A year has passed since I last spoke to my parents

Hi guys, as I had been so concerned about my recent jury duty, a deadline/milestone came and passed without me really making a fuss about it - the 23rd of January 2023 was the last time I spoke to my parents and my big sister, so it has been a year since I've spoken to them. I have to clarify, it's not like we had a big argument that day and fell out but the whole reason why I stopped talking to them was that this time last year, I was going through a really difficult period. I got through that difficult period eventually, but back then, I was so stressed out by a number of things going wrong all at the same time. I was leaving my job at a company where I had worked really hard to try to establish myself, I had some serious health issues and there were other personal matters as well really driving me into depression at that point. I found that I just couldn't talk to my parents at that point because I didn't want them to be worried about me and I knew there was just no way they would even begin to understand any of my problems relating to my work or health. Let's take my health for example: I had a medical condition known as hyperglycaemia. I had seen the doctors, I got the professional help I needed and I knew what had to be done; there was absolutely nothing my parents could do to help and they perhaps could have offered some emotional support but you really need to understand the problem before you could offer any kind of meaningful emotional support. Likewise, my parents have absolutely no idea what I do for a living so to begin to try to tell them why I was leaving a job with a company that I was so excited to join - like where do I even begin? There are times when adults simply choose not to tell children the details of a situation they think the children just cannot possibly understand? Yup, I felt that way with my medical condition and my work situation when it came to my parents. Am I calling them stupid? Perhaps, well yes - let's face it, they are uneducated and working class so there are just some things that I feel they cannot possibly understand and thus I would rather talk to my other friends who would be able to engage me on those issues as they are far more capable of understanding what I am going through. Sometimes, I'm able to just fake a smile and say, yeah everything is fine, how about you? But this time last year, I just couldn't be asked to pretend so I stopped talking to my family for a week; that turned into a month and eventually it turned into a year. My health and work situations have improved a lot since, but my relationship with my family hasn't. I suppose it took a stressful situation to make me realize how pointless and vapid our conversations were if I couldn't even be honest with them when I was going through a very difficult period. Some of you may think I'm a monster for doing this and that's fine. 

There's a pattern of my parents' behaviour which I really hate and I am holding them to account for it - this was a few years ago when my eldest sister experienced a health related issue due to being too stressed at work. Instead of comforting her or trying to be helpful, they lashed out at her and scolded her for being so stupid, for allowing the stress at work to get to her. My father went out of his way to belittle my sister, he said that she was so unimportant, so insignificant at her organization. He literally said in Chinese, if you don't turn up for work next week, you think they will die without you? You think they can't go on without you? They probably won't even notice you're gone, they will replace you in the morning and forget you by lunchtime. Whilst there is an element of truth to what my father said and I can see where he's coming from when he said that, he was needlessly cruel to my sister and he was only going to make her more stressed as a result of talking to her like that. Oh my mother was just as bad during that conversation - I happened to be in the room at that time so I was able to step in and defend my sister, but given that I left Singapore back in 1997, just imagine how many times they have treated my sister like that over the years. This does remind me of a debate I had back in school in Singapore about whether it is ever justified for a parent to beat their children as a form of punishment. The teacher raised an example of when her daughter was only about three years old and started getting curious with electricity - the young girl started fiddling with plugs and sockets, not realizing the potential danger of messing with electric appliances. Given that the teacher could never explain the concept of electricity to a three year old child, the teacher decided to spank her daughter so as to make it clear: if you play with that, mummy will spank you. You may not understand the concept of electricity, but you will understand pain and you will change your behaviour because you don't want to get spanked. The teacher argued that in specific circumstances like that, spanking was a necessary evil to get the message across to a young child. Now I will let you decide whether or not the teacher was justified in her stance, but in order for parents to reason with their children to change their behaviour, they need a certain level of social skills to be able to communicate those concepts effectively. It's a lot easier to scold or even beat a child than to present a persuasive and cogent argument to convince them to change their behaviour. Hence I feel my parents are still treating my sister like a 3 year old child because of their total lack of parenting and social skills, I refuse to accept that this is somehow normal. 

