My Work-In-Progress

Perhaps I should re-name my blog "My Work-In-Progress".

Because my three sons are my work-in-progress (WIP). It may be a quaint way of looking at things but blame it on my business background! The transformation activity, from raw material (ya, egg and sperm) to finished goods, takes easily 20+ years and the scary thing is we are given only one chance to get it right. If I had done a bad job as a parent, I wouldn't know it until they are grown-ups. There may be interim warning signs, and I sincerely hope these will not go unnoticed, but what if it is too late? This business that I am in is indeed a high-risk business!

Two obvious questions come to mind:

1. when is the point that we can declare that the goods are "finished" and
2. what do we hope the finished product to be?

To the first question, it would be the point when they can make their own decisions AND are fully responsible for those decisions. And it should coincide with the point when they are ready to join the workforce and make their own living. Hopefully, that will be their university graduation. Some families, particularly Asian ones, think that so long as the child is unmarried, the parents assume full responsibility for the child. I do not agree simply because that could mean that the inventory could be WIP forever! After all, there are many reasons nowadays why people do not get married! I too want my retirement, you know.

The second question brings to mind the speech given by my eldest brother during the wedding reception of his only daughter. He described his daughter (my niece) as kind and considerate, putting others before self. And how proud he and his wife were that she had turned out that way. Now that was a beautiful speech. And indeed, the "finished goods" should be the whole person, the good person, the moral person. That should be the whole point.

Often, I feel kind of envious of people with grown-up children - they are able to see the results of their labour. I hope they like what they see... because their children is a reflection of themselves.

I wonder what I will see in time to come...