Chinese Parenting (III) - Babying your baby

These past few days I have been looking at my son in disbelief because he turns 1 tomorrow.  How can it be so soon?  It seemed I blinked and here he is now, this walking, babbling, giggling, climbing, mischievous little monkey.  So he's officially a toddler now I guess?  

The Western upbringing in me is telling me, I need to teach him to be more independent, hold his bottle, self feed, re-teach him how to settle himself to sleep again (he did this beautifully for months but for some reason this all went belly up a few weeks ago).  

The Chinese-ness in me is saying, but he's still a baby.  Enjoy this time because it will (and evidently has) pass by so quickly.  If I let him hold his bottle, all he does is throw it on the floor and think its funny.  When I let him self feed, it just ends up everywhere (table, floor, hair, clothes, ears, face, me) and is so messy.  I can't stop myself from wiping him/ surroundings as soon as it is smeared with food because if I don't the splats would just compound and become unbearable.  But this is something that I'm just going to have to get over because Toddler A is regressing, she sees the extra attention the Baby is getting and wants in on the action.  She has now stopped feeding herself and no amount of bribery is working.  She thinks it's fun to be like her brother.  Aiya.  

As for the sleeping, he would happily be put down in his cot awake for naps and at night, I'd give him his cloth, walk away and when I check on him a few minutes later he would be asleep.  It felt like magic.  Then for some unfathomable reason (not teething, not new illnesses etc), a few weeks ago, it all changed.  When he was left alone he would cry and cry and then vomit.  So I was reluctant, or felt unable to let him cry it out alone in his cot.  This boy can will himself to vomit (even when he is not ill), I have seen it happen when he doesn't like what he is eating and on occasions when he doesn't get his way.  

I am horrified that I am being manipulated in this way, but aside from giving in on this I don't know what to do.  Cleaning up vomit is not my idea of fun, nor does it make me a better mother.  

I helped out at my daughter's class a few months back.  Cooking of all things.  She attends the international stream so there is good mix of nationalities amongst the 20 kids.  We worked with the kids in small groups to make some icing, which involved stirring, mixing, spreading and sprinkling.  

Interestingly, (and this is a generalisation) most of the kids from "Western" countries of origin (America, UK, Italian, French, German, Israel etc) worked way more independently that the HK, Indian, Japanese children.  Some kids in the latter group just sat there frowning at the spoon and bowl, probably thinking, what do you want me to do with that?  They needed a lot more help, prompting and some didn't do anything at all.  My daughter was totally disinterested and refused to sit still at the table.  

I was really surprised by what I witnessed and felt a bit of a failure as a mother to be perfectly honest.  Am I too soft on my kids and pampering them too much?  Do I need to be a bit more insistence in getting them to do more for themselves?  Or will my preference for an easier life (i.e. no shouting, tantrums or harsh discipline) and general laziness rule?  What do you do when each meal becomes a power struggle?  How do you convince yourself that she will be fine if all she will eat is a couple of spoonfuls of food?  How do you do this everyday, 4 times each day without losing your cool? 

Or is it ok to "enjoy" the baby period a bit longer because eventually they will do all those things independently?  It seems the harder we insist on the eating issues, the more resistance is put up.  Should we just wait until she feels she's a big enough girl to feed herself?  Or chip away at it each day hoping she gets it before I go insane?  I don't know.  

Chinese Parenting (II) - Favouritism

In line with my general horribleness of late, I was pretty short with my mother last night over the phone.  I guess it was the culminations of weeks (months) of "non-helpful" comments from my parents about my child raising abilities that did it.  Everything from implying that I was somehow making my son sick with the way I was looking after him, how I was stirring the congee too much and giving him "wind", how I shouldn't be giving home made yoghurt to my children (despite the fact that my son is a crap milk drinker), how their home is more Christmassy than ours, how my dad refuses to have dinner at our house because we can't provide a palatable meal, how the organic fruit and veggies I buy for my family are actually not good for them etc., to name but a few.  

