It's not easy being a mum..

I have always considered myself as being a 'modern person' but in many areas I am very conservative. This especially refers to the way children are brought up. To me the role of nurturing / disciplining a child is mainly the mother's domain with  the father playing a major supporting role, supporting the mother in the open and keeping disagreement to the private quarters of the bedroom or at least when no one else is within ear shot. Of course this bit wasn't always so, and it did give rise to a few problems but mostly I managed to do what I thought fitted the situation.

I am very fortunate Allah bestowed upon me the kids I prayed for - a girl and a boy - delivered in the order according to my wish . I imagined I was going to be able to have a reasonably good life so I was able to shower my children with things I could never afford to have as a child myself. 

When the kids were young life was easy, just gave them what they needed, but I was always careful not to overdo things, so they never had just about anything they laid their eyes on.. there was no way my child was going to throw a tantrum just to get a toy that caught her/his fancy. The disciplining started way back like they wrote in books...and once started life took a sort of pattern.

Firstly my kids were fed at regular hours starting with a proper breakfast and hardly anything in between meals. Then the day would consist of some play, some tv, the outdoors in the evening and educational outings..to the zoo, parks and even the wet market. At the end of the day bed time is before 9pm , with the day ending with a bedtime storyreading. When my daughter was little I often had to read the same story day after day. Occasionally when I saw her eyes closed I would jump a few lines just so that the session ended sooner. As often, as soon as I did that she would open hers eyes and tell me ..' mama you forgot to read...' and there I went again over the paragraphs.

When they grew older life got better ..We were fortunate to have relocated to KL and we lived  in a big wooden Government bungalow @ Jalan Hose which is just across the road from the main football stadium (then) and in the neighbourhood of the Istana Negara and about 20 minutes away from my office. We had a driver to ferry them to and from school but I stressed that this has nothing to do with affluence. The driver was just to help us transport them because when at work we would not be able to come out as and when we like. But this also gave me the opportunity to travel with them to their schools every morning..It is amazing how much there was to talk about on these trips! On most days I went home for lunch and even if I did not I was home immediately after work to be with them and to go over the school work. When I had long lunch break on Fridays we would explore the major shopping complexes in KL and restaurants at hotels stressing that when we have money we'd go on these outings and eat in style..that was nothing to brag about because if we became poor suddenly we'd have to stay home and be contented on instant noodles and that would be nothing to be ashamed of. I guess that kept them grounded.

So my children grew up not wanting ..well mostly. We did not do things because someone was doing it, we went for holidays as and when we could afford it. When they were small going abroad on long haul flights did not seem a good idea so we took long drives to the east coast and later to Singapore, and  later progressed to neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Thailand.  It was only when my son was in his 12th year that we decided to revisit England - my son's country of birth and I made sure it was before his birthday to take advantage of the reduced fare.

In all those years I believe my daughter was quite contented with most things - she never asked for anything out of the ordinary. But I cant help feeling my son was in bit of a spot with a friend who was quite a show off. At one point he told me that at any time this friend would at least have RM 300 in his wallet when my kids had no more than RM 10 per week! Was I stingy? - I didn't dare ask! Then there was a time he came to me asking if we could go on a vacation, and I was surprised because we had just come back from a holiday ourselves. So I figured it must have been a word used by this same friend who was about to go on a family holiday...it must have been how it was said.

All in all there were lots of ups and downs because I was a stern person as a mum..which I regret sometimes but it was all well meaning. I was not having kids who are spoilt rotten. Now that both of them are adults I hope they do appreciate all the things I did to shape them. They never went without but they never got more than they needed. Hopefully  they will share my values with the children when they have them

me and my mum..

Seldom a day goes by that I do not remember my dear mother..I love doing most of the things she loved doing particularly handicraft and gardening. In my little garden I have plants she used to have and nurture and since I am in the garden almost everyday, it is just as often that I think of her. 

