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Son.... where is mummy's dearest ah boy

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:03 pm
by kiasimom
I will like to share a real life story that I have witnessed.

There is this 60 yo granny with 4 children. She has two daughters and two sons. They are all married.
When this granny was young, she worked as a samsui woman to support her in laws and the family.

She saved up enough to buy a 4 room flat for her family. Her youngest son stayed with her and was fillial to her till he had a girlfriend.

This girlfriend was quite nice to the granny and eventually became her DIL.

Granny's nightmare began from the day this DIL married into her family.

Her son made her sell the 4 room flat they were staying in and persuaded her to downgrade to a 3 room flat. No matter how the rest of the children objected, this granny listened to her favourite youngest son and sold the 4 room flat away.

She then bought a 3 room flat and put it under hers and her son's name.

Her son then persuaded granny to hand the profit from the 4 room flat to him and open a joint account with granny.

He used part of the money to do a simple renovation of the 3 room flat and kept the rest in the bank.

Granny, his son and DIL then moved into the new flat.

Just barely a year, the DIL began to show her true colours. She gave birth to a baby boy and made Granny take care of her son.
She began to be very hostile to the granny, scolded her and did not take care of the granny.
When the DIL bought meals for her hubby, she did not buy a share for the granny.
She will make granny do all the housework and she didn't help.
The DIL also bad-mouthed her MIL to her husband.
As time passed, granny's son also treated her very badly and coldly.
He will locked himself up in the room whenever he comes home and hardly speak to granny.
He did not contribute to the household and used the money in the joint account.
He even used the money to buy a van for himself without informing Granny.

One day, the youngest son called up his elder brother and complained that he cannot make ends meet and wants to sell the 3 room flat and that Granny will have to stay with his elder brother.

The youngest son then told Granny that he can no longer afford to pay for the flat as all the monies in the account is used up. He had to sell the flat and rent a room for his own family.

Granny, as usual, agreed to selling the flat despite countless persuasion from the rest of her children.

3 months later, Granny is officially homeless.

Her youngest son pocketed the sales proceeds from the sale of the 3 room flat and left Granny alone.

Her eldest son couldn't take her in as his wife objected to having her. She threatened to divorce him if he allowed his mother to stay with them. She was furious as Granny did not give her husband a single cent from the sales proceeds of the flat.

Granny is now working as a cleaner and is sharing a room with another old lady.

Granny cries everytime when she thinks of her sons.
She feels sorry for herself. Although she has two sons, they abandoned her because of their wives. Now she is left all alone to fend for herself.

This is only one of the few stories that I have witnessed.

There are many guys out there who treasure their wife more than the mother who painstakingly brought them up.

Take Valentine's Day for example.

many guys are willing to spend a bomb on Valentine gift but will only spend a meagre amount on Mother's Day.

You may say it is the thoughts that counts, but what is a thought worth thousands as compared to a thought that is worth a hundred?

There are many elderly who are abandoned by their children once they are married.

In the olden days, people will say 养儿防老, but in this era, I seriously doubt so.

Nothing against gentlemen, but out of the 5 incidents that I have seen, 4 are abandoned by sons.

I hope I didn't offend any gentlemen here :-)

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:50 pm
by kiasimom
Hi insider,

I fully agree that the wife will determine if the son will be fillial.

If you have a good DIL, you will have half a daughter, if you have a bad DIL, you will lose your son.

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:16 pm
by Augmum
kiasimom

thks for sharing, indeed a sad real life story.........

