Bringing Up Children

As the train doors open at the Mongkok station, a young woman who looked like she may be from Indonesia came in from my left and was going to sit down one seat away to my right. From the right a young boy about 3 years old came in, followed by a woman who may be his grandmother. The boy was also eyeing the same seat but was a bit late. He screamed at the young Indonesian un-intelligible words but it was obvious he was not happy that “his” target was about to be taken. Startled, the young Indonesian retreated, still smiling; and started to talk to another young woman wearing a head scarf.

The child’s grandmother scolded the child, also with a smile on her face. She said the child was a bully, and he should not have taken the seat from the young woman. But she did nothing to stop the child from taking the seat, nor did she try to get the child to return the seat.

It reminded me of another incident on a bus the day before. A young couple took the seats behind me. Their young boy, about 2, started to scream, kicked the seat, and was making himself a nuisance. The young couple told him he should not disturb other people. But just like this grandmother, made no serious effort to stop the child.

Then I recalled another boy I know, about 10. He does not like to study, finds all kinds of excuses not to do homework, does not read, plays no sports, spends all his time on computer games, and goes to bed early in the morning. In short, your normal Hong Kong child. Then I discovered by chance that his parents take turns to play computer games until 3 o’clock in the morning. No wonder.

And we complain that young people nowadays have no self-discipline, no respect for other people, go to bed too late, and get up too late? Do we need to look beyond ourselves for the reason?