Singapore children are happy

Must share this in case you missed this letter in the forum page. A mother commented on the wrong conclusion that was drawn from a recent survey amongst Singaporean children. The survey suggested that most children in Singapore are happy and are generally not disturbed that their mothers are working and spending less time with them. Hence it concluded that working mothers can now rest easy.

This mother of 2 who wrote in commented that it does not take much to make the kids happy, like letting them watch TV, allowing them to take sugary food and allowing them to idle. But she feels her job as a mother should be "to keep my children unhappy". It takes greater effort to make them unhappy like restricting their time for watching TV and playing computer games, making them take healthy food, disciplining them when they misbehave, etc etc. She then went on to say "A mother who fears making her children unhappy ....is unlikely to have the strength of character to bring up a child ...of character". She went on to quote an old proverb that "A child left to himself brings his mother to shame".

Wow what a strong statement but I thought she does have some valid points. When I show this article to my 17 year old son, his reaction is just as funny. He raves and wonders what kind of mother this lady is, probably the type who expects perfect grades, perfect discipline, perfect everything. "Does she think her children are vermins that cannot be left on their own and need to be restrained?" He thinks she is making a fool of herself!
Hahaha To think that I kind of agree with her.