When Will We Ever Learn

Was searching for a Straits Times article online when I chanced upon this contribution to the forum:

Teach couples how to be parents
http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/ST%2BForum.html

RECENTLY, I witnessed a scene at a wet market that could have been taken right out from the fiction of Charles Dickens.

Two small boys, about five and eight years old, were with their father. Suddenly, the 40-something-year-old man turned around sharply to the elder boy and, in a fierce voice, slapping his head at the same time, shouted: 'Didn't I tell you the answer to this question on this test paper and still you don't know?'

He next walked off briskly, again shouting: 'I'm leaving both of you here.' This led the younger boy to call out, 'Mummy,' as both ran to catch up with him.

The Registry of Marriages should introduce a pre-marital course for couples intending to tie the knot on the duties and responsibilities of parenting.

While this does not guarantee that parental abuse will be completely stemmed, it should go some way to curb this social ill. Any benefit accruing from such a pre-marital advisory course would, of course, be incalculable for their future offspring and, as a corollary, for the social good as well.

Yap Swee Hoo


What appalled me was the couple of comments that went:

Maybe ROM should introduce a course called "Mind your own business" for people like Swee Ho too..
Posted by: 0517elias at Tue Jul 08 12:50:38 SGT 2008

Nowadays children are horrible. Teach them several times also they dont remember. They play play game boy, PSP, etc and never do study. What a parent can do? You must be a childless parent to write such a letter. If you have a monster child who test your patience to the limits, you will know better.
Posted by: Juosterr at Tue Jul 08 12:49:39 SGT 2008


Going by their arguments that children nowadays are horrible and deserved the treatment that the father gave his children, and people like Swee Hoo should mind their own business, then I fear greatly for our children of tomorrow. NO WONDER many grew up dysfunctional! I think Dave Teo is a classic example of what happens when a child is beaten, punched and slapped once too often... He becomes part of a vicious cycle of unbridled anger. When will this madness ever going to end?

The judge's take on the case (with quotations from Ecclesiastes) thankfully brings comfort that sanity will prevail. Thank you, your honour.