A few days ago, something in the paper caught my attention. Our country came in second place for its efforts to reduce under-five child mortality rates as mentioned in a United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report. (to my blur sotongs frens, it means our country has reduced children’s death. Mortals are people who can die. Immortals are people who never die. Immorals are people, well, who are bad. Morals are good people, well, like me.). Well, it is nothing to be proud of and nothing of interest to me. But what struck me are two words. One of them is something new to me – over-nutrition. The second one is mental illness.
I am infuriated with this. Angry with who? I am not sure but I suppose all the adults, like you and me. And usually, these dumb adults who caused their kids to be over-nutrition are the ones who are rich, educated and should know better. They are the kiasu parents who would attempt to feed the brain of the fetus even before pregnancy. These crazy people would be passionately discussing about eating how many servings of mackerel, tuna, salmon and all the angmoh fishes. I usually feel like throwing a rotten kembong in their faces because they will be discussing things like deep sea cold fishes which are non-existence in Malaysia. Gawd, we are Malaysians mah. We eat ikan gelama and kembong and if orang kaya, bawal putih and pomfret. And these parents don’t just stop at eating fishes but also stuffing themselves with pills to increase neuro whatever wor. Then, they will be fooled with all the hype created by the formula milk companies. In fact, the poor kid never even have a chance to breath because dumb ma and pa will be stuffing and stuffing the kid with multi-vitamins, health supplements, organic foods, filtered water etc etc with the hope of producing a genius.
Second thing that infuriates me even more is the fact that mental illness amongst children are increasing. Again, this is the result of stupid and blind parenting. Stupid not as in not enough education. But rather, in trying to be super smart. Blind because the parents do not see the real meaning of bringing up a child. Parents pushed their children like some robots to excel in fields which the adults hope will bring glory to them. Let’s admit it. Though we adults will be preaching that we are doing so much because we want the best for the future of our children, in there lurks the adults’ hidden desire to glorify themselves through the achivement of their children.
Yeah, yeah, mental illness is not going to happen to our kid. We are not going to push our kids to the brink of cuckoo-ness. We can judge mah, we know a lot about psychology mah, how can we make our child gila. Kenot wan…… But have we forgotten that our children are going to grow up in a society that is going to be filled with many mental patients?
Don’t get me wrong. I have lots of empathy for people with mental illness. I had known a few closely and know their sufferings. I had provided one with my friendship at the hours of her death due to suicide. So, I do get very angry when we allow our children to fall into depression. I do worry what the future holds for my children if they have to live in the companies of depressed persons. It is not very far-fetched to imagine that we will end up like the angmohs where school children gunned down their fellow classmates.
Part of the article is pasted below:
Full article from Star Online dated Nov 19
“There are always problems like obesity and over-nutrition. Our children are not underweight. We don’t want them to be obese and have them develop hypertension when they are adults,†she said yesterday after launching the Unicef “Progress for Children†Global Report (Vol 1 2004).
Dr Narimah said more children were experiencing mental illness, which resulted from modern living