Extending An Olive Branch To My Son

Let’s Talk About It

 

I have  always stood by my belief that if I wanted to invest my time writing a blog post, the content had to stem from a place of brutal honesty and I would never hold back on expressing how I truly felt about issues that were impacting me directly or indirectly. I thought long and hard about writing this post though.  This topic was a sensitive one.  It was a topic that I could discuss at length quite openly, peppering it with a few belly laughs coupled with exaggerated expressions of disappointment that included rolling my eyes and "palming" my face in despair.  Generally, I would be masking my true feelings with humor, brushing my despondency away in the hope that this issue was just a temporary irritation to my otherwise peaceful family life.

 
In reality, this issue had ripped my heart apart into a million pieces in the past, making me question my role as a mother every time the subject got raised.  This was a topic about my son’s romance. It was a subject of much grief at home.  It was the cause of numerous mother-son fights for years.  It was the cause of my depression in the past.  It created a divide between my Mom and I because of our different approaches to parenting.  It contributed to the rows David and I had when we discussed the issue of Joel’s allowance, Joel’s free-spending habits, acceptance of his girlfriend and his lack of time spent with us.

 

A Pressing Issue

 
Having experienced the negativity of past broken relationships and a divorce, I had always advised Joel to keep his options open when it came to relationships. I told him that he had many more years ahead of him to meet many girls and eventually settle on the perfect one later who would be sharing a life with him.

 
When he was navigating his studies at school and now serving his national service duties, I had always felt that he had to be more focused on his priorities.  Falling head over heels at an age where most things in life were transient, could be a complete waste of time.

 
Joel, like his mother, was never good at taking sound advice.  He threw himself into this relationship when he met this girl at school. When we were introduced years ago as he brought her home for infrequent visits, my disdain for her was quite obvious.  My list of reasons why I disliked her, was as long as my bill spent on cosmetics in my lifetime.  I will list just a fraction of them here:

 

1)   I had no patience for one who could not hold a proper, intellectual conversation. Every time I asked her a question, she turned to Joel for an answer.

 

2)   As our family centered our daily lives with fitness, sports, photography and other exciting interests, we felt that she was uninspiring as she did not seem to have any interests outside of combing malls, dining at cafes and catching pokemon.  How then could she inspire Joel to lead a better and more fulfilling life in future?

 

3)   I abhorred clinginess.  When she started work and Joel was waiting for enlistment into the army, she demanded a lot of Joel’s time, to the point that he used to wake up at the crack of dawn, take a bus to her home, and hopped onto the bus with her to accompany her to work.  Sometimes, he would wait around at Starbucks till it was time for her lunch-break, so that he could have lunch with her.  And when she knocked off from work in the evening, he would accompany her back on the bus. There was nothing productive about this daily regime at all.

 

4)   I was disappointed that Joel had even let down his best friends who had come all the way from Thailand to Singapore for a visit and he had no time to spend with them because he would rather be “glue-gummed” to his girlfriend.

 

5)   Having been brought up in a traditional Peranakan Chinese household that valued respect, manners and decent behavior, I was unhappy that while she greeted David and I during her visits, she ignored our helper Evelyn, as if she was a piece of furniture.  When Evelyn cooked dinner for Joel and his girlfriend, she had not thanked her after, nor had she offered to help wash the dishes. 

 

6)   It did not help my already sullied opinion of her, when Joel spent a lot of money on presents for her, from a camera, to a pair of Chanel earrings, as well as frequent cab rides, all paid out of his small allowance.

 

7)   I was unhappy with the fact that while my birthday past me by without a word and a gift from him, he spent time and energy planning a birthday celebration for her.  I mean, for goodness sakes.  I spent my birthday eating at home and watching re-runs of Game of Thrones, while he celebrated her birthday at a high-end restaurant!

 
These were just random examples of situations that led to my disappointment with his relationship with her. I could go on.

 
These issues had escalated to a point where Joel and I would burst into regular heated arguments on an almost weekly basis.  My disdain for her increased as time went by.  For everything that Joel did which hurt or disappointed me, I would blame her as the cause of it. He avoided having a direct conversation with me about the topic.  And he even took to lying to me about the most basic stuff like where he was, whom he was with, what he was doing.  It came to a point, where I could no longer welcome her in my home. 