Comments, yes they can send me in a rage and with time my anger will lessen, but the one thing that breaks my heart is seeing the blatant favouritism for my son over my daughter.  This is not uncommon in Chinese culture, and my father is by far the worst offender.  (He was the eldest only surviving son with six younger sisters, so he was really doted on).  But in this day and age, where there are no property or inheritance rights at stake, why is my son considered more worthy of love and attention than my daughter?  

My daughter may be young, but I believe she has picked up on what's going on, she used to ask about her "Gong Gong" all the time, he was by far the most favoured grandparent (my mum was in London at that time) when she was younger, even though he wasn't the one she saw the most.  Now she rarely mentions him outside of visits.  

My mum (still won't admit that it is so) is more conscious of her interactions with them now, and tries very admirably to be fair.  But my dad, doesn't even try to deny it and has repeatedly asked to take Baby O back to their home and look after for a period of time (days and weeks, I'm talking here).   I don't have a problem with the kids staying over with them, but not when they only want one of them.  I said, if they take one, then they have to take the other.  Silence.  "We can't handle them both" was the reply.  "Ok, so take Toddler A then".  Silence.  

Basically the above conversation was repeated regularly for months and months, and finally culminated in my dad screaming at me over the phone that I should let them take the Baby because I didn't know how to look after him properly and that's why he was always sick.  I cried that night, the first time since I had second trimester spotting and I thought I was going to lose my son.  

My dad and I haven't spoken properly since then, not that we ever had "heart to hearts" or anything.  Now, we are just courteously ignoring each other more or less.  It's sad, but I'm not sad, I can't be.  I can't change the way he thinks, my daughter will learn to be more resilient and figure out that life is sometimes not fair through no fault of her own.  

Chinese Parenting (I) - Background

Now to give you an idea of where my mad ramblings stem from, I have to give you some background to my childhood.  My parents were born here in HK during the 1940s, and as was typical of the indigenous Chinese people living in the New Territories back then, many decided to head for pastures greener in the West.  My dad, ended up in Dublin aged 15 washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant and years later came back to HK to marry girlfriend no. 13 (or so I was told, i.e. my mum) and take her to settle with him in Nottingham.  Big sister and big brother were born in the 1960s in the UK (mum was only 19 when she had my sister) and I was born in the earlyish 1970s back here in HK.  We all returned back to London when I was still an infant.  

Straight after university I packed my bags to leave the country, was an expat in Japan for 2 years, spent 6 months studying putonghua at a Beijing university before landing in HK jobless and penniless 9 years ago.   I haven't really been back "home" properly since then and the nature of my husband's job means that the UK is very unlikely to be on the horizon.  

So despite living in London all my young life, my upbringing was still very traditional Chinese in many ways, maybe even more so than had it been in Hong Kong because of the nature of Chinese communities and how they function abroad.   

My parent's generation had no real incentive to learn English fluently because the London Chinese have their very own fully functional Cantonese microcosm - friends, relatives, supermarkets, grocery stores, doctors, accountants, restaurants, take-aways, language schools etc.  

Back when we were growing up, there was no satellite/ cable tv with Chinese channels, internet, long distance calls were expensive, imported Chinese magazines and newspapers were a luxury and only available if you made the trek out to Chinatown in Central London.  Thus change and progress through the times came at a much slower pace for this insular Chinese community.  

For many first generationers, it was only through their kids armed with their English education that forced change and challenged their traditional Chinese ways.  Thus not only did we have to endure the normal generation gap angst, a whole lot of cultural differences, resulting in confused kids and parents were thrown in for good measure.   

Personally, those inner conflicts have manifested themselves in many ways as the years whizzed by, the consequences of which are now playing out in how I choose to raise my children.  (Note: husband is HK born, bred and educated, so that's a whole different set of battles - my kids don't stand a chance!)