Tender Loving Care

Sometimes, I pity Primary school English teachers. I believe that given a chance they would burn all past year essay topics, and start the slate clean with new topics. Topics which invirogate the mind and stimulate the soul.

I cannot imagine the tedium of wading through a million essays on the same topic, year after year. Can you imagine how depressed a teacher is when she tells her class of 30 Primary school kids to write about why their mother is special to them?

She's depressed, because she knows, to her very bones, that come the deadline, she's gonna read 30 essays about how their mothers showed exceptional love and care when they were ill. 30 varying accounts of illness so severe they were confined to their beds, 30 identical accounts of slavish, caring, loving, doting mothers.

In fact, just to differentiate the essays enough for grading purposes, she'll probably give marks for how many different ways they manage to say "loving" or "caring", or for the vividness of description of illness. Or, she might just throw the papers into the air, ranking the papers by the order in which they float to the ground first.

It all either means that this country is producing entire crops of mothers with all the right values, or our young are watching too much TV.

In any case, an interesting thing is that if you were to task older children the same essay, you start seeing very diverse variations. The older the target group, the smaller the probability of encountering the same TLC-effusing scenarios.

There is only one valid hypothesis. The older you get, the less TLC you get from parents. And, as I found out, from friends and loved ones as well.

Take today for instance. I caught a flu bug that's been going round, and crawled home feeling completely washed out. When I spotted my mum coming home, I jumped onto the couch, curled up in a foetal position, and started making little whimpering noises. For effect, I tried to spasm once in a while.

"Wa. Tough day at school is it? Must sleep more." Then, she was gone.

More drastic action was necessary. I lurched to her room, and sprawled across the floor, tongue hanging out for effect.

"Mum, I think I'm sick. I feel feverish......"

"Take Panadol. Have your dinner. Then sleep!" She then stepped over me, and left the room.

Feeling completely foolish and hurt and unwanted and unloved by now, I retreated to my room and tore up all my Primary school essays on family life. I larked the night away, and when Haoyun came online, I rejoiced. Finally, some sympathy and compassion.

HT: Feeling sick, had running nose for damn long today. Sianz. Now got headache. =(
HY: Erm. Take Panadol.
HT: Wa, only prescribe medication, no TLC?!?!?!??!?!?!
HY: Panadol is good. Dun take too many though... paracetamol overdose can give u acute liver failure.
HT: ..... does that count as TLC.
HY: Yes.
HT: =(

(On the subject of MSN conversations, the one funny thing that did happen today was the following.

HT: Wa, I think I know what I am down with.
Jared: What.
HT: I think it is goodlookingnitis.
J: That's bad. I got it long time ago too. Even worse, mine's terminal.

Oh, poor delusional friend of mine.)

Again, you might ask, what's the point of telling me all this? Of course we know that the TLC you get decreases as you get older! Why, you don't see people coddling adults like they children do you? Whatever happened to resiliance and independance?

The point is this - if people are so accustomed to not receiving TLC, that they have learnt to live without it, imagine how they would melt if you suddenly showered them with a full blast of sustained TLC!

After you manage to convince them that you are not trying to borrow money or get them to change their wills, just watch the glow spread from inside as they bask in your undivided attention and concern.

Seriously, though, do spare some time today to reach out to a friend or loved one, and give them a hug and tell them you appreciate them. We humans tend to take things for granted once in a while, and remember, it's always nice to be appreciated, even when there's no reason for it.

Me? I'm off.

I'm going to write an essay about Panadol and the impact it has made on my life.