 
When Joel told me that he wished his national service duties kept him in camp even throughout the weekends so that he need not have to juggle between his girlfriend and I, I felt utterly depressed.  I felt like I truly had failed as a mother if my son was not looking forward to coming home to a happy family, loving parents and hot food on the table.

 

Finding Peace

 
Months and years flew by, and true to Joel’s tenacious nature, this relationship had lasted almost 4 years. However I thought of the relationship, I realized that what I could not change, was that Joel really loved her.

 
So I set out to re-evaluate the whole situation from a more objective point of view – something I found very difficult to do for most things in my life. While I was my father’s daughter, highly opinionated, unbending, tenacious and strong-willed, Joel was his mother’s son.
 

Yes.  He was exactly like me.  Through his relationship challenges, between his girlfriend, him and I, he held strong to the belief that one day I would change my attitude about her and that I would come to accept them as a couple.

 
I looked back at my own experiences with my relationships.  Often, I defined my response to these relationships with a fear of lack of control.  My divorce from my first husband was a result of that.  He had a high-flying career which would see me taking a back seat for the rest of my life.  I was then looking at a future where my life and destiny was “controlled” and dictated by his career progression.  As I did not want to fit into his plans, and would have preferred that he fit into mine instead, I chose to walk out of that relationship.

 
With Joel and his girlfriend, the same theme got played back to me and I suddenly felt that I had lost control of my son.  I thought I was on that right track of creating that perfect scenario of that perfect home, with that perfect family, spending quality time together, having a great time, sharing happy moments.  However when Joel met his girlfriend, it felt like someone threw a pebble into that pool to cause a ripple in that otherwise perfect reflection.

  

Positive Changes

 
A few months ago, Joel’s best friends had a heart to heart talk with him. It was a tipping point when Joel realized that he had been managing his relationship with his girlfriend and us, in a wrong way.

 
One night, while having a conversation with me, he apologized for the years of grief he had caused and explained that all he wanted to do was to present a perfect embodiment of a girlfriend to me.  So if she was deemed not perfect by my standards, he then put a wedge between us by trying to avoid any opportunity for prolonged interaction between her and us.

 
I assured him that I was not looking for perfection.  All I was looking for, was someone with good values, who understood the importance of filial piety, familial loyalty, respect, and integrity.
 

Interestingly, this conversation opened my mind to the root cause of the issue – the issue of fear of lack of control.  I spent my entire lifetime trying to take control of everything.  I was a control freak.  I controlled even the way my son thought, behave, spoke, and forgot that he was one day going to grow up to develop his own identity, formed his own opinions, made his own decisions and shaped his own future.  It made sense now why he would think I demanded perfection from the girlfriend that he was to have.  I had imposed that notion in his mind that any tiny flaw, anything that I could not manipulate, mold and control, was imperfect.

 
Taking on a more objective perspective, I also began to reassess my judgment of his girlfriend.  These were some of my thoughts:

 

1)   When I asked a question and she looked at Joel for a response, was she deferring to Joel’s need to take control the way I normally did, so that he could manipulate her response back to me? 

 

2)   As I had a strong and imposing personality, did her mousey attempts to address David and I, and her whimpers during our conversations reflect her fear of me?

 

3)   Did Joel, on his own accord, instruct her to just leave the dishes in the kitchen sink “so that the helper could wash it” because he was brought up accustomed to the practice of having the helper pick up after him?

 

4)   When Joel bought all the expensive presents to impress her, could it be his immature attempts to keep her sweet when they were going through issues in their relationship although it was not the right thing to do? 

 

5)   As men were generally not as sensitive and…er…intelligent as women, could it be that he took my instructions to not plan or buy me anything for my birthday at face value and literally allowed my birthday to pass  without saying a word?

 

Healing

 
Over the last few weeks, Joel and I went through a period of healing.  We were focused on the goal of reconciliation.  Whatever rift there was that had existed between us, was a result of our different expectations about his management of his relationship. In the wider scheme of things, we realized that we both were still very present in each other’s lives, and just wanted peace and happiness within the family. 

 
In the past, conversations with him tested our patience because he would respond with monosyllables.  Today, we would have open conversations about his life in the army, where he went with his girlfriend, and his general thoughts on most things.  He was more open with what he was spending on as he knew that his free-spending ways in the past was one of my bugbears. 
  

