learning to walk
15 Jun 09 - Monday - 6:15 p.m.
Under the BCA guidelines, railing and retaining walls have to be built at or about 1 metre from the last “toe-hole” to prevent children from scaling them and falling to their deaths.
I remember my client wryly remarked, “Apparently parents have decided to pass on their duty to ensure that their kids do not anyhow climb and injure themselves to architects.”
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There was a letter to the Straits Times forum some time ago about how Law School should run classes to instil good morals in law undergrads to reduce the number of lawyers running away with clients’ conveyancing monies.
Doesn’t that just sound like some parent trying to pass his burden of instilling a sense of responsibility and morality in his child to Law School? And why should Law School be responsible for your child’s inherent failings when you as a parent had failed to teach your child the very fundamental skill of managing his greed? How can Law School be responsible for so onerous a duty when Law School was not the one responsible for bringing this life onto earth?
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Peanut is now 6 months old. She is a little endless bundle of energy, crawling all over the place and standing up with support on occasion. She toddles about unsteadily, falling rather frequently. She needs to be watched constantly given that her activity of choice is to manoeuvre her way to the bottom of my desk to chew on the wires for the computer.
Over last week, she sustained a rather large bruise on her right cheek from one of her numerous falling incidents, much to our amusement. She now spots one red cheek so from the right she looks like one of those rosy, chubby baby posters.
I have since learnt that so long as we do not react to her falling, she’d pick herself up in a wink and proceed on her merry way without breaking out in tears.
My father in law has a coffee table with stylised iron legs spotting various protuberances which Peanut will no doubt bump her head against one time or other.
Do I stop him from very thoughtlessly moving the table closer to Peanut’s mattress so that she can use it as support to stand up and very possibly injure herself on the metal legs of the table?
No, because I don’t expect the environs to change themselves to accommodate my baby; I don’t expect the world at large to care for my baby on my behalf while I sit at the dining table enjoying that bowl of homemade laksa. I haven’t got that kind of indignation or self-importance. I just eat lunch a little faster than usual so that I can watch her to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself too badly, so that I can pick her up and comfort her if she needs me too, so that she can learn never to do it again.