This is why I really don't like talking to my parents when I have problems as I know they will react that way and that's the last thing I need when I am stressed out by a problem. Given their track record, the sensible thing to do would be to say nothing and speak to a more understanding friend who will respond with a lot more kindness and empathy. For most parents, their relationship with their children will slowly evolve from that of a parent-child relationship to a relationship between two adults once their children become adults. But for my parents, given that they are completely autistic and don't really have friendships with other adults, they don't understand this process and thus continue to speak to my eldest sister (who is in her 50s) as if she was a 5 year old child, ignoring the fact that what they are doing is completely inappropriate and my sister is a lot more intelligent than the average 5 year old child. Yet my sister is so Asian that she doesn't ever challenge the way my parents behave and thus she is an enabler who allows my parents to get away with treating her so badly. I know what some of you might say at this point: your parents are very old, it is your responsibility to look after them at this stage of their lives and they are not there to take care of you when you're already so old. However, there is a difficult dynamic in this relationship which I must explain - in order for one party to take care of another, you must consent to that. So let me give you a simple example of how this works: in a hospital, when the nurse says to the patients, it is time to take your medicine, I'll bring you the pills and a cup of water. The patients should then simply take the pills from the nurse and take the medicine without any fuss; but if the patients start challenging the nurse whether it is time for the next dose or if the nurse had brought them the right medicines, then that relationship would break down quickly and it would indicate that the patients simply don't trust the nurses. There have been so many incidents where my sisters have tried their best to help my parents but my parents have simply refused to listen to my sisters despite the fact that my sisters have have tried their best to take care of their parents; they are left feeling very exasperated and helpless.

Let me give you an example to make this clear how frustrating this is and how the problem lies with a combination of my parents' stupidity and stubbornness. A few years ago, my mother wanted to buy something very expensive and my sister said, it's okay let me pay for it, it'll be my treat. I'll just transfer the money into your bank account and you can pay for it with your card. Because my mother is very old and doesn't know how online banking works, she said no it is not safe it will get lost in the internet, I'd rather you gave me the money in cash and then I can go pay for it in cash. But my sister tried to reason with her, in this day and age, hardly anyone uses cash and doing a transfer direct into your bank account is such a simple procedure. Besides, an old lady walking around with thousands of dollars in her purse is far more dangerous - you could encounter a thief that may snatch the purse out of your hands or you may forget your purse (my mother has a track record of being forgetful and misplacing various items). However, instead of simply saying, "I will listen to my daughter as she is more intelligent than me, she is trying to take good care of me and I trust her to make the best decisions for me." No, my mother just insisted that she is perfectly fine handling a huge amount of cash and that internet banking is extremely unsafe - as a result, my sister gave in to my mother and accompanied her to do the shopping in with that large amount of cash in my mother's purse. This is why my parents are impossible to take care of - they refuse to allow their children to help them make wiser decisions despite the fact that it is so evident to us that my parents have become old and senile, they are completely out of touch with the modern world and really need help with a lot of their everyday tasks. They are completely incapable of taking care of themselves but still insist on making bad decisions rather than allow their children to guide them to make wiser, safer decisions. I have seen how my sister have argued with them and I thought, no I am not looking for a fight here, I have no desire for more conflict in my life. Sometimes I wonder if my parents are simply trying to be as difficult as possible to try to get more attention from my sisters or if they are genuinely that stupid when it comes to refusing to follow good advice. I think there is a combination of both to explain their obnoxious behaviour, either way, if they have demonstrated that they respond to my sisters' kindness by behaving in this very obnoxious manner then I want no part of that kind of relationship so this is my protest.  

I did this experiment with a different relationship in my family. My husband has an older sister and I don't get along with her husband - I have a perfectly good relationship with my sister-in-law but it is a different story with her husband whom I shall call Bill (not his real name). I first met Bill back in the late 1990s and we have absolutely nothing in common, he is a very working class Scottish man who worked as a teacher. I found it hard to get along with him as I just don't like him - he has this awful habit of making fun of people as if being rude to someone was a substitute for being funny. Perhaps it was the norm to make fun of your family members in a working class Scottish family, but I found a lot of the things he has said to be in very poor taste and he was oblivious to how others might disapprove of the way he behaved. Then again, he's a teacher just like my parents and they have this terrible habit of getting so used to doing whatever they wanted in front of their students because their students were never going to have the authority to challenge them on matters like that. I suppose back when I was first introduced to my husband's family, I genuinely wanted to get along with them as I have had a terrible experience trying to get along with my own family - perhaps this was a second chance to try this family thing and get it right. My late mother-in-law did make a huge effort in trying to organize these big family gatherings and I wanted to show up, be on my best behaviour to make her happy, all she wanted was for us to all turn up and have fun. Then in 2015, Bill got involved in a very serious traffic accident - he was the passenger in a bus which had a head on collision with a car driven by an old lady who fell asleep behind the wheel. The car had swerved right into the bus and the bus driver tried to avoid the car but to no avail, resulting in a horrific crash which killed the old lady, severely injuring the passenger in her car along with many passengers in the bus as the bus ploughed into a wall trying to avoid the car. The side of the bus that Bill was on took the brunt of the impact and Bill was trapped under a prison of crushed metal for hours whilst the firefighters had to try to cut him free, all that time not knowing whether or not they would be able to save his life or not given how badly injured he was.  I remember getting the phone call to warn us that Bill's legs were totally crushed and he could die any moment. Bill survived the crash but with such very serious injuries, he could barely walk again after that. He spent many months in a wheelchair and now manages to get around with the help of a walking stick.