In the past, his life at home was behind his closed room door and in front of his computer. He even had his meal at his desk in his room.  Today, he would try to sit with us in the living room and have a decent conversation with us over dinner.

 
The home no longer felt like his hotel room.  He would let us know when he was coming home for dinner and he would even make arrangements to meet us for dinner after he booked out of his army camp on some Friday evenings. On his day off, he would accompany me to work, and have a cup of coffee with me at Starbucks to help me ease into my day.

 
He made time for us or for things that were important to us, for example, the weekly mass at Church and our weekly visits to Mom for lunch on Sundays.

 
He had also attempted to bring us together by asking me out to lunch with the both of them one Saturday afternoon, when David was out of town.  He was aware that I was going to spend the weekend alone otherwise.  I turned the invitation down politely as I wanted some “me time” spent on boxing training. There was no drama.  He just accepted it and went on his way.

 
The following week, he attempted to ask David and I to spend a Saturday evening out with them at the annual Halloween Horror Nights.  Again I turned the invitation down politely as “two old crusties were averse to the crowd who might knock our walking sticks off our hands.” Again, there was no drama as he had just accepted it and went on his way.

 
Before he left the house to head back to camp last Sunday afternoon, he walked into my room as I was taking a nap.  He planted a loud, wet kiss on my forehead and said, “I love you Mom.  I am going back to camp.  See you soon.” 

 
Deep down in my heart then, I knew that he has indeed evolved from a boy to a man. Whomever he dated, and whatever choices he made, nothing could ever change the bond between a mother and son. 

 
So I extended the olive branch on my end, and bought the both of them a night out to Halloween Horror Nights this coming weekend while the two crusties at home can polish each other’s false teeth.

 

Acceptance

 
As the healing continues, I began to embrace the notion that what I could not change, I had to change the way I thought about it.  His girlfriend is very present in his life, as I am in his.  I had to start accepting the fact that the moments they shared together, would make him happy.

 
I love my son.  All I ever wanted was for him to be happy. If she was going to be one of the contributors to his happiness, I had to start accepting her in his life.
 

My stance against their relationship had thawed somewhat over the past weeks.  While there was still some residual reluctance to letting go of my son who would always be my baby, I knew it was time to do so.

I no longer need to control him and how he leads his life because, as a grown man, he would be ultimately accountable for his own choices.  By letting go, I felt that instead of losing him, I would be gaining his trust and his respect. Beyond love, the bond between a mother and son can never be broken when there is trust and respect. 



 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

I Need To Be Gentler With Myself

Rewiring The Brain

 

Did you know that childhood experiences could wire one’s brain in a way that could cause one to create perceptions in adulthood, that might or might not be the truth?

When I was a little girl, Dad was incarcerated for alternative political views. However when he was released, he had continued to hold political views that were not aligned with the establishment, and was still quite vocal about it amongst his friends.   I felt that when the family had already walked through the struggle of his detention, he should just stop taking too hard a stand against the establishment and learn to be more open to the intent behind some of these policies and indeed be more open to the political opinions of others.  I blamed Dad’s continuous anti-establishment rhetoric on my not being important enough for him to just “shut up”.  When my parents chided me for grades that were not within the top percentile, I blamed it on my not being intelligent enough and my lack of discipline.  When my brother hurt himself while playing as a toddler, his nanny told my parents that I had bullied him, and of course I had a scolding for it.  I blamed that incident on my failure to take better care of him. 

 
That wiring in my brain had over time, made me extremely critical of myself.  When my performance appraisals at work saw general comments like “needs improvement”,  I blamed it on the fact that I might not have delivered a project well, had not been detailed enough with my work or perhaps I was too lax in the management of my team.  When I struggled at the gym with boxing, always making the same mistakes repeatedly, I blamed it on my age and my lack of agility.  When my Mom fell a few months ago on her way to church, I blamed it on the fact that I had not spent enough time with her and had not taken better care of her.   When my son went through the phase of acting like an imbecilic teenager by spending lavishly on his girlfriend without thought of the value of money, and covering up his lack of control over his expenditure with lies to David and I, I blamed it on my failure as a mother.

