Thoughts and prayers for the children of Tadika Permata Harapan

Up till now I am still disturbed by the child abuse case at the kindergarten in Taman Melati. My thoughts and prayers are with all the affected children and their parents. It requires time for these children to be healed mentally and emotionally, and may these little angels live strong against all odds. 

I am a mother and I love my son so much up to a point that I could burst. I believe all mothers love their children more than anything in this world as well. With the love towards own children would somehow spill over towards such adornment and lovely feelings towards other children. What not to love about them? They are as innocent as one could get and they are very honest with their feelings plus the most beautiful of all they don't know what is prejudice. They embrace life and take each day to the fullest. They are the beautiful side of life that we have longed forgotten in the name of commitment and responsibilities.

I don't really follow the news because I know I will be easily emotionally affected. Without control I would imagine these angels' cries begging for mercy, affection, attention from these so called 'pengasuh' or nanny that was entrusted to give due care by the parents. I feel disgusted with the thought of these heartless creatures (not worth to be called human) that they look at and treat these children at their disposal which are for money, free supply of diapers and milk. These children's milk and diapers were taken without consent for the kindergarten owner's children's consumption. For the love of God, as Muslims you know for the fact that it is a sin to take other people's things or stealing and to make it worse you use it on to your children. It is down right Haram. You were feeding haram food to your children!. Nauzubillah!!. My prayers and thoughts are also to her children who were born and raised by such God-knows creature.

This case was not the first and I surely bet that it won't be the last. It is only a matter of time before such new case made way in the headlines. No parents want their children to go through that turmoil. No one wants that. I personally salute mothers who forego their career to become a stay-at-home mom. I am not that worthy to be saluted because I am kinda working and I still send my son to a day care centre.

The process of selecting a day care for my son was really long and time consuming. I really took pain in selecting, do site visit, interview, google for any issues related to the respective day care centres and even parked outside for a couple of hours in case of any God-forbids incidents that I must know about. For every site visit, I really put on my eagle eyes and scanned around the premise to see if there are anything amiss or foreign to any child care centre. I don't ask questions, I was practically interrogate the day care rep. I look at the children in the centre and see their condition whether they are clean, well fed, jovial and most of all if they seems confident or terrified at the sight of an adult. To sum up, I also listened to my inner voice on the 'energy/aura' of the centres. Also, I go for centres that are popular and well reputable. That could narrow down my list into half. Its easy to assume that centres that are well reputable means other parents trust them.

Even after I put my son in a day care, I monitor his development every single day. Has he developed confidence or fear? Has he been progressing well or declining bad? How good is he with his teachers? Does he like them? How is he around them? All these questions were answered positively from observation and I would say I am happy so far. I have to admit the fee is quite on the high side but what is money when it comes to your child's happiness and development. My husband and I are quite pleased with our son's development and jovial personality.

Ok, back to the earlier story. I really hope that this heartless creature and her minions will be punished most severely. They are the mother of all evil. They are the Satan's mistresses. They are beyond monster, even monster sounds tame to them. We, Malaysians regardless of any race, political differences, gender, age are up most disgusted with the crime that was committed. You lot are a bunch of cowards who pick on defenseless children and rob their parents money for services that were never delivered.

Maybe in your next life, you should come out as tin men out on a journey to meet the Wizard of Oz and ask to be granted a HEART.

I do apologise with languages and terms that I used in this post, it's just I could not find any other proper words to describe these lot.

Ok, I better be off now before I come out with any wider vocabulary.

Moral values of our children - are we ready for any possibilities?

This morning I came across an interesting article in NSTP by Chok Suat Long, New Sunday Times editor called 'Miley, a role model no more for young'. No, I am neither a Hannah Montana nor Miley's fan that had me glued to the article. As I went through the writing, I could not help but recalled the hu-ha on Miley's previous performance in 2013 VMA on Facebook. There were even clips from the performance but no, I never watched them. I only did this morning on Youtube and God knows how much I feared for the parents who's daughters idolised Miley or Hannah Montana or just into pop cultures. The performance featured Miley clad in nude colour latex bra and hot pants, and dancing in a provocative way (suddenly I feel so elderly when I had to use the word 'provocative'). If I'm not mistaken, it was kinda something to do with 'twerking' (google, please. I'm trying to keep my blog U-rated). I guess Miley is shedding her good girl image following the steps after Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and now Selena Gomez is looking at the same direction. How come I know all these? Well, I am a parent as well. I may not have a daughter yet, but all these do catch my attention as well. But that's not all. 

I do have concerns with the teens programs or shows from the west. I don't have to point out the assortment of fashions that they promote but its the values that they bring to the table. Thumbs up to the good values of sticking up to friends and family or become straight A students. How do you think with the attitudes of talk back screaming to parents, sarcasm to the elders and parents, bullying other people (mean girls. ring a bell?) to name a few. Let me quote some from the article.