That was back in 2015 and since then, it has been a case of, "poor Bill, he suffered so much in that taccident, we all feel so sorry for him, let's wish him a swift recovery and offer him emotional support". I suppose that injury made him even more obnoxious, given that no one held him to account for anything he said or did, no matter how nasty or cruel it was. I witnessed how he treated his own children really badly and was even shockingly rude to his daughter-in-law's mother, which I thought was really crossing the line. But like everyone else, his daughter-in-law's mother simply defaulted to that same response of, "yes I know he was rude, but that's Bill and he was in that terrible accident in the bus, so let's give him a free pass and not hold him to account." Furthermore, my mother-in-law passed away in 2019 so I no longer felt the need to pretend to get along with Bill just to give my mother-in-law the impression that she had a big happy family. So given the complexities of the situation, I didn't expect anyone else in my husband's family to stand up to Bill when he was behaving badly, given that he could easily play the "but I nearly died in that accident and I am still traumatized" card with them to get away with anything. I finally decided that I needed to draw a line on the matter - I told my husband I never ever wanted to see Bill ever again in my life, I would not be in the same room as him and if he was ever going to be present at a family gathering, then I would not attend. I hardly think Bill was going to miss my presence, I was told not to take his behaviour personally but after I witnessed the way he was so rude to his daughter-in-law's mother (who is a sweet and kind lady who would never be mean to anyone), I had to explain it to my husband like that. "I'm merely keeping my distance to protect myself, I don't want to have to call him rude and obnoxious in front of your family because I think you guys are all enabling his bad behaviour. I'm not spoiling for a fight with Bill or your family, I just don't need that kind of crap in my life now and I would like you to respect my decision please." My husband didn't challenge my decision but what surprised me though was my sister-in-law's reaction, she told my husband that she totally understood why I felt that way and she was very sorry for Bill's bad behaviour. She wasn't blind to Bill's obnoxious nature, she clearly didn't like it but she chose to put up with it. Thus I have since cut off all contact from Bill and it was something I really should have done a long time ago, as I gained absolutely nothing from that relationship, even if Bill was a part of my extended family. 

It was relatively easy to cut Bill out of my life given he is the husband of my sister-in-law but it was an experiment I suppose and I was pleased with the result - after all, this was something I do with ordinary friends as well. Let me give you an example: you might remember this friend of mine 'Vera' whom I had featured in a post from a while ago. Well, late last year, she said something quite offensive to me and I'm not going to go into it now, but the bottom line is, I had two choices at that point. Even if I acknowledged that she didn't mean to cause offense and had said it because of her poor social skills, it would then involve me making the effort to explain to her why what she said was inappropriate and how she should improve her social skills when dealing with the topic. Or I could just give up on her and ignore her - I chose the latter as I felt that I really didn't get that much from my friendship with Vera to make me want to invest that effort to try to 'fix' her. If I was quite happy to do that to Vera, then it made complete sense to do the same to Bill. I realized it really didn't bother me at all if I never spoke to Vera or Bill ever again, I'd be perfectly fine with that. I then applied the same principle to my own family members and realized that if I were to put aside the fact that I am related by blood to them, I probably feel the same way about them as I do about Vera and Bill. So for example, if my parents passed away without me ever seeing them or talking to them again, I'd be perfectly fine with that. I suppose the question is what I would miss out on if I didn't speak to Vera again, but let me make a comparison to another friend I had been talking with a lot recently. As you have read, I had to do jury duty recently and I was very nervous about it as I didn't know what to expect. My friend Ken had done it before and he spent a lot of time talking to me about it, explaining to me what to expect and it made me realize that not only was Ken helpful and dependable at a time like this, the next time I faced a serious problem, he would be one of the first people I would turn to for help and advice. In contrast, I didn't even tell Vera that I had to do jury duty as I didn't think she was intelligent enough to give me any useful advice on the matter. Thus I'd want to hold on to friends like Ken whilst I'm really not that bothered if I never speak to Vera ever again. It is important to make a distinction between friends like Ken and friends like Vera; so if I am willing to be that pragmatic with my friends, I really ought to apply the same rules to my own family. This is not being ruthless or harsh, it's simply being practical and logical. 