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:47 pm
by jedamum
oh man!
i have 2 sons.
my husband and i keep joking (and perhaps really mean it) when we said that how i treat my MIL now, i will get it twice in return. :|
i am taking a leaf out of my MIL's book - be self sufficient; do not rely on son(s) for retirement; do not say yes whenever the DIL request to look after the kids (ie not to be taken for granted) :| etc etc.

death of a family member sometimes will create stress for the family in terms of flat ownership etc. Take for this instance; someone passed away unexpectedly; there was a lot of misunderstandings and worries as to how to ensure that all of his inheritance goes to the spouse; it doesn't help that the deceased family is not too small and that some of the kids are not that close. eventually, someone on a more neutral ground had to stick out the neck and produce legal-binding documents to state that that spouse takes all, just so that everyone has a peace of mind. people outside the family question its (legal documents) need cos after all 'they are one family', but to that someone, if she has nothing to hide, there is nothing (eg lawsuit) to worry about.

personally, i feel that the old lady's other kids should have fought harder to safeguard the old lady's nest.

Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:59 pm
by jedamum
let me share another story; this time is about 'not-so-filial' daughter....

the parents are higher income earners; they lived in landed property and their only dd is supposedly spoilt.
then the dad passed away. the mum had to sell away the house as the company has not been doing well; hearsay the dd is very angry with the mum's action.
since then, i had heard stories about the dd (single/dating) verbally abusing the mum; the mum even lamented to her sibling that she'll need to save up to pay for a place in the Old Folks' Home when she is old.
i found out that while they are pretty well-off in the beginning, the dd is always under the care of a maid most of the time. so similar to the case of the poor samsui lady, both unfilial child are/may be the product of poor relationship with the parent. so it is not really to blame on the wives as the cause of leading sons astray. i do rant about my MIL once in a blue moon, but the dagger stares that i get from my dh in return warns me to shut up.
so parents with sons...don't dispair, ok? :)

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:17 am
by wildboys
I think the family's upbringing 家教 has more to do with whether the children (boys or girls) will be filial or not. Maybe I have two boys and I am scared to believe that boys once they have gfs or wives are "of no use" ;ppp

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:39 am
by kiasimom
jedamum wrote:oh man!
i have 2 sons.
my husband and i keep joking (and perhaps really mean it) when we said that how i treat my MIL now, i will get it twice in return. :|
i am taking a leaf out of my MIL's book - be self sufficient; do not rely on son(s) for retirement; do not say yes whenever the DIL request to look after the kids (ie not to be taken for granted) :| etc etc.

death of a family member sometimes will create stress for the family in terms of flat ownership etc. Take for this instance; someone passed away unexpectedly; there was a lot of misunderstandings and worries as to how to ensure that all of his inheritance goes to the spouse; it doesn't help that the deceased family is not too small and that some of the kids are not that close. eventually, someone on a more neutral ground had to stick out the neck and produce legal-binding documents to state that that spouse takes all, just so that everyone has a peace of mind. people outside the family question its (legal documents) need cos after all 'they are one family', but to that someone, if she has nothing to hide, there is nothing (eg lawsuit) to worry about.

personally, i feel that the old lady's other kids should have fought harder to safeguard the old lady's nest.
DH and I agreed that we wil never sell our current property.
We will have a comfortable sum of money to rely on when we are old.
In future even if DS wants us to move in with him, we will still keep our property, In case we are booted out, we still have a roof over our heads.

In Granny's case, her other children fought hard, but Granny only listen to her favourite son.

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:41 am
by kiasimom
wildboys wrote:I think the family's upbringing 家教 has more to do with whether the children (boys or girls) will be filial or not. Maybe I have two boys and I am scared to believe that boys once they have gfs or wives are "of no use" ;ppp
Fillial piety and upbringing has to start from young.
But I do believe that the wife do have certain influence over the husband.

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 3:14 am
by autumnbronze
wildboys wrote:I think the family's upbringing 家教 has more to do with whether the children (boys or girls) will be filial or not. ;ppp
Have to agree with wildboys and also jedamum above. I am being v personal here. But my family is a perfect example of how a poor parent child r/s can affect how the kids' treatment towards their parents in future.