"Indeed, there is a whole new generation of youngsters who think nothing of talking down to adults or taking a condescending tone with their elders. They are just emulating their role model"

"It is not just lacking in the music world. The cartoon universe these days is also filled with dark, brooding anti-heroes; characters who bleed when injured-kids who sneer at adult authority. The children portrayed in cartoons have adult issues, and often talk and dress like them"

"which is why it does not come as a surprise, too that many children now have no qualms dropping f-bomb and any other words that would even make the most foul-mouthed rapper blush"

Could anyone relate to these?

I only have an 18 months old son and now he is just into toy cars, picture books and nursery rhymes. No, I am not exhaling my relief just yet. You see, my son knows how to operate the Ipad and Youtube all by himself. He may not know how to read but he sure knows by tapping on the screen, videos will pop out. I'll be damned if one of the video that he tapped popped out Miley-VMA kinda videos and messed his brain out. First of all, he's a boy and his brain is like sponge taking absolutely anything without any filter. I will most certainly faint if he suddenly burst out 'twerking' moves when his nursery rhymes songs play. 

Hang on, before you all come out pouncing like a hungry lioness saying Ipad is no good, will make him addicted, will make him go crazy etc, we are both working parents who are still figuring out on how to compartmentalise our energy as the day leave us with one red blinking bar in our energy cell hence the Ipad  is to keep our boy quiet and sit by us. However, we made it up by enrolling him in a daily playschool so he could be 'normal'. Hey, we are trying our best, ok?.

We were all teenager once and we used to have issues with our parents. We adore our friends and dissed our parents and God knows how much our parents have put up with us. They understand adolescents, enough said. The difference is that our parents did not have the  luxury of abundant information access except through our friends or being a stalker themselves compared to our time now with all these social networking lots. We may ought to watch over our children and their whereabouts. Although my son is only a toddler now, I have some degree of nervousness and anticipation when he reach his teens in the next 11 years! paranoid? which mother doesn't?

Haziq at 17 months old and future plans

Today is quite a historic day for us. Haziq has started his first day of school. Well not quite a school really, its more of a play school. For the past few months, I have noticed his development in wanting to make friends and play but did not know how. As well as did not know how to react when being hit or pushed around by other children in his age or older. At the same time, he has shown interest in books mostly with alphabets and picture. We got a bit excited and been spoiling him with some new books and alhamdulilah his interests keeps growing from time to time. Hence, we as parents took the cue and decided to enroll him in this play school that we believe (more of hope, really) could nurture him better. 

Before I came across this school, I did some research and site visits for information and testimonials on many others but didn't have that 'confident' feeling, since I am sending my only child (for now) to a total stranger to whom I shall give my up most trust to care and nurture. After some scrutiny, walk-around, and 'interrogations', then I got that 'confidence' that I was looking for in this school. Perhaps its too early to commend but if you ask a mother's gut feeling, I would say I have pretty good vibes with this one. Haziq is attending his 2 days trial to assess his acceptance and preliminary ability to adapt to changes before we go ahead and commit. When we do, we will disclose the school's name. 

To be honest, my hubby and I were quite nervous for Haziq on his reaction in a room full of strangers and dread to think whether will he throw tantrums or clinging on to me like a possessive cheeky monkey at all time or what not. I even have prepared to stay in for half a day if case if things get out of hand. When we arrived there, I just can't imagine how silly and paranoid we have been. Yes at first, he was being a bit clingy but that was just only for the next 5 minutes. His teacher skilfully 'bribed' him with a box full of toys and a girl (slightly older than him) to entice him to come and play. I gotta say, my son is pretty cheap in that area. Toys and girls, a perfect combo for a toddler boy, huh? He just let go of me and I saw him willingly whisked away to the play area. At that point a thought came across my mind. Yup, I'm pretty much invisible now and I'd better make myself useful elsewhere. Surely I wouldn't want him to come back and scorned 'Mummy, go home. It's not cool to have you here stalking me in front of the girls' (in his own toddler gibberish). Wipe that smirk off your face. I'm telling you he could do that and he did actually. He actually scolded me for stopping him from playing with pebbles with the total package of frowned eyebrows, clenched teeth and really really small eyes to complete. Ok, the scorned thing was a bit OTT but hey, I can't help it if I have big imaginations. Oh yes, I think he will be able to adapt well there given plenty of friends and a cute teacher. His teacher is called teacher Farah and she seems like a sweet person. Haziq likes sweet soft people, but he didn't have much choice when it comes to his mom though. Tough luck son, someone gotta teach you how to have and keep your balls!!

Now my son is at school, I am now in a library. What am I doing there? well, after I'm done with this post I will get on with my research proposal for PhD. I have only started with some journals and believe its a long way to go. I hope with this arrangement, I could be more focus with my studies and keep my family in balance, In Sha Alllah. I believe as long as our intentions are true, Allah will certainly approve and guide us the right way. 

Since the new semester in UniKL will start next month, I have the luxury of time for my research and writing. At the same time I am hunting for other part time lecturing jobs at some nearby local universities and luck is still yet to come. Its ok, Allah knows best.