The key problem I have with my parents is that I don't think they're that interested in being parents. They took very little interest in what I got up to when I was growing up and here's a funny story to drive home the point about how little interest they took in me. When I came out as gay, my parents were in total shock as they had paid so little attention to me, they had no idea that I could be gay. My sisters knew of course since I was young and they even said that if I had turned out to be straight, they would be shocked. But even the neighbour next door, let's call her Auntie Kaypoh (Hokkien for 'busybody') she was this housewife who didn't work and had plenty of spare time on her hands to poke her nose everywhere - even she figured out that I was gay a long time ago, probably about the same time as my sisters. So if Auntie Kaypoh could figure out that I was a gay boy back in the day, one can only wonder just how utterly disinterested my parents were to totally let my sexuality escape their attention. I do a lot of volunteer work with my university alumni and one thing I have done was help a lot of young graduates find work experience, work placements and internships in order to help them find their dream job. I have to go through their exam results and look at their CVs as part of that process and that's when it dawned upon me: not only do my parents have no idea what I do for a living, they have never ever done the equivalent of looking at my CV to find out what I have achieved. My parents have no idea what I do for a living, I am not even sure they know the name of the universities I attended, never mind what I studied there. I believe that a relationship ought to be two-way, A shows interest in B and B will in turn reciprocate and show interest in A, that interest is a two-way street. There is one thing that my parents do which really upsets me - they often talk about things I did when I was in primary school as if it was just yesterday and I point out that they only do that because they have not paid any attention to me since I was a teenager so they have absolutely no idea what I have done in the last three decades and their only frame of reference is when I was a little boy. But imagine you are interested in someone and you ask them out for a date, they say no to you a few time and it is clear they're not interested. Most of us would just accept, okay they're not interested, I get the message and move on. It simply isn't rational to keep asking them out after they've said no to you already, so I'm applying the same principle to my relationship with my parents, it's the rational thing to do. 

My two older sisters face the same problems as I do but they do maintain this one-sided relationship with my parents whereby my parents take little interest in what is going on in their lives whilst they still go out of their way to take good care of my parents. Do they enjoy it? No. Do my parents drive them mad? Yes, all the time. Let me give you one such example of how my parents hurt my sisters' feelings: my second sister is a civil servant who works for the ministry of health and in recognition for her outstanding contribution to public service during the Covid-19 pandemic, she was given an award by the government. She told my parents about receiving the award but my parents didn't really react, being the kind of person she is, my sister let that incident go as she thought, well my parents are too stupid to even realize what a big deal it is, it's not their fault they are stupid and uneducated. Then just to rub salt in the wound and add insult to injury, a family friend won the same award - my parents then shared the news at the dinner table, totally forgetting that my sister had told them that she had won the same award as well but just to totally break my sister's heart, they were heaping praises on this family friend who won the award when they didn't even offer much of an acknowledgement when my sister told them that she had won that very same award. This is the kind of mindfuck that my parents offer: are they doing it deliberately to try to hurt my sister or are they that stupid? When my sister told my parents that she had won the same award, they just got confused and asked her, "really? When? Why didn't you tell us about it then?" My mother would then play the "I'm old, my memory isn't good anymore, it is not my fault so you can't blame me" card. Now it might be possible that my sister was too modest to explain to my parents what a big deal receiving that award was and that other person who told my parents about this family friend winning that same award doesn't suffer from that same problem of excess modesty - it is a lot easier to heap praises on a third party ("he has done so well, he is incredible!") than trying to praise yourself when telling another party ("I have done so well, I'm the best!") so that may explain why my parents didn't register at all when my sister informed them that she had won that award. Regardless, my sister has learnt her lesson and will no longer tell my parents when good things happen to her, just to spare herself that disappointment in the future.

