The Joy Luck Club

Every time after my mum and I disagrees or argues, I think about the movie ‘The Joy Luck Club’. I’m not sure why the movie makers called it that but I gather it’s got to do with some direct translation of some Chinese saying.

How the movie relates to me though is the wedge in the relationships between the mothers and the daughters in the movie. Like the movie, the wedge is the different lifestyle, culture and country they each spent their youth to adult life in. But the wedge is also the similarity in the patterns of choices they each make – like mother, like daughter, there’s a same thread in the choices they make, although in different scenarios.

I broke away from my mother’s patterns of behaviour early enough in my life. Thanks to a crisis, I now have a life I’m proud to say, is a product of my own choices and responses. But, it didn’t come till I was in my early thirties though.

Last December, we asked my mum if she could come live with us for a while to help look after our newborn baby. She said yes. I wasn’t sure how long she would stay for this time because efforts in the past to make her honour her 3 -6 months visit were unsuccessful. The last two times she’s visited, her stays were cut short. Twice it was a result of an argument between her and myself.

This time, many arguments happened but she stayed despite many times threatening to leave. This time, my weapon is my newborn baby girl, Ella. She’s the reason why mum stayed longer than 3 months. She’s the source of happiness for mum, who made that very clear. It is not me. I on the other hand, is like a stranger to her, she claims. She doesn’t ask to spend time with me but she expects me to do that. She has lots of expectations which she doesn’t speak about until we have a blown up argument over something small. She pants it all up and then, like a bottle of coca-cola shaken up, she spills it all out. I on the other hand, am too busy to stop to talk to her or to be creative in engaging her. I already have to be creative in engaging my 5 year old, my 9month old, and my clients. I don’t need really want to have to parent my parent either, if that is to put it bluntly.

This year, my sister’s daughter also came to live with us to study in Australia. My mum pampers her, much to my disagreement. She claims I’m jealous and I should let her show her love to her grand daughter if she wishes. That’s alright if mum doesn’t live under the same roof. But pampering a grand daughter who lives under the same roof means she’s going to undermine my niece’s character growth and maturity. So there goes another wedge driven into our already fragile relationship. The relationship that is only held together by my baby daughter, so it seems.

Mum claims I am a horrible person – that I’m not a nice person. When my niece said this evening that she thinks I’m a nice person, that I’m patient and kind, mum said, that’s the first she’s heard. She claims that others do not know me like she does. That others have not seen the other side of me. My niece has seen the other side of me. Who I am at home is who I am with others. I don’t always have to assert myself with others as I have to with mum because I don’t find myself clashing with someone’s thought processes as much as I do mum’s. She doesn’t give me credit where credit is due. She hates my guts, my confidence, my assertiveness, my voice – the voice she never had.

When will we ever see eye to eye? When will mum ever credit me for who I am? When will she agrees with me like my friends agree with me? Isn’t that what every daughter wants from her mother? Sure, when I was a child, nurturing and security was what I needed and she was the best with that. She took me everywhere I wanted, gave me almost everything I wanted within her abilities and budget. She did everything for me and I never had to lift a finger at home. She still does all the housework except that I am no longer a little child needing only to be fed and to be fussed around. Without that, we don’t have a relationship. We don’t look at the world the same way. We have different parenting styles. We have very different outlook on life. We are like chalk and cheese.

But mum will never have her own home where she can do what she likes. Unlike many older people I know who have their own abode to do whatever old people like, mum will never have that priviledge to. I wish I could give her a house she could call her own and she could live on her own but the closest she will have is a granny flat down stairs our house in the Gold Coast. I will have to try and not say much about what she does with that space there and I will. But till then, we have to share this little 3 bedroom house with her and my niece… and it’s hard when mum stashes away incredible amount of junk I would normally throw in the bin.

I know mum is still unhappy with me for throwing out her stashes of tissue paper or kitchen towels that she claims she wants to reuse for cleaning the floor because they are not very dirty, the sauce in the fridge that was almost 2 months old (that still tasted good) and a whole bunch of things I've told her to stop doing. Hence here I am writing this long block to process it all while the rest of the household sleeps...

