Reflections July 2016

27 July 2016 Rainy Wednesday

Apologising is a defacto whenever mothers have to leave our children under the charge of other caretakers.

If I have to take a few hours off to run errands, for work, for personal reasons or simply for sanity’s sake, guilt is always among the top emotions running in my mind.

No matter how much fathers now share the responsibility of child-rearing, it seems that mothers are still perceived as the parent who shoulder the most responsibility in child-rearing. Even if the society does not judge us as such, mothers will naturally take a larger share of child-rearing responsibility, perhaps partially due to maternal instincts, and partially due to belief in traditional parental roles which was imbued throughout our childhood.

It sometimes seems unjust to me how husbands can leave the responsibility of child rearing to wives while they attend to other matters. How I wish I can easily leave the children to attend to other matters too. My do-to-list kept filling up - to visit the dental clinic for half yearly review, to visit the beauty salon for a long overdue facial, to start my daughter’s scrapbook which documents her growing journey from birth to one year old, to go for tea with my friends, to sort out the toys, to clean up the house, to take an afternoon off to drink tea and read a book, etc.

I used to plan for weekends. I used to get excited at events that the whole family can go. Nowadays I was too tired to think of weekend plans. When I see family event posters, I read the activity highlights and imagined how exhausting it will be to actually be involved in them. I cannot decide whether this is due to age or due to mental state. I believe most people will think the kind of life I’m leading now is tough. Whenever I felt life is tough, I will content myself with thinking that life would be tougher if I were not working - I would be physically and mentally exhausted with taking care of both children by myself, be cooking everyday, have even lesser autonomy on my time and life, and our family finances would be in trouble, having to pay for our parents’ monthly expenses, our flat mortgage, our children’s enrichment class fees, daily living expenses and transport fares. Without my work, I will be greatly deprived of intellectual stimulations, life challenges and conversations with fellow adults. In life, one can never get the best of worlds.

Love of a leopard

Watched Nat Geo Wild's Big Cat Odessey. Touched by a part of the film where the researchers observe a young leopard killed a baboon and dragged it up to the trees. At the foot of the tree, something dropped out when he was dragging the baboon - a tiny one day old baboon baby.

The researchers expected the hungry leopard to eat the baby but to their surprise, it didn't and even protected it, taking it to higher grounds when another smaller predator tried to get close. It nursed the baby roughly but tenderly. It had a very motherly feel even though it was not a mother itself yet. It used it's nose to touch the baby baboon, stay close to keep it warm and protected. Even though the baby will eventually die without it's mother's milk and care, the love of the leopard towards it's natural prey seem to be a love on a higher level than the love it will show towards it's own young.

Big Cats in Africa are under danger of extinction. This is due to human's fear of them and thus the mass persecution, and the killing of these cats for their skin to show off power and beauty. From 50k, the population dropped to 20k. The lesser number of hunters made it difficult for them to hunt preys like buffalos and elephants. Strangely, this leads to competition and killings within a pride of lions. Sisters lionesses are killing each other's cubs and this pride lost 96 cubs since records due to this killings. The pride was destroyed, the lions no longer the strong hunters as they were before. Lioness eat their own cubs after they were killed. A natural instinct to survive, I guess. A very cruel truth for the mother lioness.

It is tough to be a predator in the wilderness. You've got to work hard to earn your meal, and each hunt is difficult. You've only got your body to work for you and each hunt is putting your life at risk. My heart goes out to the predators as much as to the preys. Nobody wants to be cruel, only for survival.