 

Putting So Much Pressure On Myself

 
I spent the weekend talking to Mom, to my best friend Molly, and then to my mentor Alixe last night and there was a common thread that ran through each of their advice. They said that I was putting too much pressure on myself.  Every day, I juggled multiple roles, trying to be a good marketer at work, a counselor and mentor with my clients, a student at my boxing training, a mother, wife, and daughter at home.  I had inevitably placed my own set of evaluation criteria on myself within each of these roles, trying to over-achieve all the time, trying to please everybody, and trying my best to take care of everyone’s needs but my own.  In some of these situations, I had bitten off more than I can chew, taking on everyone else’s responsibilities and worrying for the people in my life that mattered most to me. 
 

Last night, I drew a circle on a piece of paper and wrote the names of the people within my network that were closest to me. I then wrote a bunch of words that automatically described my immediate thoughts about them and things I had done for them or wished to do for them.  Finally I circled the words that were repeated most.  These were the words that got circled the most -  Save, Support, Salvage, Nurture,  Heal, Sorry, Please.  These words told a story of how I had always felt I had never given enough, done enough or delivered enough.  There was always something I had to save someone from.  There was always a situation I had to salvage for someone.  There was always someone that needed my support.  There was always someone I had to continuously nurture.  There was always someone that had an open wound that needed continuously healing. There was always someone I needed to please. There was always someone I felt so sorry to, for not being able to further save, support, salvage, please or heal. So I often held myself accountable for someone else’s issues or mistakes.

 
Being Gentle To Myself

 
Acknowledging my own limitations and my need to draw that boundary around me, I  decided today that I had to be gentler to myself.  I had to stop taking responsibility for other people’s problems, faults and failings.   I needed to take time out to rest for a bit.  I needed space from some people.  I needed time to nourish my soul and nurture my mind, body and spirit back to a state where I can take back control of my personal power.

 
Taking Care Of Me

 
So I will take care of myself over the next few weeks. 

 
I had to stop being anxious about Joel and his lack of accountability for his frivolous spend. Whatever little he earned from his national service stint belonged to him after all and he had every right to spend it in the way he wanted to. How he managed his money today would go a long way to teaching him about the value of savings and wealth management as he grows older, manages a career, owns his own home and have a family in the future. 

 

I had to stop nagging David about his lack of discipline with regard to his diet.  His health was his responsibility. The quality of life that he wanted to live in future as he got older, would be determined by how he managed his health, lifestyle and fitness today.

 
I had to stop stressing about Mom’s well-being and whether or not she was getting enough attention from me. Mom had a huge circle of friends, and she was often surrounded by my uncles, aunt and cousins who often spent time with her. She would have to assume full responsibility over the way she wanted to design her new lifestyle after my Dad had passed on.

 
I had to stop getting annoyed, when certain clients did not take my advice and kept returning to consult with me on the same issues. They were afterall masters of their own destinies and needed to take charge of their own happiness by choosing to accept things that they could not change, or make changes to things that they could.

 
 I had to stop being “mother-hen” to my team at work, worrying that they would get bullied by other senior managers when I could not be at certain meetings.  I needed to trust that my team members are capable enough of fighting their own battles as these experiences were essential to their development as future leaders.

 
What impacted my emotions most would often be the people and things I cared about most.  On hindsight, I felt grateful for the angst, anxiety, anger, sadness, frustrations, disappointments and all the negativity from incidents that had triggered my feelings of fear of lack of control, lack of approval, and lack of security because these feelings helped me acknowledge my vulnerability and my own need for help, support, nurturing and space. 

 
So, be warned. When I need a hand to hold, I would be asking you for it soon.  When I need space and time to myself,  please know that I am not trying to avoid you.  When I indulge in a few more glasses of wine than usual outside of my cheat day, please try not to judge me for my ill discipline.  When I need to go for a vacation longer than I had planned, please allow me that time to take care of me.

 
What I truly need most now  though, is to go walk barefoot on the grass, listen to birds sing, feel the wind in my face, hug a tree and feel the wet sand between my toes at the beach. Please try not to think I am "hippy-wierd".

 
I am just learning to be gentler with myself.

 

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

Our Perfect Christmas Tree

The Year-End Break

I had been on a writing break and was planning to be so till the New Year.  However, I was compelled to write this post after a stressful weekend of Christmas tree-hunting had led to my reassessment of why I took a break to focus on the family and plan for the  year-end festivities.  

