Family & Parenthood 02 (Jan 10 - Aug 10)

[winston]

I know at least a dozen guys who had a ring on their left ear when I was in University ...
They thought that it was cool.

Nowadays, it's also cool to have a tattoo unlike the old days where tattoos were associated with the triads..

Ha Ha .. so you now have earrings and tattoos to worry about besides STD

[Aspellian]

the aborigines do it better than our youths here! they can have a cup within their ear lobes!

Back to basics!

If i have a child, i will not let him harm himself in this way. Its probably more of an identity crisis and wanting to get attention and a feeling of insecurity for today's youth... probably everyone express themselves differently...

[Cheng]

Men wearing earring...eeee... haha... I dont find it cool. Boys wear still ok, I just assume that they have an identity crisis.

I appreciate some tattoos, but not on my skin.

[millionairemind]

I read this article in Reader's Digest and I tot it would make a pretty good read since alot of divorces in Singapore now are due to third party, triggered by a midlife crisis.

10 Signs of a Midlife Crisis
We gather the circumstantial evidence
By Paige Kilponen

1. Job change

This is a terrifying early warning sign that meltdown is imminent. When he comes home and announces he is leaving his 30-year career in insurance to open a home-brew supply business, you know you’re in for a bumpy ride.

2. Death-defying behaviour

Also terrifying and potentially widow-making. This is when he comes home and announces he is going to take up rally driving/BASE-jumping/big-wave surfing/crocodile hunting. "Life is short," he philosophises. "I don’t want to die without ever having thrown myself off a cliff."

3. Grooming

When one day he looks in the mirror and sees some old guy looking back at him. Eeeek! He panics and buys nose-hair trimmers, ditches his trusty barber for a stylist who does highlights, books in for a back wax and buys a wardrobe of smart casual wear and some musky man scent.

4. Reverting to twenties behaviour

This classic attempt at recapturing lost youth usually involves the sudden desire to go to three-day music festivals, drink excessively, leave old magazines and drinks cans in the car and live on nothing but kebabs and two-minute noodles. This will ultimately undo or lead to point 5.

5. Exercise frenzy

À la Lester Burnham in American Beauty. If he can just strengthen his abs enough to suck his belly in as he’s jogging past the backpackers on the beach… He’s at the gym three mornings a week and watches his reflection in the window as he lifts the new flat-screen out of the car. One of the few MLC symptoms to be encouraged.

6. Outrageous purchases

You come home from work to find a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy/cabin cruiser/Hummer parked in the driveway and a 65in flat-screen TV installed in the shed. That money was supposed to last until you were 90, but it’s nice to see him smiling – for a change.

7. Flirting

The old "have I still got it?" trap. It’s a nagging question that leads many a man of a certain age to drop his voice an octave, lean casually on reception desks while flicking back his newly highlighted hair and say things like, "Let’s hook up for a Cosmopolitan," to girls younger than his own daughter. Mostly harmless but can lead to over-inflated egos and/or arrest.

8. Seeking out old loves

This is either in the obvious form of finding his Year 11 girlfriend on Facebook, rediscovering the rush of skateboarding or digging out his old amp and bass and getting the guys in his old punkabilly band over for a jam. This is a desperate attempt at reminding himself of who he used to be and why people liked him. Can lead to bouts of self-absorbed nostalgia and using words like "cool" a lot.

9. Irresponsibility

He gets the words "free spirit" tattooed across his shoulders, starts paying for everything on credit and stays up until 2am watching the soccer.

10. Excessive reminiscing

"Remember that time when the band played at that music festival and we all stayed up all night drinking longnecks of beer and talking about how one day we’d…" blah blah blah. This is perhaps not a good time to join in and fondly remember old boyfriends (except perhaps the one sitting opposite).

[millionairemind]

Mar 24, 2010
S'poreans value family
By Melissa Sim
MOST Singaporeans would not send their school-going children out to work, even if the breadwinner in a family dies.

This is among the findings of a survey by the National University of Singapore.

And while Singaporeans said family and relatives are their two most important social groups, they did not let that get in the way of meritocracy.

The survey showed that Singaporeans would hire the most deserving candidate even if the second best candidate was a relative.

Only 15.5 per cent said they would hire the relative, whereas in Japan, 40 per cent said they would hire the relative.

[iam802]

Mar 24, 2010
S'poreans value family
By Melissa Sim
MOST Singaporeans would not send their school-going children out to work, even if the breadwinner in a family dies.

This is among the findings of a survey by the National University of Singapore.

And while Singaporeans said family and relatives are their two most important social groups, they did not let that get in the way of meritocracy.

The survey showed that Singaporeans would hire the most deserving candidate even if the second best candidate was a relative.