My mom was never a maternal person. I was a latchkey child, even though my mom was a homemaker, she spent her days with friends having tea etc.. My elder sis once commented that she (my sis) had an unhappy childhood. My mom's priority was her husband. She never fostered any closeness among her children. Hence, there was alot of misunderstandings among us when we were young.

When I was younger, my mom commented once or twice how lucky I was to be born cuz she was ready to abort me if it weren't for my Dad. He wanted me cuz he was not able to have the opportunity to see his other kids grow up cuz he was overseas working during their formative yrs. When mom was pregnant with me, Dad was already established then.

Anyway, to cut the long story short. My elder brother's wife basically was 70% responsible for turning my brother against my mom. I say 70% cuz the rest was due to my mom's untactful manner in handling situations concerning my SIL (I am being totally unbiased here, cuz she is untactful towards me too, until today). It became so bad that my brother cut connections for a while to maintain peace with his wife. He has not contributed a single cent to my mom. In fact, when my dad passed on in a fatal hit and run accident in Msia, my brother point blank told me that he couldn't take on the job of going over and bringing Dad back. He said "I can't do this". Can you imagine that!! My second brother and elder sis both lived overseas, they would take 2 days or so to come down. I am the youngest. So what did I do?? I had to bring my Dad back, all the way from KL. Fortunately, my DH (then boyfrd) accompanied me and his uncle who lived there helped to facilitate the necessary arrangements. Needless to say, it was v traumatic having to see the doc who attended to him, identifying his body etc.. and accompanying my Dad back in the vehicle. Later on, I suspected that his wife must have advised him not to go as there might be a huge cost involved in the arrangements. But this was never confirmed. This was ten yrs ago.

Latest example - mom had a fall. Thank god no fractures. Brother was sitting quietly in the living room when I arrived aft getting the call. When I asked why he had not called an ambulance, the reply was that she refused to go to the hospital. True. Took me a few hrs to persuade her, only because she was scared of hospitals. In the end, had to rely on DH again to use his contacts (luckily he knew an orthopeadic surgeon) and we brought her to a pte hospital. In the meantime, he left aft I came, and did not partake in any of the decision making. DH and I had to miss a family wedding too. Brother did not bother to say whether he will take turns to stay overnite at the hospital etc... Later, I found out that he had gone out for dinner with his family that v nite :shock:

Ok, will just leave you all with two examples. Incidentally, DH was brought up in a very postive family environment and he is more of a son than a SIL to my mom. :D And he is v filial towards his parents.

Personally, I believe that had my mom nurtured us in a caring, loving and positive environment, her eldest son esp, would not have been easily swayed. Why am I so filial towards my mom, you might ask? Well, its because I am older and have the wisdom (fortunately for me) to realize that mom too has been a victim of a vicious cycle of unhappiness in her own family and esp when she lived with her ILs, hence I don't hold any grudges, though I used to when I was younger. Unfortunately, my brother does not have this sense of realization. Also, most importantly, I have a child, and I want my child to grow up in an environment that I was not privy to, hence it is essential that I must be a positive role model to him.

So Kiasimom, the story above gives me the impression (though I could be wrong) that perhaps because the old lady was busy trying to provide for her family (which is not a bad thing/or may have been due to circumstances), therefore she may have overlooked the importance of establishing a good parent/child r/s equally with her kids. The fact that her other kids are not pro-active seems to be proof of that.

My takeaway from my personal experiences is that as a parent, I cannot expect my child to be completely filial towards me if I don't do my job as a mother (honestly, its not a job, just can't find the right word) to the best of my ability.

Truth be told, my wish for my son is to be happy always and that 30 yrs down the road (if i am still ard :lol:), he would still declare that "mummi is the most beautiful mummi in the world" (as he is doing now) :wink: Notice I said "mummi", as his girlfrd/wife will be the most beautiful woman! :lol:

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 3:15 am
by kiasimom
Augmum wrote:kiasimom

thks for sharing, indeed a sad real life story.........
Most welcome