Am I a good mother?

I may stay home with the children, but I don’t actually do very much with them. I take care of them, yes – make sure they’re bathed, fed and kept in good health. I make sure they stay safe and not stick fingers down electric sockets or tie plastic bags over their heads. But other than that, I don’t really think too hard about them.

Perhaps it’s because I got stuck in the “baby” stage of childcare, which really was about just making sure they were fed and kept clean. I can take care of children, but I don’t really know what to do with them beyond that. It appears rather late for me to be discovering this, or perhaps it’s because recently, I’ve had too many comments made around me that I’m not doing enough to nurture them. Stretch their brains. Teach them creativity. Inspire them. Teach them to love to learn. Teach them to love books.

Thus far, I’ve been doing the bare minimum. I pretty much copy what people around me are doing. It could be things were less competitive in Hong Kong, but the truth is that I now feel the need to do much more to give my children that “headstart in life”, if you could call it that. It’s not entirely true to say I feel pressured by those around me, but it is a starting point. Where S used to be easily ahead of her friends, I find she’s just somewhere in the middle now. But it’s not strictly academics that I’m worried about. That, I feel, I can always work on and in fact, I have already begun to do so. It’s the other aspects of childhood learning I’m worried about. Creativity. Love for books. Drawing. Art. Music. Love for sports. Independence. Judgement. Logic. I don’t feel that S is behind in any way, but I do feel I can’t leave it to schools to do it for me. And worse, I’m not sure how I go about nuturing these areas.

I think I’ve got the June holidays to thank for this epiphany. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m desparately trying to make the best of all this free time and ensure that the children aren’t “rotting away at home”, I probably wouldn’t be doing this much research on the internet. This week thus far hasn’t been a roaring success – in fact, it’s been rather haphazard. But at least I make it a point to plan a trip and a special activity or two the night before and do some minimal preparations. It has kept the kids fairly happy and it’s given me a sense of fulfillment watching them accomplish something with their simple crafts. At the moment, I’m working on motor skills with N and fine motor skills with S, but that’s largely because I haven’t really thought much about the plan for the week.

I do have to admit that spending this much time on the kids is very rare for me. In fact, I was complaining to D two nights ago how exhausted I was, and how little I had done other than keep the children occupied. He was encouraging, saying time spent with the children is not time wasted at all. But the fact remains that I have a job – my job at home taking care of all non-children-related business. Suffice it to say that there is a lot that needs doing and D agrees that sometimes I am as good as a working mother.

I’m not sure if I’m a good mother or not and I’m not really expecting an answer. I know people who do loads less. I also know people who do loads more. While I personally have no interest to homeschool, I am ever in awe of families who choose to do it. To make a firm and bold commitment to a child’s education is admirable and I do see aspects in the curriculums that teach children more than academics, more than our schools can provide. I believe we as parents have a firm hand in moulding our children. I don’t believe schools will do it for us. I do, however, believe in the benefit of going to school and while I have misgivings about our schooling system, I recognise that it is one of very high standards. Helping our children cope should be more than just doing more and more assessment books. Education, in short, should be more than just letters and numbers.

So how I go about achieving all these lofty goals is probably going to be nothing more than trial and error. But I suppose this is how we all do it. More internet surfing, more reading, more asking around. S and N may not get the perfect education at school and at home, but I won’t let it be said I didn’t try.

After D commented that it is good to be spending time with the children, I realize that this is perhaps what I’m meant to be doing now, at this time in their lives. I do miss doing my own thing, like writing – it feels like an entire lifetime ago – and yet, I do know that once I get the hang of all this, juggling the children, my ”job” as PA, accountant, administrator and whatever other crap I deal with, and let’s not forget the new baby, I’ll be able to find that 30 minutes a day again to dedicate to writing once more.

Parenting is such hard work.