Is silence golden? Not necessary so
I never understood what this poster was about, until many years later. I saw a poster on a tram in 1970. I had no idea what it meant, who advertised it and for whom.
It was a drawing of a rather sad expressive face of a very young child, and the background was lemon yellow. I can still remember the words vividly, “Tell them you still love them”.
A lot of times, we assume everyone thinks the same, and reacts the same way. However, this is not the case.
When we live in Australia, there are certain accepted expectations for new comers to behave to be part of this country. No, I do not think these expectations are unrealistic. One of such expectations is "silence is NOT golden".
Generally speaking, most baby boomers’ childhood whether they were brought up in an Asian country or in Australia, many parents were very strict, and not expressive to show their love towards their children. There were some kind of unwritten rules that children should understand.
Unfortunately, many children might misunderstand that their parents did not love them because they never get any kisses or hugs. The parents would console and defend themselves by saying “we have given you everything, we sacrifice everything for you!”
What the children wanted was an expression of love, a simple sentence of “we love you!”
What do parents expect from children in return?
I was at JB Hifi. I child wanted to ”show off” to his mum that he could write on an iPad. He wrote, “I love you Mum”.
His mother told the child, “I am here. You don’t have to write it. It will mean more if you say it to me”
In my next blog, I shall discuss about the magic words, “Thank You”.
Thank you for reading.
It was a drawing of a rather sad expressive face of a very young child, and the background was lemon yellow. I can still remember the words vividly, “Tell them you still love them”.
A lot of times, we assume everyone thinks the same, and reacts the same way. However, this is not the case.
When we live in Australia, there are certain accepted expectations for new comers to behave to be part of this country. No, I do not think these expectations are unrealistic. One of such expectations is "silence is NOT golden".
Generally speaking, most baby boomers’ childhood whether they were brought up in an Asian country or in Australia, many parents were very strict, and not expressive to show their love towards their children. There were some kind of unwritten rules that children should understand.
Unfortunately, many children might misunderstand that their parents did not love them because they never get any kisses or hugs. The parents would console and defend themselves by saying “we have given you everything, we sacrifice everything for you!”
What the children wanted was an expression of love, a simple sentence of “we love you!”
What do parents expect from children in return?
I was at JB Hifi. I child wanted to ”show off” to his mum that he could write on an iPad. He wrote, “I love you Mum”.
His mother told the child, “I am here. You don’t have to write it. It will mean more if you say it to me”
In my next blog, I shall discuss about the magic words, “Thank You”.
Thank you for reading.
