Friday, July 15, 2011

Living with my teenage daughter

This will be the third week that I live with my daughter IN her apartment. It's kind of difficult. Every time she just tosses her stuff everywhere I just want to scream to her to put them where they belong. Or even worse, pick them up myself. Each time she wakes up late I feel like lecturing her for ten minutes. Or, how about when she's procrastinating, skypeing her friends and chitchat for what seems like hours when her homework is not done yet. It's maddening at times.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, she's still a teen and living from mom and dad's money. For "Asian" parents there, you may say, well, why not scold her? "You're still the parents here. Besides, she hasn't got a job, or got married". (I put quotes between Asian there, because I know, not every asian parents are involved and ever-present like the stereotypical, and I've learned that many western parents are VERY involved and instructional with their children, but, we'll stick to the stereotype this time, to make it easy.) But I bite my tongue, most of the time anyway.
First, I don't want her to do those things because I told her so. That would be useless. The minute I'm gone then she'll go back to her bad habits. What's the use then?
Second, I don't want her to resent my presence. It's not that I don't want her to hate me. Well, maybe, yes, a little bit. But if she hates my presence then, it would undermine everything else that I say and do. And I don't want that.
So, I do the "do as I do" approach. I go to bed no later then midnight, at least in workdays. We know that she's got a bad habit of going to bed at two or even three in the morning, and we've been telling her that it's ruining her metabolism and making her sleepy at morning lectures. I wake up no later than seven in the morning. (I don't know, it;s so hard to wake up earlier than seven in us. I mean, really awake. I can't figure out why. I can easily wake up at six in jakarta. I wonder why..) I exercise at least five times a week. I take yoga class near the university. I eat healthily most of the time. I do tell her these things, that, you know, she needs to build good habits in order to have a good life, and it's important to build good habits while you're young. She has the knowledge but it's the practicing that's difficult. Building good habits is not easy and takes time. I hope she gets it.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Back in US

Back in US after a year. This time, I'm taking my other daughter to her school, spending some time with my oldest, and having some vacation time. Too bad that we can't stay together as a family at the same time. Well, that's the problem when the breadwinner is not some conglomerate who doesn't have to show up at the office day after day. Oh well, this is so human, always wanting more and more.
This is the first time that my other daughter go to us. She loves it, fortunately. I don't know why my children get accustomed to living in us so easily. I guess maybe we don't spoil them enough in Jakarta. (Is that the right logic?) Or maybe they have heard stories about us living in us a long time ago that it seemed like they know this country. I don't know.
For the first week everything was good, even great, since henry and my sister (who lives in us), my daughters and I are all together. But when they left, I can feel that bit of loneliness. I'm surprised that it came up so soon. The plan is that I'm gonna stay until the beginning of September! My goodness, I need to do something about it. Probably need to get into some kind of a schedule. Yup, I'll do that.