some hair now - if you didn't use the hair regrowth formula, you would already be as bald as an egg today. The formula is slowing down your hair loss, it preserves and retains what little hair you have left! It's actually doing a lot of good and what you need now are more supplements to boost your hair growth, which I can recommend." It made me think, oh maybe she has a point. She almost persuaded me that what I needed was more special treatment but I said no when she gave me a quote.

A photo from this summer - yes my hair is thinning...

Anyway, I finished using the hair regrowth tonic and never went back for more and guess what? No difference whatsoever with the hair situation. The hair didn't grow back and what's left of my hair didn't fall out either. The product made no difference whatsoever to my balding situation, I may as well have been rubbing tap water on my scalp all that time instead of that very expensive tonic. I get the feeling my mother's tuition is probably as effective as that useless hair regrowth miracle formula - yes my mother reacting to his autism by doing something frantically, but are her actions actually making any difference whatsoever? She would like to think so - after all, think about all the time, effort and money she has spent teaching my nephew over the years. How would she feel if I told her, "Mum, it's all a complete waste of time lah, it made no difference whatsoever, he is struggling with everything at school!"

I suspect that like the pharmacist who sold me the rubbish hair regrowth tonic, my mother is going to convince herself that my nephew would be doing far worse, probably unable to even spell his own name, if not for her intensive tuition all this time. She wants to claim credit - I don't object to that per se, but I am also very realistic. I recognize her efforts of course, but honestly, I feel that she is flogging a dead horse. Sorry, I am just being pragmatic here after having witnessed her trying to teach my nephew - just being blunt here. She may have the patience of a saint with him, but she doesn't have the specialist training required to deal with autistic children.

Is my mother's effort making any difference with my nephew's learning?

I remember when I was in secondary school and I went to my mother for help with my maths. She said, "I can't help you with that - go ask your sister. I can't handle anything beyond PSLE maths." Well, my nephew has just 3 years of primary school left - does that mean that my dad will have to wait 3 years before my mum agrees to go on holiday with him during term time? He will be 77 by then - I hope he is still able to walk unaided then and is still able to enjoy travelling at that age. I really feel bad for my dad - he's worked hard all his life and now is the time of his life when he should make the most of his retirement, go on loads of holidays and enjoy life. Sigh.

On a related note, another discovery I had made recently was that my primary school actually has a Facebook group. Whilst the primary school had already closed down back in 1992, it had a good run from about 1950 to 1992 - some of the ex-students started a Facebook group and it just grew and grew (it has about 500 members now). It was a real trip down memory lane (loads of great photos!) when I stumbled upon former classmates there I have not spoken to since 1988 - woah! It's amazing to see what they are doing today.

Crikey, my primary school friends have tracked me down on FB.

Now I remember there were two students in my primary 4 class who failed their primary 4 exams and had to  transfer to another primary school nearby as they had to follow a different syllabus (known as the 'extended stream' in those days) and there just weren't enough students requiring that syllabus in our primary school. Even they managed to find our Facebook group and have joined in - guess what? Both are doing pretty well today despite their less than illustrious start with their education - one is working for the MOE (ministry of education) and the other is working for an estate agent. I don't know what happened between 1986 and 2012 - but somehow, as they reached adulthood, both of them managed to somehow find their feet on the ground and have established very respectable careers. It's not like they're unemployed and starving today just because they struggled through primary school. Do you think any of their employers asked to see their primary school exam results? Of course not. Nobody gives a shit flying fuck about your primary school results in the real world! Not unless you're a retired primary school teacher like my mother...

So my dear readers, I ask you. What am I to do? What can I do? My dad is 74 - I know he really wants to go on that holiday with my sister... but he won't go without my mother and my mother is so obsessed with her raison d'etre as my nephew's tuition teacher, she is somehow oblivious to the fact that my dad doesn't have that many years left for travelling and holidays. I don't want to upset my parents: I really don't want to upset my mum by devaluing what she does and I want to respect my dad's choices as well. So - over to you. Any ideas people? Any suggestions please? How can we reach a compromise in this situation? Thanks in advance my friends, kum siah, bohoma-istueti, romba nandri.

Limpeh in Polonowura, Sri Lanka