Good evening, folks.

It’s already 3.29 pm here in Jakarta, Indonesia. Friday. So it feels like weekend already here. 😀
I’ve done my editing work for today, and is sipping my cappuccino when the urge to write rising. So I made a short status on my facebook (in bahasa Indonesia). And I thought it’d be okay to make an entry in my blog about it too.

It’s about parenting. About some hardest things parents must do, toward their children. My version, though. Here they are..

Discipline. It’s tough. Especially for a single mother like me. In one part, I still feel guilty toward my kids, for putting in the position they are right now: kids whose parents were divorced. It’s not a beautiful fact. Humiliating and a failure for the society in my country. Alas, it’s the only way, at that time, to keep me sane. Okay, I was exaggerating. There are reasons why it must happen. And by time, my children learned why the parents must live separate way. They understood now, thank God.

To educate them, equally, proportionally. It’s correlated with the explanation above. Sometimes, it breaks my heart to do hard things in order to educate the kids, but it’s a necessary evil.

To trust their wisdom to choose whatever they chose for their life. Oh, trust me, it’s soooo haaaaard! We, Asian, have this different culture than the Western people. Parents have such a major roles in their kids’ lives. Some parents even deliberately dictated what their children must do in their lives. If not, then they’re considered as a “durhaka” (defiant, disobey, seditious) children. Tough, huh? But in the past two decades, parents become more open-minded and trusting. But note, every parent shall shield their children with religion educations since the earliest time of their lives. Inshallah, that way, trusting them would be easier to the heart.

Watching they cry. So many things can cause our children cry. Broken heart or some fight with their bestfriends. And you can’t do anything about it, except telling them that:

“Everybody hurts and I can’t help you with that. I can only say, what ever pain that failed to kill us, will make us much, much stronger.”

I have two teenage kids. A son and a daughter. Both are very open to me, except some things. Of course. Everybody has secret, and I respect my children’s privacy. Other than that, they talk about almost everything to me. And I listen to them. I follow every trend they’re in. They have facebook, so have I. They’re twittering, so am I. They’re on path, so am I. They’re on instagram, heck, so am I. Even I am on youtube, while they’re not. 😀 Not to stalk them like hawk, just to check them out once a while, to discuss and share interesting things we found on the net, and laughing together.

My oldest (son) is a calm person. Nothing much happened in his life, except school problems such as play truant or hanging around on the net cafe a little too much. As a curious boy, of course (I suspected) he already tried some “rebellious” things, such as smoking or drinking (alcohol). But, alhamdulillah, I think he doesn’t like those stuffs anyway. So he doesn’t do any of those. His love life is a bit dull, because he’s not so into relationship. He did have a girlfriend in his first year of high school. But he called it off, saying that they’re better be friends than in relationship. And, before break up with her, he consulted me first. I said, “It’s up to you, boy. Just don’t break up with her because you’re into another girl.” He guaranteed, it’s not the reason he broke up with her.

Well, I did tell my son to never make a girl cry. I mean, he has a sister and a mother. We are girls too. I told him, if he was thinking about playing around with girls, remember us.

“You don’t want to see your sister, or I, being treated the same way by other men, do you?”

I hope he always remember that advice. 🙂

My daughter, is also a good girl. A little rebellious and hopelessly romantic. Pretty much like her brother, but she–well, has this tendency to fall a little too deep, when liking a boy. Like I did. 😀 So, when she got closer to a boy, I watched closely. And when their “relationship” didn’t make it, she would all blue about it. She reminds me too much about myself, when I was her age, and I didn’t like it.. 😛 I know, I know it’s unfair, but see your kids feeling blue is something unpleasant for a mother to see. And, so, that was my advice to her:

“I can’t help you with pain in the heart. I can only say, first cut always the deepest. You’d feel like it’s the end of the world. But, flash news, there are MANY more cuts to come in life, so brace yourself. Don’t waste all of your energy in one moment.”

To honestly tell them that we, parents, are mere human. We are imperfect. And to admit:

“Kids, I messed up. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

To admit self-flaw is never an easy thing to do. Especially to own kids. But they deserve to know it, so they won’t expect us as clean as angel. Just respect us as human being, as parents who took and taking care of them since they’re babies.

To leave them at home, to go to work. Well, as a single mother whose ex husbands don’t provide financial support, leaving home to work is just something I totally must do. I don’t like leaving my children at home, only attended by family/relatives to take care of them. But, again, it’s the necessary evil. 😦

Life is tough, indeed. Even for parents. And yet, parents will do head over heels for their kids. That’s why, love your parents. They are the only people that will love you the way we are, no matter how bad we treated them or how bad we messed up in life.

Happy weekends, folks. 😉