SimonSimple

Hi People

This year my youngest reached the ripe age of 18. He has come of age. This is what I call the beginning of the Age of Independence. In fact, come January 2007, the army will own him for the next 2 years. Freedom! He he. No more teenager in the house. Don’t get me wrong. I am not eager to let him leave the nest. However, in order for him to make good in the adult world, the sooner I let him go, the sooner and higher he will fly.

Let me put down these famous words from Marquerite & Willard Beecher:

“The parent needs to gain his or her freedom from the child, so that the child can obtain his or her freedom from the parent. A parent should do nothing for a child that the child can profit from doing for himself or herself.”

Tomorrow he will sit for the last of his “A” level exam papers. We have watched him grow older year by year. Now we sit back and watch him grow up. The world is his to conquer. Some of us have difficulty growing up. As his parents, we hope we have done the right things by him and allowed him space to grow.

It has been our tradition to let our children fend for themselves beyond the basic “A” level or polytechnic education. Our eldest sponsored herself through university courtesy of a bank study loan. She had a bit of financial help by giving tuition and we thank God when she won Big Money at the Wheel of Fortune during her 3 year studies. She is 24 and is now into the Age of Interdependence - the world of work and relationships.

Our second born will take flight in February next year for Australia to obtain her university degree. She has enough to fund one year of her studies and then she will “see how lah”.

We have not created any M&D scholarships for our children ie. no money for our honeys to study in the university - local or overseas. We hope we have prepared them well for life, and not just for the PSLE exams, or “O” or “A” levels. We hope we have built strong character traits in them - one of them being Personal Responsibilty.

We brought our 3 children through the Ages - the first 6 years or so being the Age of Instruction, the second 6 years being the Age of Imitation and the third 6 years being the Age of Inspiration. I feel I have been a devoted Dad and a deliberate Dad. Devoted? Because they will always be my children. Deliberate? Because now I must step back and say to myself “my job is done”. I just want to be a “guide by the side” and not a “sage on stage”.

There must be a reason why they call bringing up your children “parenting”. It is like “pa - renting” and I guess “ma - renting”. It is like the children rented their pa or ma for a season, 18 years. I sure hope I was a good teacher, a good role model for my kids the first 18 years of their lives. From now on I talk to my son, adult to adult. I will refrain from handing out advice, unless he welcomes it. From now on I will follow this rule: “when the student is ready, the teacher appears”. We bid our son on his journey to adulthood: “God speed & God bless”. We will always love you, as we do your sisters.

SimonSimple Carrot Cake all dolled up!

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Hi People

Life is a piece of cake. Last Friday evening I attended a company function and got home close to 11 pm. The following day I set out from home in the western part of Singapore to the extreme eastern part of Singapore and gave 2 talks on marriage & intimacy at a Marriage Enrichment Weekend, followed by a quick lunch and proceeded to drive all the way to the central part of Singapore to give a public talk as part of the “Make Love Happen” initiative, in a very heavy tropical downpour.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout at the Bishan Community Library. Despite the heavy downpour, more than 100 people showed up to hear what I had to share on His & Her Real Needs!

Then at 7 pm the same evening my wife & I baked 6 loaves of SimonSimple Carrot Cake and sliced them up into 60 pieces and painstakingly (& lovingly) wrapped them up in foil and another layer of “double happiness” stencil paper. We did not finished the wrapping until close to midnight! The next morning we drove all the way to the east again to deliver the 60 pieces of cake - see above!

On the same evening I conducted the 4th lesson of the Marriage Preparation Course at home which ended at about 10 pm. I then stayed up past midnight to watch the Arsenal versus Liverpool match with my 2nd daughter. It was worth it. Arsenal won 3 - 0! The week before it wasn’t worth it. Arsenal had lost 1-0!

I guess this tough regimen is in preparation for the coming weekend. We have to bake another 6 loaves of carrot cake come Friday evening, be at a hotel in the central part of Singapore for another round of Marriage Enrichment Weekend at 8.30 am the next morning, deliver the cakes and also 3 talks right up to Saturday evening. Come Sunday morning we have a joint slot to speak on Living a Legacy and the programme will end only at lunchtime.

Then it is back home to collect catered food for a party of 20 that will have dinner at 7 pm to round up 5 sessions of the Marriage Preparation Course at my home. The evening will not end until about 10 pm.

My dear wife commented this morning that I am not only Spiderman but also Superman. In fact she once said lovingly to me “My Hero”. Nowadays it is “Lau Hero!” I simply say life is a piece of cake. Put another way, life is like a piece of rubber band. If you are not stretched, you become useless. After all, our tagline is “We Speak & Bake!”

“Need a tongue bath?”

“My, you do taste funny!”

Hi People

It seems quite a while since I last ‘blogged’. It’s a case of writer’s block. I want to update you on a new addition to the SIMS’ family. We just adopted a new family member (a 2-year old Corgi Cardigan) last Saturday. And boy, is he handsome and cute! Surprisingly, this new addition did not bring a hint of jealousy from his older sibling, a 10-year old (a brown Cocker Spaniel). Look at how cute they are in the pictures above.

