The Most Difficult Job in the World

There have been much online discussion about the boy who jumped because of his failing grades.

I am disturbed that people blame the parents for expecting certain grades from their children.

Are parents not supposed to expect some effort from their children? I believe most parents are able to gauge the intelligence level of their children and we demand a match in their grades to their intelligence level. I got very upset when I saw F9 on Coco's result slip because I saw how unprepared she was for her exam. I saw her on her phone throughout her exam preparations. I didn't see any evidence of any form of diligence in studying. I didn't expect her to do well but getting F9 was too much, don't you think? 

On the other hand, if I had seen her completing all the past year papers and attempting every question, memorising what she could (rather than telling me there is nothing to memorise), and yet failed, I would have comforted her that she had tried her best and that was all that mattered.

No parent wants to drive his or her child to death. The fact is, we do not know how our children would handle failures. 

If one finds it alarming that the mother of the boy was lamenting,"I only asked for 70 marks, not 80 marks.", he or she has not been a parent of an average student, or even a parent at all.

I am ranting in this post because I am so sick and tired of people pointing fingers at parents and blaming them when children jump to their deaths.

Who are the ones who suffer most when the children kill themselves? Are they not the parents who lost their children? Who would expect the children to jump off the building when being reprimanded? Are parents not allowed to chide their children when they don't live up to their expectations?

Of course, I do not know the details of the case and I am not discussing the case as a stand-alone incident, but I have an issue with people questioning if the parents had scolded the child for performing badly. It is totally befitting for a parent to berate her child for doing badly, whether the child has put in effort for his studies. I would question what kind of parent you are if you are fine with your child failing in school, and molly-coddling him that all will turn out fine. 

I was a slow child. 'Slow' as in an average to below-average student. I failed my Maths and Science very frequently. My elder sister never hesitated to dish out a barrage of 'why are you so stupid?!!' and 'so easy also dunno!' on a daily basis when I asked her for help in Maths. My father once pushed my failing Science paper back to me and said curtly,"I am not signing!"

I didn't go jump off the block of flats.

I knew it was unacceptable. I knew it was my fault that I failed no matter how slow a learner I was. We all knew failing grades were unacceptable, but very few of us, if any, went jumping to our deaths.

Why don't we blame the media or the Internet for the lack of resilience in our children as compared to the children of yesteryear?

Those are the things that seem to set the generations apart.

I am not sure how many parent feel like me - the father and son who had too many people telling them how to bring their donkey to the market.

Too many people and articles are teaching us how to parent our children and pointing their fingers at us when things go wrong.

We wish to be God too.