Only 15.5 per cent said they would hire the relative, whereas in Japan, 40 per cent said they would hire the relative.

I am a bit lost with this article.

1. Says don't send children out to work even if breadwinner dies.
2. Says won't hire relatives

How does this translate to 'Singaporeans value family'?

[kennynah]

an ear ring...a dress... a pair of shoes... a wallet..a belt...a hair colouring....a bracelet...

i think they are all no more than self expression... what makes one more acceptable than another...is a matter of social norm....

remember, in the 60s, our mothers/grandmothers wore super mini skirts.... would we think that they were being slutty? but some of us might think poorly of a lady showing more of her legs now... or stigmatize them as being "easy"....

and it is also perfectly alright to have our own opinion about certain fashion sense too...so long as we do not impose them on others....if i dont like, i look away... or perhaps i might whisper a couple of disapproving words to my wife....however, my disapproval remains my personal take...

even back 20 years, i had male friends who already started wearing ear studs... some of whom now are very successful in their career...

and all these above is from someone who was very tight-assed about smoking...i recall, i was totally disgusted with college girls smoking in my days...they were a major turn off... and now, i am a smoker... so, my point being... i want to be more relaxed about such matters... "they" can do what they like..if i don't like what "they" do...i just dont do them... but i guess, i try not to be too uptight such "self expressions".... there are more critical issues in life... like, how am i going to make money from the market...hahahaha...

[millionairemind]

Most of the couples that I know who live near their parents because theirs is a daycare center.

Mar 30, 2010
More living near parents
By Ang Yiying

MORE married children now live in the same estate as their parents.

The proportion of such children rose from 29.3 per cent in 1998 to 35.5 per cent in 2008, according to a 2008 Housing Board survey of around 8,000 households.

The count comprises married children, aged 21 to 54, who live in the same flat, the same block, a neighbouring block or a block in the same estate as their parents.

HDB said it saw the 6 percentage point rise over 10 years as an encouraging sign that its housing policies to get people to live near their parents were a step in the right direction.

Since getting married in 2001, store assistant Kok Chee Keong, 43, and his wife have been living one floor below his parents in Ang Mo Kio. It was a deliberate choice, borne out of his desire to take care of them.

'My parents are getting old,' he said of his 72-year-old father and 69-year-old mother, who had until last year helped baby-sit his children who are aged seven and eight.

[winston]

Children coming forth today have a greater capacity to deal with the greater variety of information that is coming forward than you did. They deliberately are coming forth into this environment where there is more to contemplate.

This generation gap that you are talking about, it has ever been thus. Each new generation, every new individual, that comes forth, is coming with you having prepared a different platform for them to proceed from.

There is this thing that gets in the way of that that says, "I'm the parent. I got here first. I know more than you do." From the children's perspective, and from the purity of their Nonphysical Perspective, what they are saying is, "You're the parent. You got here first. You prepared a platform that I am leaping off from -- and my leap will be beyond anything that you have ever known."

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in San Rafael, CA on Saturday, February 27th, 1999 #395

Source: abraham-hicks.com

[millionairemind]

HOME > BREAKING NEWS > SINGAPORE > STORY

Apr 5, 2010
Elderly support under strain
SINGAPORE - ASIA'S tradition of supporting elderly parents is under strain as waning filial piety, rising individualism and a change in attitudes towards marriage force the aged to seek support elsewhere, experts said on Monday.

They told a conference on ageing that this would present an opportunity for businesses catering to the needs of the region's burgeoning ranks of senior citizens.

Asia's elderly can no longer rely so much on their children to take care of them, said Kanwaljit Soin, president of Women's Initiative for Ageing Successfully, a Singapore support group. 'The elderly in Asia have traditionally relied on filial resources for old-age support, but the extent to which they can continue to do so has become increasingly uncertain,' she told the Ageing Asia Investment Forum in Singapore.

'As extended family networks wane and more modern ideas about marriage, family and individualism take hold', the elderly 'will have no other recourse but to turn to public or private institutions for support' she said.

The United Nations has forecast that the number of people aged 65 and above in Asia will more than quadruple from 201 million in 2000 to 857 million in 2050, potentially making Asia the world's 'oldest' region. Caring for one's elders has traditionally been a bedrock of Asian societies, with the old usually resisting efforts to put them in nursing homes. But experts said that the change in approach towards the elderly represents opportunities as well as challenges.

Tony Bridge, chairman of Australia-based property consultancy Burnsbridge Sweett, told the conference there were 'significant opportunities for innovation and leadership' in the ageing industry. He said society was becoming more accepting of the concept of letting institutions take care of the elderly, pointing to the growing popularity of retirement communities in Australia, where senior citizens live with their peers instead of their families in independent communes. -- AFP