Myths and Truths for Children of Divorced Parents

 

The workshop for Children Caught-in-Between (of their divorced parents' conflict) has resumed. The first session introduces the common misbeliefs or "myths" (as we term them) among these children. Looking back on my past encounters with children of divorced parents, I am more and more convinced that these are really very common misconceptions in their minds. 

The first "myth" as we share with the children is "I caused my parents' divorce". As divorced couples often fight over the custody of their children, it is not surprising for the children to think they are the cause of the conflict. As one boy explained every time his father punished him for misbehaving, his mother would disagree with the mode of punishment and that would trigger another quarrel and fight between them. 

The second misbelief " I can get mum and dad back together" is so prevalent. Once when I pointed out that the truth is "No matter how hard you try, you can't get your mum and dad together again", a little girl said directly into my face "You are very mean to say that". What she was actually alluding to was the cruelty in my snuffing out the kindles of her last hopes. 

The third myth "I am not part of a family anymore" is another common belief. Children often expressed surprise when we say that "You will always be part of a family". Many ask how that is possible when the family members are not staying together. Once when asked to draw their family even if it means the picture would include 2 or more households, a boy refused to draw any picture at all. When asked he just retorted that he was invisible and cannot be seen, hence there is no picture to be drawn. I think that is an expression that he and his family don't exist anymore.

The fourth myth " I have to help my parents cope with the divorce" is most poignantly portrayed in the sand story of a child during sandplay therapy (an expressive therapy making use of a sand tray and little symbols and figurines). In her story which she enacted with little toys and figures on the sand tray, a father who was sick would be left alone in an island with little food and clean water while the wife and daughter was about to embark on a long journey up the river. The entire hour of the sandplay session was about the daughter in the story being very very busy storing up food and fetching clean water for the father. All the small pots and jars displayed on the shelves in the therapy room were used and seemed insufficient for the story. Not only that, the story went on that the house could be blown off by very strong winds and the daughter had to make sure all the household items were properly protected as well.

Sometime I just feel it is so hard for these children to make cognitive sense of their parents' separation. Their little minds traverse between reality and fantasy . Fortunately given the resilience in kids, we can help them see and accept reality. As one child played out a scenario in her story during a sandplay session, a little chicken wearing sunglasses boarded a cab. The cab sped across a battlefield to reach a safe place at the far end. The little chicken cried "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me" while the cab dodged the cross fires! That is what I call building emotional boundary.

( If interested to find out more about how I perceive children's inner feelings, read my other blog by clicking this link below:

https://hearchildrenvoices.blogspot.com/

Purchase of Satisfaction

 

I have a white Taiji classmate who is above 70 years old. She is born in Australia and married to a Malaysian Chinese turned Singaporean. As their children are in Australia and UK they have decided recently to sell their house in Singapore and rent an apartment while reconsidering where they should domicile in their elderly years.

Many interested buyers viewed and offered . Though the offer prices were right all of them wanted to flatten the property and rebuild it into a 4 storey house with bigger built in area. My classmate feels that the house can still be lived in and tearing it down is a terrible waste of material and resources. Hence she and her husband were hesitant and despaired over the delay in getting a "good buyer". Just when they were about to accept the fact that in Singapore people go for maximum utility of space, a Singaporean couple who have recently returned from overseas found her place lovely and intended to just restore and renovate it, keeping the outdoor space intact. So they readily agreed to the offer and felt the couple was a last minute god-send. 

Similarly there is another friend who years ago decided to sell her house to her neighbour's daughter even though their offer fell short of the highest bid price by 10%. She told me she took comfort in knowing that her former neighbour is living close to her daughter.

Truly these are people who nudge me into reviewing my habitual attitude towards maximizing monetary returns which of course was exacerbated by my role in my previous career. To maximize return on money is really to maximize our purchasing power. We then have to consider what to purchase to gain maximum satisfaction. Does the satisfaction just lie in the joy of seeing the multiplication of zeros in the bank accounts and the asset value? 

Bill Perkins, the author of the  book "Die with Zero" once said "The optimal utility of money" is using money to gain the maximum great experiences in one's living years. I think for my 2 friends great experience includes feeling happy when thinking about a warm family gathering inside one's former home or visualizing a couple sharing a quiet evening under the tree which one planted in a former home garden. 

A little Inertia may be a Good thing

 

Truth be told, this Covid Pandemic has caused some inertia in me. I have kind of adapted to staying at home most of the time. I was not really exhilarated when informed that some of the Pre-Covid voluntary work and certain other activities will resume. In the early days of restrictions, I often wondered upon waking up how to occupy myself for the day. When reading about all the great work and sacrifices our local 'heroes' were doing I felt a bit like a useless person lazing around. This was especially so when other members in the family were having zoom office meetings at home.

Along the way I have learned to enjoy gardening and sewn a few sets of curtain. When I am totally absorbed in my garden or when my eyes are glued to the needle of the sewing machine chugging along, my mind is not ruminating or side tracking. Maybe you can say I am present. Although when telling stories at the library I am also quite 'present', the back of my mind may still be sneaking in questions like "Why is the parent at the back looking so bored?" or "Did I just make a grammatical error?" Really a lot of side ruminations occurring in most of our activities are related to reflection of self or image of self. Only when one is fully engaged can one be with the flow.