One of my greatest accomplishments in the two years is that I had left a well-paid full time job in banking, took a huge risk by setting up my own company and had been able to make a decent profit in my first year. In a recent discussion with my reader Amanda, I had explained to her that my objective was never to make as much money as possible, but to create a situation where I can have complete control over my own time whilst making enough money to sustain me in a very comfortable lifestyle. So for example, if I feel like taking a long holiday, I am simply do it because I don't need to ask anyone for permission and as long as I am keeping on top of everything on my phone whilst on holiday, I will be perfectly fine. I contrast that to the situation with my sisters - they both work hideously, ridiculously long hours in Singapore and whilst they command a respectable salary for their age, you have to look at their hourly rate to break down just how productive they are. They often put in 60, 70 hours a week, at times even 90 hours a week whilst I rarely exceed 12 to 15 hours a week - yet because I am a consultant providing innovative solutions to my clients, I could be relaxing in the bath or skiing in the mountains and as long as I am still engaging my brain to come up with great ideas, I can still be productive and get a lot done. Whereas my sisters have to be in the office, working with their teams in order to get anything done. I don't mean to judge them, but it is evident that I'm in a much more comfortable position given how little work I have to do to generate a much higher level of income. In a sense, my sisters ended up just like my parents who were primary school teachers - they weren't that poor as they were gainfully employed, but given the long hours they had to work, it left them with little or no time to do the things that made them happy. Perhaps noticing this stark contrast between me and my sisters would remind them that this aspect of their lives as teachers was far from ideal, that's why they have chosen to ignore it. Or it might be that they have never met anyone like me before given that all their friends and family are so working class - I'm the exception to the rule that they just can't get their heads around. Either way, I have given up trying to make them understand as I want to spare myself that disappointment. I would've hoped that they would be happy for me to be in this ideal position, but how can they be happy for me if they can't even begin to understand how I got there, or why this is much better than what the norm is in their working class Singaporean society? 

So allow me to share with you something that happened in my gym recently for comparison - there's this guy we shall call Mark (not his real name), he shared some good news with us recently. Mark managed to find a new job, it was with a good company and it was really well paid. Needless to say, Mark was extremely happy with the situation and he couldn't wait to tell his friends at the gym. I said something polite like well done, good for you or something like that but the fact is, I said it for the sake of saying something and to be honest, I didn't really know Mark well enough to genuinely feel anything at that point - it was just my social conditioning to react politely. Now if it was someone else whom I was closer to, then I think my reaction might have been more genuine, rather than the one I had come up with. Heck, let's turn this around and imagine if I was told that Mark had a really good job that he enjoyed and was suddenly fired from it due to an unfortunate mistake he had made at work, he is distraught over what has happened and shares his story at the gym with his friends. If something like that happened, I would probably say something comforting, encouraging and supportive out of social convention, as I would feel the need to be a nice person in such a situation but would I actually be saddened by the situation? Not really, because again, I am not close enough to Mark to really care that much whether something good or bad has happened to him. I can objectively judge a situation and say, yes that's a great job offer with a famous company, that pay package is above market rates, this is evidently a fantastic opportunity; or in the case of the latter, I would be able to say something like, with your kind of work experience, relevant knowledge and transferable skills, I'm sure you would be able to find another good job soon. I would react with my head, not my heart - my brain will analyse the situation and offer a response based on logic but my heart really doesn't get involved, there will be a response devoid of emotion simply because I really don't care that much what happens to Mark at the end of the day given that I barely know him. That's very much the same situation I have with my parents - they do not really respond whether I bring them good or bad news; thus I'm left wondering if their lack of any kind of emotional response is either because a) they really don't care what happens to me as we don't have any real relationship to speak of or b) they simply don't understand what the hell is going on as they're just too stupid. I think it is a combination of both, which is a double whammy: like even if I do somehow manage to explain it to them in a way that they can actually understand - they still wouldn't care either way. 

