A Lonely Journey

Many times, I feel lonely as a parent.

I had Coco when I was 25 or 26. My friends were either enjoying their singlehood or had only started dating.

When I took Coco to her first music class when she was 4 or 5, I was possibly the youngest mother there. Or at least, I looked the youngest.

Most of the time, mothers prefer to socialise with mothers around the same age, so that leaves me out of the picture.

I think the only time I felt accepted as a mother was during Coco's P1 orientation days. A young-looking mother in her forties was friendly to me and initiated the talks. But I am such a clumsy person at face-to-face conversation that I didn't know how to continue the small talks. On and off, I met her at different events in Coco's school - P4 Immersion Programme, Mid Autumn Celebration and other occasions. She lives very near Coco's school, yet is always very unassuming. Her daughter was a Gepper and eventually scored more than 270. A very humble mother indeed.

Years on, I had another baby. This time, I was 33. Kind of old for the first-time mothers who have babies in the same year. So I don't get to have any playmates for my little one either.

I wish to have playdates for her, but for someone clumsy with verbal communication, I don't know how to go about doing it. Had tried to join the gatherings for the mothers who gave birth in the same year, but were not fruitful. This time round, I felt awkward because the mothers looked much younger than I was.

Although my friends in real life have kids now, since more than a decade has passed, their oldest kids are P1, P2 or in kindy.

The only friend who is close in age with me and has a kid with the same age is an ex-colleague. However, she has some problems with her kid and it would be cruel of me to share my happy stories with her while she struggles with her kid. The last I heard from her was that she no longer had any expectation of her kid and would be most happy if she could just make it to the Express stream.

Parenting is a very lonely journey for me.

Most of my sisters are single. The only one who has kids doesn't seem to share the same idea about child-raising with me.

There are so many times I have doubts about my own ideas about child-raising, discipline and boundary issues, I can only grope in the dark and trial-and-error with the different methods. Some methods I keep, some methods I try and throw away. Not sure if they would have worked in the long run. Sometimes I give up on it myself because certain methods require perserverance and consistency which I am not really an expert at.

I make a lot of mistakes on this journey. I know people will say '天下无不是的父母', loosely translated as 'There isn't a perfect parent on Earth', but the guilt of having said the wrong things, or done the wrong things with your kid sticks with you. I wish I had someone to help 'mentor' me along the way. Parenting is a very much unsupervised path. Sure, it doesn't come with an instruction manual, but having someone who talks sense with you about parenting helps. She can be someone who doesn't have a kid, but even a slight reminder about the ideal scenario helps. Too often, I forget to praise Coco. I chastise too often.

Parenting is like a jackpot to me sometimes. I am not sure what I am doing is completely right. I just hope it is right even when it doesn't seem so right now. When I get it right, I hit the jackpot and the contentment is absolutely gratifying. When I don't, I just have to keep trying and hope that the next attempt is a successful one.

I think it's nice to have friends who have babies the same age as yours to share the parenting journey together.

A load divided is definitely lighter, and it makes the journey less lonely.