I also began writing another blog to document my thoughts on how I understand a child's mind through sandplay therapy. I went over some of the past case notes especially of cases which have left deep impression on me. As I reread and ponder, I marvel at how this media really helps a child to express what they can never speak about or to reveal subconscious issues which they themselves may not know. Yet this type of therapy is never popular with parents nor with institutions as it is often viewed as mere play with little evidence of usefulness. To be very honest although I strongly believe in its effectiveness as a form of expression I can't really attest that expression by itself is a good enough form of catharsis. Moreover it is a form of therapy that takes time for the child to feel safe after several sessions to explore deeper into their emotional self. Very few parents have this type of patience or can afford such time. Yet as I write about it I feel energised. I shall continue to review the case notes and write about it. It may lead me to some new directions or it may not but I will just go with the flow.

Again this quote comes to mind:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."- Howard Thurman- author, pholosopher, educator.

That perhaps is the meaning of  "Being" and that is why we are called human beings.

"That had to Be"

 

Visited Sentosa yesterday. The scaffolding was up around the Merlion, preparation for it to be torn down. I took a picture of it because it really seemed to be crying out in anguish. With its mouth opened it seemed to be terrified, sad, desperate and confused. Once a neon lighted icon beaming colourful lasers across the evening skyline, it now seemed to admonish the neglect of its former glory. 

I am philosophising again. If you think about it, which eldery person does not think about what the inevitable death means. The thought of "that's it folks" and "you will no longer be part of this historical world" can bring about a sense of loss, at least it is for me sometimes. The thought of complete absence from this evolving world and nothingless (ceasing to 'be') can be frightening.

That is why there is religion. Be it the promise of reunion with the supreme God or the ultimate merging with the Spiritual universe, it is comforting because there is still continuity. Under the "Terror Management Theory" (TMT) anthropologist Ernest Becker suggests that human goes through all means to ignore the inevitability of death.

Research has shown that  the less self-exalting individuals are the ones who have less fear of the end of existence. In fact affiliation to a community or group can be considered a form of TMT as it provides some comfort of continuity.

Research also tells us that older people who are able to live in the present moment are more calm and less anxious of death. Describing the last phase of life as 'ego integrity vs despair' , Erik Erickson (developmental psychologist) describes 'ego integrity" as "the acceptance of one's one-and-only life cycle as something that had to be".

Sometimes when meditating or when those rare beautiful moments occur when you feel part of the flow, you know what Erickson means when he further describes 'ego integrity' in the last phase of life as "a sense of coherence and wholeness"

 

Watch out for Industry disruptors

 

An article "What you need to know about Jack Ma's Ant Group as IPO looms" reinforces my belief that investing in equities on your own is no longer easy. The article gives you a glimpse of the rapid changes to how the commercial world functions. If we do not keep ourselves abreast of the companies we invest in, they may ride to the sunset before we know it.

We all know that the Alipay app, an offshoot of Alibaba, is the key payment app in China, but we may not know about other financial units under its umbrella. I am amazed at these other business units and how they impact the mass consumers.

Alipay has 711 million active users who use it to pay for consumer items including even property. That aside the Ant Group has 2 units that facilitate small unsecured loans for consumers. Interestingly named as Huabei (花呗 or Just Spend lah) and Jiebie (借呗 or Just Lend lah), they offer loans to around half a billion people. The bulk of the loan is financed by banks although Ant Group also uses its capital, ie. it is more like a platform for small consumer loans and credit card for the masses.

Another exciting unit is Yu'ebao (余额宝The Great Stash). With assets up to US$170 billion, it is one of the world's largest money market fund which allows people to park money as little as one Yuan with the app and earn interests. What I find most interesting is Ant Group's credit scoring unit Zhima Credit (  芝麻信用 )which checks the credit worthiness of individual consumers based on its vast data on consumers' spending and lending pattern. Consumers can opt in for the credit rating and if assigned a good credit rating maybe exempt from paying deposits on certain transactions. 

In short the Ant Group is like an fintech ecosystem offering users' access to fintech solutions that cover payment, money transfer, loan, investments and even low premium insurance. 

What rattles me is the way we used to invest, focusing on banks and blue chip companies. Gone are the days when you buy and hold a blue chip stock, receive the yearly dividend and don't even attend the AGM or read its annual report. We must now find out whether the bank stocks we hold have adopted digital banking fast enough so as not to be phased out by other fintech providers. The same applies to any company. We need to constantly watch whether it has adapted fast enough to a rapid changing world. We must find out whether its management is agile enough to evolve and shift with ever changing market demands. Think industry disruptors like Airbnb, Grab, Netflix and Spotify. Those of us who have held onto SPH shares would have regretted not being abreast of the rapid falling readership of newsprint and declining revenue from print advertisement. The same goes with departmental stores and postal services, the like of Metro and Singpost. 