At the side the sireh thrives on the garden fence. When I was little chewing the sireh was a favorite past time for my mum and her peers. I never liked the smell of it and the orange stain it left on her lips and tongue. When she went to my school for any school function I would warn her not too chew the sireh because it would embarass me. Of course she wasn't happy with that! She'd feel so idle! In any case our neighbours used to come and buy the sireh from us - maybe for 10 sen a bunch. The sireh seemed to come in handy too whenever any of us were unwell. As kids we sometimes ran a fever in the evenings and after a day of running around we'd lie down weak and with a temperature. My mum would take a leaf , draw lines on it with the slaked lime ( kapur), read a few verses and chewed the leaf and then she would rub the orange stained juice (her saliva really, yuks!!) behind the ears, on the forehead, at the back of the hands and perhaps on the knees and ankles too. Miraculously it worked ...always!!

Then there is the fragrant jermin..now people plant them to ward off mosquitoes but my mum planted them for their beautiful leaves and fragrance! My jermin do not seem to last as long as the ones my mother planted so I had to buy a new pot each time the existing plant died.

Another favourite of my mum's is the bunga tongking. I found a pot at the pasar pagi in Subang Jaya many years ago but the plant died after a few years. Some time ago I found another pot at one of the nurseries at Sg Buloh. I planted it on the ground and let it climb on the fence. My mum used these to grace the bun in her hair. She would keep a few flowers in her hair oil ( she prepared the coconut oil herself!) . She did not have a lot of hair but the style of the day was the bun. To increase the bulk in her hair she would take a few pandan leaves, strand them length wise and line them up with her hair, put a little bit of oil as a binder and twist the hair into a bun which she secured with a pin. As a finishing touch she would put in a small bunch of the bunga tongking. 

Our Kampung house is set on a piece of land, slightly less than 3 acres and purchased pre WW2. Naturally we had many trees and some like the pokok sentul and pokok cermai were not found elsewhere in the village. At the western corner of the front steps we had a pokok belimbing buloh and on the west side of the main house we had a pokok cermai. Once when the cermai was in abundance my uncle from Kuala Lumpur visited with his family. My cousins who had never seen the cermai in the lives tried figuring its name and finally one of them 'baptised' it 'cucu buah apple' the 'grandkids of apples'. Just out side the kitchen we had a tall pokok turi bearing white flowers. My mother would make masak lemak with these. The belimbing made good sambal and the cermai we ate raw and sometimes with some sugar and salt. Now in front of my house I have these three plants and I plan to keep them trimmed to control their heights.

My mum was the first teacher I ever had. Those days the kindergarten was only a word we found in the dictionary if we bothered to look it up. She did not teach me to read   

( though she could read both jawi and rumi ) but she taught me how to add and subtract - a skill that was very difficult for a six year old to master. And she taught me to read the Quran, making sure that I pronounced the alphabets correctly especially those that sound almost alike. It is only natural that whenever I read the Quran she would be on my mind. Her values have shaped me into the person I am today and I pray that whatever good I do will benefit her too in the after life. Mak may Allah bless your soul and place you with his chosen ones.

I have just been reminded of the biggest event of my life as a mother - the day my daughter Munira got married this day seven years ago. As I sit back and recall the events that led to the day I wonder how we managed to do it. We all have so many friends and I have only one daughter so I did not want to miss out anybody. The names came from the obvious- family members,close friends - mine and my kids, neighbours, old neighbours and office friends , the people who knew her personally while she was receptionist at my office, and in the course of work I made many friends too so I went through about 10 registration books at the office. All in all we came up with about 2000 guests! Can we fit them all in? The minute I mentioned it to my brother, he went around the house and suggested possible places for the guests, the cooking etc etc..yes we were going to do it at home.

That does not sound so glamorous in this day and age but it is something I like very much - it just seems so personal to me and we'd save the hassle of travelling between home and whatever place it was. Plus all the money can go to food!

Thank God for family members and friends everything went smoothly ( even if there were hitches I wasn't told about them until after it was all over) ..with my dear niece Shikin taking charge I was free just to entertain people who visited.

I was anxious if all guests turned up and if they did would the food be sufficient for everyone. We had a great cook who monitored the situation well and despite the hectic few weeks it all ended with lots of memories - we even had it covered in a Berita Harian supplement and Pak Kadir's blog.Now seven years on I can only hope Munira and Nazuri are happy together and will continue to live happily together till, like the wedding vows go, 'till death do us part'.