Thus I feel like I'm left in this situation whereby I can't tell them anything bad that happens to me, since they will neither be able to help or even begin to understand what is going on. I can't tell them anything good that happens to me since once again, they can't even begin to understand what it is I do in the world of business. I remember quite cruelly trying this experiment once, I once told my sister and my mother something complex that I was doing at work and I knew there was no way in hell either of them would even begin to understand what I said. I then asked them quite innocently, "do you understand?" My mother was the first to say, "yes I understand" despite the fact that she clearly didn't, she did that because she feared she would 'lose face' and embarrass herself by coming across as stupid if she had admitted to not understanding what I had just said. This is so similar to when I speak to young children, I automatically change the way I speak - I lower my expectations, I avoid complex topics that I know the children won't understand and I would even use simple language to help them understand better. That is exactly what it is like speaking to my parents, I feel like I am speaking to a bunch of young kids who are incapable of handling an adult conversation and no, this is not something new - it has always felt like that since I was a teenager. The way my sisters deal with this challenge is to simply say, "I have other friends to speak to if I need intelligent advice, I don't turn to my parents, in fact I barely even talk to them at all but I still take care of them out of duty since they are old." I suppose I felt that way when my nephew was much younger, I completely lowered my expectations when I was dealing with him as a boy - I bought him gifts, I played silly games with him, I gave him praise and encouragement and all I wanted in return was some kind of relationship with him as an uncle and for me to be a small part of his life despite the fact that we don't live in the same country. I was lucky to have been given the chance to help him through his A level economics exam where I had a reason to speak to him on a weekly basis and it did leave me thinking: if this is what I am willing to do for my nephew, why didn't I feel the same thing from my own parents? And if I didn't get this from my parents, then why did they even bother having children if they have no parental instincts at all? Do people of my parents' generation simply start families without ever asking the question, "do I really want to be a parent? What will I do as a parent to create a meaningful relationship with my children? Do I want to get to know my children well? If my child stops talking to me for over a year, what would I do to mend that relationship?"

My eldest sister and parents have made no effort to contact me in the last 12 months - my second sister did come to London and spent a few hours with me, but that went badly wrong as she totally misfired (and that is another story that I have covered in two previous posts). But hey, at least she made an effort and got it wrong, that's better than not bothering at all. Allow me to give you another example of when not bothering really says a lot: I was shopping after I had completed my jury duty (well, I had a good reason to celebrate) and I went to this clothing store near the courthouse. I did see this jacket which I thought was nice but it had no price tag on it. The store was crowded at that time, I looked around to see if there was a sales assistant who may be able to tell me the price of that jacket but no one was available at the time as the store was quite busy then. I then put the jacket back where I had found it and just forgot about it - I guess I didn't really like it that much. If I really liked that jacket, then I would have hunted down the manager to get the price or at least went back to it a little bit later when there was a shop assistant available to help me. If I had really loved it, then I would have said to that jacket, you are coming home with me, money is no object, I will buy you today regardless of the price. But no, I took a second look at it and thought, it's not bad but I'm really not that bothered whether I found out the price of not and I didn't want to feel compelled to buy it if it had been on offer, as a rule, one should always buy new pieces of clothing because you really love it, not because it is on offer and you were offered a good price. If you bought something at a sale because you thought it was cheap, rather than because you totally loved it, then you probably wouldn't wear it much and it would be a pointless purchase. So I walked out of that store without bothering to even find out the price of that jacket and I don't regret that decision, I trust my initial, honest reaction. There's really nothing to stop my parents from making some kind of effort to reach out to me but if they can't be asked to even try then that does tell me all I need to know about how they feel about me. They are just not that interested, it is the same way I feel about the jacket I didn't buy that day - there is a reason for inaction, it does tell me that they totally lack the motivation to try to keep me as a part of their lives. This has been the situation for many years and it just got to the point where I had to say, if you are not interested in being my parents, then by that token, I'm not interested in being your son. 