Investing in Education

The one thing my dad never failed to get through to us children, is that education is an investment. I grew up hearing that all my life. Hence he poured money into our education and as I grew older, I poured money into educating myself. But an investment means it must give returns. And normally, the world views return in monetary form, at least in economics anyway. So, if I don't use my education to bring income, then it's considered a waste - it is a useless investment. That's how my mind thought for many years. And economics also thought me about opportunity loss - the forgone opportunity when one resource is used in another way. So the guilt of calculated monetary loss became the source of my motivation and decisions for many many years. Sure economics also brushed on intangible assets and intangible opportunity loss but it was all very airy fairy so not much attention was given to it.

But, there is more to education than monetary returns and it is still a good investment even if it is not income producing. The socialisation and institutionalisation of education helps to integrate a person into a culture and society, bringing a sense of belonging and identity. Even if the person becomes a full-time mum at some later stage, that cultural impartation is important for institutionalising future generation. Education has given me the words to speak and the tools to understand this world I live in.

I'm sure my dad saw investment only as monetary and social status but that doesn't matter now. The main thing is, I'm glad for the education I've received and the education I've put myself through. I'm thankful for dad's grounding eventhough it may have been from a skewed motivation. I'm writing this because once upon a time, I looked at dad's intention as self-serving because in the chinese culture, investment to him means us children have to return the responsibility of looking after our parents in their old age. Not that I have an issue with that but I have an issue with the self-serving part!

Anyway, I can now truly say, whatever dad's intentions were, it does not matter because it has served me well too - both monetary and non-monetary wise.

Self-employed or be employed?

I must admit blogging took a grip of me at one stage and I was aware that I was spending too much time on it. So I took the cold turkey approach and stopped completely. But I've always loved to journal and knew that someday, I'll return.

Now almost 2 years after my last blog and another kid later, I'm hoping to venture a lasting return to blogging.

I just read my last posting and thought... wow, I don't think I can live that out. Somewhere in between then and now, we've increased our mortgage and had another child. What is more important now is to spend more time with my children and work from home if I can. And counselling from home is a bit tricky...

With another child in tow, I'm finding it increasing difficult to return to work for an employer. Not because there's no job, nor is it because I can't find a suitable job. I just don't think I'll be happy even if it's what I love doing, and, eventhough I have the help of my mum who has offered her her availability indefinitely for this first year. Maybe it's that streak in me that doesn't like to be bossed around. And there's an element of that if I'm an employee whatever level I'm on. If I work my way up to the top, I'm still a puppet to someone who is waiting on me to deliver their profits or their commitments to another source of stakeholder.

If I work for myself I don't have the responsibility of meeting someone else's agenda... I do not have an agency contract... yes, it's coming back to me now what I learnt in my Economics and Accounting degrees. I can do my own thing, work when I want to and take a holiday whenever I wish to. I can do things my way and not have to follow someone else's. However, I don't earn any income if I don't work.

On the other hand, working as an employee in an organization not controlled by myself means I get a constant stable wage and a few other incentive perks. The trade off is a stipulated leave entitlement, contractual fixed income and having less autonomy than working for myself.

I still like working for myself. I guess I value freedom more than I value security. But I've also come to be aware that if I go too much with my whims and fancy when it comes to work, I won't go too far. That if I don't have the 'stayability' in the one thing I'm doing and be consistent, I will grow old and not achieve much.

Hence it's my next dilemma - what do I want to commit my limited time to? I've been thinking:
1) I can do accounting and bookkeeping services
2) I can work on building up my clients in counselling
3) I can become a full-time share trader, and finally
4) I could also do a web business offering my financial organizational skills - mainly cashflow management I'm thinking about.

I would love to someday do something creative like run a restaurant or a boutique selling beautiful things that I like but I'll have to get a loan for that and have an initial capital. That's not possible at the moment coz of we've got huge mortgages now. I'm not hugely creative but I do have creative flair that seems to come in spurts... strange.

Lastly, do I need to work? Can't I just not think of work and just look after the children full-time 24x7? Well, no. Firstly, we can't afford for me not to pull my weight in the finances due to our huge mortgage and secondly, it'll drive me insane. We could sell our properties but I think we're at the peak of our income earning years and I would not feel totally comfortable foregoing those opportunities.

Well, that's where I am right now in my life. I want to work for myself and not be employed. I want flexibility and I need to be consistent and committed to one thing and build it to something substantial. I believe I need to give it at least 5-10 years to build it.