Friday, January 24, 2020

Raising your child from distance

Let me start by saying that I am from a previous generation. Not as an excuse but more from the point of view of wonder, the learning of new things and yet also the mirroring.

Mid-January it was again the day of the year for me. The granting of my annual visa at the Thai immigration office in Chiang Mai. Last year it took an hour to complete, but due to organizational changes and again new rules, this time it took me seven hours and the next day I also had to go back for one more hour. The great news is that I can legally stay here for another year.

During the office lunch time I visited the nearby shopping center to escape the for a while the for me negative energy of many waiting visitors at that place. I feel pity with the staff who have to work there on a daily base.

In the mall I walked past a store and I saw a nice gift for my girlfriend's birthday. I went inside the store. A neat saleswoman of around forty years showed me what I liked. An I-phone on the desk showed me an around five-year-old boy sitting on a couch in front of the television. And he pressed something there what produced a kind of mooing cow sound in the store. A call from him for his mother, the saleswoman, it turned out. She apologized for a moment and spoke to her son who after a short while went on watching TV again.

I looked at her with questioning eyes and she told him that he was already completely used to it. She had to work (be aware for 10 hours a day) and he was at home. As a joke, I told her that nowadays it's all super modern and easy and that even through Grab or the Foodpanda they have here, she could even order food online for him. She told me she did already for a long time and it made him happy many times he could choose what he wanted her to order. I looked at her in amazement and showed her my little Nokia cellphone. For me this is all new.

Not my thing, I told her. Only thinking is this how you raise your so-called "love babies" these days? It really does not match with me. And yep, I am from an earlier generation. And yep I also know you need to work to earn money but…

When I walked out of the store it said that it might be nice to have a pizza delivered to him that evening. We laughed together ...

Too sad (I think) and perhaps the boy gets a lot of personal attention just before he goes to bed so that he also learns how a short-distance relationship feels.

Plenty of wonder for me.
And not knowing the circumstances… who am I to judge?


Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)
email: captijninsight@gmail.com 



Captijn InsightCatalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.


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