If they had something more interesting in their lives than their children, then I would be happy for them to simply focus their energies on those activities instead and at least, they would be having fun doing those activities. But no, that's not the case at all. When Covid-19 hit hard, they were deemed vulnerable because of their age and thus had to avoid all contact outside the immediate family - that suited them well as they were no longer social recluses with no friends but became law abiding citizens following medical advice by staying at home and avoiding meeting people. But when the pandemic was finally over, they still were effectively cut off from society, having little contact with anyone outside the immediate family. It's almost as if they didn't get the memo that the pandemic is over and normal activities can resume. My second sister did tell me how she had tried so hard to enrol them in a list of activities for elderly folks to stay active, my parent adamantly refused to partake in any of those. My sister then tried to offer to take them on holiday, again they refused to entertain that idea and called it too 麻烦 (troublesome) - in a last ditch attempt, my sister suggested a staycation in a nice local Singaporean resort and they called it a waste of money. It's like they reacted so badly to every suggestion my sister had offered and made it sound like she was trying to torture them, to put them through a very uncomfortable, unpleasant experience. The way I see it, they are in that 等死 (waiting to die) mindset, they probably wake up in the morning and think, damn why am I still alive? Now I have to do all of these things like have meals, pass the time between meals and all I can do is watch TV between meals. That's where my sister and I are different - you see, my opinion is that if they are really at that 等死 stage of their lives, then it is utterly pointless trying to change their minds and it is best to just leave them to their own devices, let them do whatever they want since they are not going to appreciate any of your efforts to fill their lives with interesting and rewarding activities to get them out of the house. That is why I can't take it personally, they've not just given up on me - they have given up on everything in life including themselves - that is why they are not even interested in my sister paying for them to take part in those activities to have fun. Even with the most filial, perfect Asian daughter making a genuine effort to try to please them, they have still given up on life and slipped into that 等死 mode. At least that tells me that I had spared myself the disappointment of trying and ending up with the very same result. I know that it sounds grim, but at this stage, I just have to be pragmatic about it now.

I'm afraid that in our Asian culture, we encourage our parents to behave very badly and allow them to get away with hideously bad behaviour by offering them unconditional respect and never holding them to account. This means that they never learn the basic principle that if you want people to be nice to you, to like to spend time with you, you must first have to be kind to them, show them love and attention in order to create a conducive environment where a relationship can flourish. But no, our Asian culture is so fucked up, that never happens. My late grandmother used to call for an ambulance to take her to the hospital whenever she felt neglected by her children, like she couldn't just pick up the phone to invite us around for dinner - no, she had to cook up some ridiculous story that she was dying of neglect. On my last visit to Singapore, my sister had invited the entire family to her house for a nice dinner - most of the people were fussing over my nephew as he was the only child and my mother felt neglected. But instead of trying to engage the others in meaningful conversation, she came up with some seriously fucked up Asian mother drama. She went into the kitchen to inspect the food my sister had prepared and starting screaming as if there was rat poison in the food - I ran to the kitchen only to realize that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the food (it was actually really good as my sister had made such an effort and spent a lot of money on that dinner), but my mother wanted attention. She started berating my sister about how terrible the food was and I was the only one in the family who could tell my mother, stop all this bullshit right now, you just want attention and I'm not letting you get away with this bullshit. But no, instead of thanking me for trying to reign in my mother's bad behaviour, the rest of my family looked at me as if I had just poisoned my mother. My eldest sister even tried to pacify my mother by offering to take her to a nice restaurant of her choice if she didn't like the food and I was like, this is fucked up, this is bullshit, you're rewarding my mother's bad behaviour instead of punishing her for it - how is this normal? How is this acceptable to you guys? If a child behaved that badly in an Asian family, I am sure the parents would not hesitate to punish that child with a beating at once, but if an Asian parent behaves badly, not only do they get away with that bullshit, they are rewarded for it by getting what they want with no consequences. That's why this isn't just about my parents, it is also about how my sisters have handled the situation incorrectly and how I'm protesting by saying, fuck this bullshit, I reject this as I don't approve of it and I want no part of it. 

So here we are, in this status quo where we don't talk anymore - my parents are disappointed that their son has given up trying to have a relationship with them and it is clear from this post that I am completely disappointed in them. Perhaps the most obvious thing to do at this stage is to just give up as both parties are disappointed with each other (and that's putting it mildly) to spare each other any further disappointment. I know that this is going to continue until the day I get a message from my sister to inform me that my father has passed away. Therefore I'm 100% prepared to never ever speak to my father again even if that means not talking to him again before he dies eventually. The only thing I have to say to him is to tell him what a terrible father I think he is and how he has let me down, but no, what is the point of that? I am not looking for a fight, I don't want to make things worse, so simply cutting off all contact until he dies is the only option left now. I don't even think I will feel that sad when that eventually happens, after all I'm not talking to him whilst he is still alive, so what difference would him passing away make? I'm sorry this is a rather grim post but I just had to get all this off my chest. In fact my readers know me a lot better than my own parents, given that you've taken the trouble to read my most private, inner thoughts and feelings that I have shared here and I appreciate you taking the time to get to know me better, that's something my parents have not done before. Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.