Certainly managing your own stock portfolio takes a lot more time and energy than years ago. However, if investing money is a hobby it can still be worthwhile . The added incentive other than the monetary return is to delay the onset of dementia. Well,if playing mahjong is recognised as a cognitive demanding activity to slow dementia, looking after your stock portfolio should certainly be more effective. 

You would have to be on a constant look out for disruption to the companies you invest in. 

One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it

 

Recently Singaporeans found a favourite targeted 'villain' to hate. A high court judge has acquitted an Indonesian maid who appealed against her conviction of stealing $34,000 worth of items from the household of Liew Mun Leong , chairman of the Changi Airport Group. As LML is a very influential and wealthy person in the country, the case is likened to a David vs Goliath victory of truth over mean persecution. As the High court judge viewed the conviction as some misapplication of legal principles and found shortcomings on the part of the prosecution and police in handling the case, netizens who have a grudge against the elite and social inequality jumped at the opportunity to bark at the system.

I did read up a bit on the case. My takeaway is that most of us in Singapore can learn a lesson or 2 from the events which took place which led to the wrongful conviction. Although we can point fingers we ourselves are not free of the shortcomings.

Firstly, it is the prejudice and bias, a bit like that of the US police against black people. Can we dare say we will not fall into the trap of thinking that it is irrational for a family of such immense wealth to accuse the maid of theft. Will we also not think that the defence lawyer comes out with a lame defence about the victim family's motive which seems unimportant? This prejudice will affect the way one carries out the investigation falling into weaknesses of confirmation bias and lack of objectiveness. How many times do we quicken our steps when walking home at night when a migrant worker is  behind us? 

I also believe the district trial judge was under pressure when presiding a case where the victims are influential people applauded by politicians. Even if she had doubts she would prefer to err in their favour. This is a lesson on fearlessness in upholding justice and moral ethics. If not it would come back to haunt us.

Talking about that reminds me of cause and effect. When one's intention is not good, the consequences of actions out of such bad intentions will soon hurt oneself. The High court judge believed that the family had tried to frame the maid of theft after firing her and forcing her to return to Indonesia within a few hours. The maid in her anger had said she will report the family for making her work in more than one household which is against the labour law. To prevent her from coming back to Singapore the family reported to the police that she stole items from the house and piled them into carton boxes which were supposed to be shipped by the family to the maid's home. Perhaps the family thought she would never be able to enter the country with an employment pass due to the police report. What they perhaps never imagined was her return on a social visit and was arrested immediately at the airport, leading to more knots that the family had to untie and probably a situation out of their control. As Kung Fu Panda says "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it".

The last lesson we can learn from this saga is never to be overly confident when one is in an advantageous situation. The way LML's son answered questions put to him by the defence lawyer and judge appears to be very flippant and thoughtless. He sounded like one so certain the maid would not be taken seriously such that he could pluck answers out-of-thin-air. He never thought these untrue and careless answers would one day bounce back against him. 

Of more important is the lesson never to abuse one's privilege and power.

Has it not changed all these years- The Singaporean worker

 

There is currently a lot of discussion about the mismatch between employers' requirement and Singaporean's job skills. 

A survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce found that the 3 skills most lacking in Singaporean professionals are willingness to take risk, creativity or critical thinking and leadership. 

According to Singapore International Chamber of Commerce chief executive, the feedback from employers is that the quality of Singapore workers is 'poor". "They have a sub-par attitude, they can not communicate clearly and concisely, they do not know how to ask questions, they do not exhibit the ability to work in cross border teams." 

I thought to myself, "Doesn't that describes me twenty years ago?" I remember having a British and an American boss during the era when Temasek linked companies were busy towing the trend of importing foreign talent to expand overseas. In exasperation, my British boss at one meeting told us "Speak to me, don't speak to one another with your body languages". The American boss also resorted to insults to get people to speak up or at least protest. 

About not knowing how to ask questions, I remember wondering during seminars why those foreigners are so spontaneous in asking questions. I would weigh the correct way to phrase a question so as not to sound stupid. By the time I got it someone has raised it already...sigh

With respect to working with cross border teams, I remember only being angry when my bosses exercise double standards with respect to the working hours between say the Aussie team and the Singapore home team. Also we expected headquarter company policies to be strictly followed ie.  lack of flexibility and as correctly put, unwillingness to take risk.

What I am truly surprised is that things have not changed much after 2 decades. I would have imagined our education system would have shaped our children differently. There is now much debate about the lack of emphasis on soft skill and over focus on grades and passing exams.

Is it all attributed to the education system or is it a cultural inclination as well? However we have brought up our children to express their views and opinion at home which is already quite a deviation from the seen-but-not-heard approach used by our own parents. 

The cultural habit and attribute which may still remain is the fear of losing face further reinforced by the "kiasu" (fear of losing and missing out) culture which seemed to have intensified during our time and hence passed on to the next generation. Perhaps the Singaporean baby boomers are to be blamed. We probably have imparted the play safe approach in life and the best way to accomplish that is to follow the charted paths of having good exam results, good degree, well paying and secure job along with the trappings of private housing and other luxuries which mark the definition of success. 

Certainly, this model has served well for both the government and the citizens for a long time. It needs to be seen how long this model will last and what needs urgently to be changed.