Bah Humbug 

The impending year-end merry-making draws a myriad of reaction from my friends.  Most tell me that the year-end festivities would usually bring home the importance of family and the special memories they shared with loved ones during the ubiquitious Christmas dinner.  Some friends would tell me how disillusioned they were about the air of commercialism wafting through the malls at Christmas, with harried parents thronging Toys R’ Us in the hope of buying the latest Lego sets or yet another Princess Elsa doll.  I even have friends who would buy the first flight out of Singapore, just to avoid the rainy season and the annoying throngs of shoppers crowding the malls and jamming the train lines. 


My Magical Christmas Last Year

For me, the year-end festive season is always a celebration of family.  Last year, as Dad was hit with a devastating Stroke  just a week before Christmas, I learnt that the true magic of Christmas for me then was the power of prayers and the heartwarming love and support that surrounded my family and I at that very painful time.  It was magic indeed because in spite of the Doctor’s earlier suggestion that Dad might be spending 2 weeks at the hospital, he actually managed to recover in time to be discharged on Christmas eve.  I had the best Christmas Eve dinner then with Dad and the rest of the family surrounding him.  Amazingly, he even managed a glass of merlot, held in his very frail hand, which he had used to wash his pills down with. 

Reunion At Christmas Eve

This year,  I had been planning a big Christmas Eve dinner for the family.  My annual Christmas Eve dinner was always a gathering of  family members who would come together to enjoy the yuletide feast.  This year, it would be a reunion of sorts because my Aunt and Uncles who had been living overseas, in the US, Canada and Australia, are now back in Singapore to spend Christmas together as a family.  This was a big deal for us.  Moreover, this Christmas would mark one year of slow but steady recovery of my Dad from his Stroke.  He may still be frail but he is mentally still quite alert and looks like he would be enjoying yet another glass or two of merlot at my Christmas Eve dinner.  

A Perfect Christmas

I undertook to personally plan every detail of my Christmas Eve dinner.  Everything had to be perfect including the food, the home, the decoration, and the tree.  That became a problem.  The perfectionist in me was turning this Christmas Eve dinner into a major headache for David and Joel.  David wanted to roast the turkey and cook most of the dinner.  I did not allow this because David’s culinary skills, beyond baking bread and making tea, was not that reliable.  Joel volunteered to gather the Christmas playlist, but I refused to risk suicide attempts at our dinner party with Michael Buble crooning over the speakers.  

Then came the Christmas tree.  A beautiful noble fir was supposed to be the piece-de-resistance of my Christmas party.

The family spent the weekend criss-crossing the island just to look for a noble fir but the trees were sold out at every garden centre.  Not even a pine needle could be found throughout the island.  I went into near “melt-down” at the garden centre, revivable only with a cake and coffee over which David had a chat with me about my need to get a grip on my perfectionist mindset. He was right. Our Christmas Eve dinner need not be perfect. It was going to be wonderfully quirky, much like the Ash family. 


First and foremost, it was a dinner party that celebrated life and resilience. We had imperfect moments when Dad's health caused us immense worry or when Granny could not remember what she ate an hour ago.  However, Dad and Granny, in spite of their frailty, would not let recovery from stroke, or a touch of dementia stop them from celebrating family. They will be there to enjoy dinner with us and possibly more wine than they should. They might frown at  my roast turkey, parsnips, brussel sprouts and potatoes and would possibly prefer  a Chicken curry and stir fried noodles but I know they would be feeling so blessed just to be there, surrounded with family.  I know Dad and Granny would feel even more blessed because it would be their cheat day, like it would be for me, and we are all going to have cake!

Secondly, it was a dinner that celebrated a united nations of cultures and races amongst  family members who come from different countries like Scotland, America and China.  It is not a perfect family. However, this  eclectic mix of cultures and races, in our Singaporean home made for much livelier conversations.

Thirdly, it was a dinner party that celebrated new entrants into the family.  2 of my cousins got married recently so I have gained 2 rather handsome cousins-in-law.  Ok, they are still wet behind the ears and have not been inducted into the family rules that the Eldest cousin is the "quasi-matriarch-empress-dowager" of the family and needs to be placated regularly with cake. They will learn.

Finally, our tree is not perfect.  However, it really is a reflection of us – a quirky family, not too large, but not too small, weird in all sense of the word, but fun, easy-going and welcoming.  

So this is my tree, the Ash family's Christmas tree for 2014.  It is definitely us isn't it?

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Muay Thai and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.