Kids nowadays

A few days ago, I was assigned the duty of being the chaperone to about 30 children. Being in their company for about a period of close to 24 hours within the span of 2 days nearly drove me nuts! Now I can reaffirm why I do not foresee myself being a parent.

The day started at about 7.30am. A bunch of eager, bright eyed, precocious children were already milling around at the top of their voices. As I reached within 3 meters of them, some of the boys started to surge forward and a whole barrage of questions started to attack me. *sigh*.

Now, usually the patience is quite high and those questions would be answered. But somehow that morning, my patience was threading on thin ice. Maybe it’s the flu that I’ve been nursing for the past few days. Maybe it’s really them! They were all asking questions at the same time at the top of their voices. Do they honestly believe that by doing so their queries would be entertained first? Have they not heard of taking turns and putting up their hands before they talk? Where are all those manners?!?

Being in the confines of those kids was interesting, though 90% of the time, they were irritants. It’s really amazing to know how much these kids are exposed to and how ignorant some of their parents might be.

There was this boy called Calvin. He looks like a chimp and acts like one too. Are all boys by that name sake brats? He seems to be one. He approaches and talk to just about any adult stranger like as if they were his long lost friends. The bus driver assigned to us was already cranky as it was. Calvin somehow did not detect it. He went up to the driver and tried to strike a conversation. The bus driver clearly was not pleased. Calvin went ignored. Calvin went around the whole time trying to strike up conversation with girls from other schools or trying to show off. He was definitely the self proclaimed charmer within his group. The rest of the boys in his group are bumbling blur squids.

That kid has a silver spoon in his mouth. From what I gathered, all his wants are entertained by his parents. He seems to think that things should revolve around him. He is dominant to the point that his subjugated group members traipsed around blindly to all his biddings and suggestions. Whatever it was, I merely show a face of disgust every time I hear his pompous voice anywhere near me. I swear that kid has no EQ, IQ or shame. Boys like him will grow up to be those pompous loud mouth boot licker who earned their ranks through shameless self promotions and crediting himself on other’s works.

He struts around with 2 sets of MP3 players and a whole plethora of other adult high tech gadgets just to impress the kids around him. Ask him to demonstrate the full capability of those gadgets, he can’t. He merely used it for his Ah-Beng techno songs and to store pictures of sexily clad women. When I asked him about those pictures, he said, “It’s normal what! Other people doing it too”. Is his mom is fully aware of what he does at home within the confines of his room?

Enough of that brat!

Another kid, William was a joy to know. He's cherubic, articulate and astute. He knows how to differentiate between talking with adults and his friends. Every time the group gets rowdy, he will ask them to simmer down. William will go far in life if he keeps up with his studies. The only son of rich Indonesian parents, his schedule is filled to the brim with co curricular activities daily. He is a scout, in the robotics club and helps out with teachers in the school. He gracefully acceded defeat when pitted against secondary school boys in a robotics competition even though it seemed to look like a draw. His words were, “It’s okay. I accede defeat. Their robots were bigger and longer. I can always try again next time”. How great and magnanimous is that? His team mates were screeching away in the background about it being unfair but he coolly and calmly just uttered those words. His parents have really thought him well.

Another eleven year old boy simply floored me with his straight shooting mouth. This boy, Hamdi wanted to get a snack from 7-11. So being their chaperone, I brought them there and told them that they have about 10 minutes to get their food. I was at the back end of the shop looking for beverages when it happened. Upon paying for his purchases, he made a remark which totally got me stunned. He was looking at the colourful boxes of condoms neatly displayed by the cash registers and retorted, “Hah! Now I know why so many of you adults don’t get married. You guys don’t want to waste money buying condoms right. They are so expensive for one time use. No wonder!” And the most amazing part was he said it loudly with a dead pan face to the aunty behind the counter and just about anyone within the shop. His two friends merely giggled and told him to shut up.

There I was standing with these kids trying to figure out what to say next; because I was too stunned, when he came up to me and said, “Come on, let’s get going, we are famish!”. When I looked at him, Hamdi said there was nothing to be embarrassed about as they have learnt all about it during their sexuality lessons in school. He said it without a nary of embarrassment. Now, how does one respond to that? When I mentioned to him that people do not usually proclaim out loud what they do, he replied that he didn’t mean it in a perverted way. The other two, Kim and Su nodded and mentioned albeit loudly, “At least, we didn’t call our robots nipples like the other group!”

At that point, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole!

Now, I’m all for holistic education, but this was really something else. Kids nowadays are far more exposed than we would like to think they are. Parents seem to think that their kids are still innocent and pure. But even the books that they read can reveal a whole lot more about the birds and the bees to the uninitiated.

Take for example one of the children’s favourite, “Singapore Ghost Stories” series of books. There is a chapter on succubus and incubus and children as young as nine are reading it.

Parents blame just about everyone around them but not themselves. A friend of mine told me that a parent blamed a particular teacher for his son’s absences from school. The father gave the lame excuse that his son was scared of the teacher. The amazing part was that, the boy only attended class for one day for the whole term! Upon probing further, it seemed that the same thing had happened to the boy’s older siblings and the father had conveniently placed the blamed on their fierce teachers. How amazing is that? Three siblings, three different schools, same type of teacher. Mere coincidence? Fact or fiction? It seems that this ‘dangdut’ loving father has been using the same excuse for all his children. Even the social worker has partly given up trying to engage his kids to go to school.

Tsk, tsk, tsk …

It’s such a shame.