Punctuation: Vulgarities

Last night, Coco and I were eating at a coffeeshop in Yishun, at the back of the coffeeshop in fact, as the tables in front of the shop was packed with patrons.

We had two tables of teenagers beside us and they were punctuating their lines with hokkien vulgarities.

Coco could understand the 'language' and she was bothered. She said,"They are using vulgarities."

I told her to finish up her food quickly so that we could leave the place asap.

The only girl was apparently an Ah Lian. She was speaking on the phone,"Don't say I always change boyfriends. My boyfriend's and my relationship is turning one month soon."

Her boyfriend, upon sitting down, starting lapping up his friend's leftovers. The girl remarked,"Dogs will always be dogs! Fancy you eating someone else's leftovers."

I was surprised by how I felt about these teenagers actually. I was once a teenager, and had friends who were Lians and Bengs, although they didn't use vulgarities as freely as these bunch of kids did.

I felt even a little disgusted by the language they used as I thought the vulgarities were overused. Every line, every exclamation had to be accompanied with a vulgar word.

I thought it could be a teachable moment then and I cautioned Coco,"You could end up with such friends if you go to a neighbourhood (secondary) school."

A chatfriend criticised me for being 'elitist' and told me that my approach was all wrong.

Coming from a totally neighbourhood school, I am aware that not all neighbourhood school children are like that. At this moment, I just want to set a goal for Coco. She is rather unmotivated to do her school work, much less assessment books, and we all know that doing school work is not enough to do well at PSLE. Although she has a dream school in mind, I feel that she may not know how tough it is to get into it and how much effort she needs to commit to match up to it. Thus, I resort to proposing the anti thesis ie. "If you don't do this, you will get that." At this moment, the idea of neighbourhood schools must not appeal to her. So I need to let her have a mental picture of how her potential friends are like if she ends up in a not-so-good secondary school.

Call me a selfish or elitist mother if you like. I do aspire to be a selfish mother. A selfish mother is the best kind of mother possible to her own children. She will give the best, and only the best to her children, and she will do everything possible to protect her children from any impending harm.

I have educated Coco at the expense of the dignity of neighbourhood secondary schools (how serious I put it!). Never mind that. I just want her to be acutely aware of the differences of students in different types of school environment.

Anybody can tell that I am a very anxious mother. With all of my heart, I totally, utterly believe that the secondary school phase is the MOST important phase in a person's life. It shapes or breaks the future and affects the rest of your life. It is the place where your values are moulded and cast into stones. It is the place where your all-important friends become the most influential people in your life.

I really cannot afford to have Coco treading the path I walked on. Of course, I can't guarantee that she will go to a good school. She is the one who is taking PSLE. I can only do my best in inculcating values and beliefs in her in the hope that these values and beliefs can drive her to do her best and get into a better school than an lian-and-beng school.