This morning my 2-year old exhibited a behaviour normal of a 2- yearold as I fed him his meal. He was reluctant to start on it and so I raised my voice at him. Immediately he recoiled and backed off and turned tail and headed off to find …….mummy!

I must say I am now healthier for having these 2 members about me. Every morning for the last few days I walked them - separately. And the routine is repeated in the evenings. So each day my dogs get to walk with me 4 times altogether. Why do I walk them separately? I cannot handle them together. Anyway, when I walk one, the other will bark at me for leaving him out, or the other will wear an accusingly look, indicating that I was not being fair. Such is my daily walks!

I do have 3 real children - and indeed, not only must I appear to be fair to all of them, I must be perceived by them to be fair in their own eyes. Their perception is their reality! My mother used to say in our Teochew dialect, that we must not be ‘BIG, SMALL HEART’, her motto was to love each of her 9 children best.

Let me give you a real life example. My eldest daughter funded the bulk of her university education all by herself, ie. I did give her a monthly allowance for her living expenses and she took out a study loan with the bank. This motivated her to supplement her allowance by giving tuition. My second daughter now has a place to study in Australia - and she is funding her overseas education with her life’s savings - she says she has enough for 1 year’s university fees and living expenses. I am only prepared to give her a grant for her accommodation or her living expenses, but not both. She opted for the accommodation and promised to wait at tables or give tuition to earn her living expenses.

We have this rule in the house that mum & dad will only support them up to ‘A’ levels or polytechnic education but not university. As such, my son will be weaned off the bulk of financial support for his university education by the end of this year. In any event, the Singapore Government will feed him for the next 2 years as he completes his national service.

As to handouts, I gave my eldest $2100 on her 21st birthday, and so my second daughter got the same on her 21st, and so will my son.

My children don’t want to hear me talk. I think they would rather see me walk. How’s your daily walk like?

Hi People

Godliness + Contentment = Great gain.

How can contentment bring me great gain? It is when you have enough, then you can be satisfied and happy! But that is only one aspect of the equation. You need to fear God too. I will leave it to you to get right with God but let me dwell on contentment.

I have a little tune:

Worry is like a rocking chair,
It keeps you busy
Gets you nowhere!

I have a little couplet:

Fix it up,
wear it out.
Make it do,
or do without!

I have a little saying:

Want what you have,
not have what you want.

And many many more wise sayings about delayed gratification and why savings is a virtue. You know what our trouble is? it is not knowledge but application. So a gentle reminder again about this powerful equation:

Simple ideas + ACTION = Powerful change

Here is an ACTION you can take. I have revived an old practice about tracking my expenses. Take a blue notebook, costs you 25 singapore cents but worth a lot if you practise what I share. Starting 1 September until end December 2006. Start recording every cent you spend, whether via cash, credit card or debit card etc every day, on a separate page. As the weeks go by, you will find that you will be more conscious of your spending habits. For example, if you used your credit card, you may be lulled into thinking you have excess cash when actually your financial situation is quite tight. You will find you can easily forgo a cup of designer coffee and have your daily dose at the nearby cooffee shop instead, or have it at home or better still, just have a glass of PUB tap water! It’s healthier.

A penny (or dollar) saved is a penny (or dollar) earned is what my father taught me. In fact you get more out of saving a dollar than by earning a new dollar. A new dollar needs energy to be expended to earn it and it gets taxed, etc etc. So go for the saved dollar.

We need to simplify. De-clutter. Sometimes less is best.

Hi People

Today my wife brought my attention to a Straits Times article in the Life! section entitled “Leave with Kindness”. Subconsciously I changed the title in my mind to “Live with Kindness”.

I grew up in an environment where my parents were very giving and encouraging. I still have fond memories of both my dearly departed father and mother. Even though they had left us many years ago, their teachings, by the way they lived their lives, are still with me. Because they lived with kindness, I too live with kindness. You see, life is a pattern. What your children see in you, you will see in them.

On the way to work today I dropped by Creme of Creams at Blk 28 Hoy Fatt Road #01-3- s(151028). Tel 6272 5250, and bought 6 blocks of ice cream for my staff, for no apparent reason except as an excuse to celebrate.

It is so easy to make people happy, and inexpensive too! Here is a sample of the positive reaction I had from the staff to my little gesture of kindness:

“Thank you for the ice-cream. I ate the red bean flavour and it was delicious.”

“Thank you for the delicious ice cream… My favorite is the red bean ice cream. Yummy!”

“Thank you very much for the ice cream & wafer. It’s a delicious tea-break.”

“Wow, cake for last week and ice-cream for this week. What’s coming up next? Thanks, Simon, for the wonderful treat!”

My staff refers to me affectionately as the GM aka the GrandMother! It is a joy working in the wonderful environment with a Giving culture. Know why I think we should not only “leave with kindness” but “live with kindness”? It is because you’ll get so much more when you give. Indeed a wise proverb goes like this:

A generous man is a prosperous man; He who blesses others will himself be blessed.

It is better to give than to receive. It’ll put a smile on someone else’s face….and yours too. Try it, you’ll not regret it.