Growing up pains of a material girl

Neglected children will always look elsewhere for love and attention.

COMMENT

Pei Pei was over the moon. She had passed the recent SPM exams with flying colours and wanted to take me out for a treat to celebrate. I was Pei Pei’s English tutor. I agreed to meet her at the Leisure Mall in Cheras provided her treat was simple and inexpensive.
When we met at the eatery, she was gushing with enthusiasm over her results. This was another feather in my cap. I had tutored her from the time she was in Primary Six and her UPSR and PMR results were also those of a top achiever.
As she sat there and began to unfold her plans for the future, I recalled in a little reverie how I had begun this earnest project of getting her to excel in her English.
I was teaching at a language centre and Pei Pei’s parents were my students. They were seeking permanent residence status in New Zealand and wanted to achieve the required standard of English language proficiency. They met their goal, and it was they who insisted I tutor Pei Pei.
I had no qualms and proceeded to work with Pei Pei. When we were sitting there at the eatery, she had studied English with me for six years. Now she was planning to take up pre-university studies at a local college and most likely move on to New Zealand for tertiary studies.
Pei Pei’s parents are filthy rich. Throughout my six-year stint, I was rewarded handsomely in cash and kind. But it wasn’t long after we started that I noticed she had a certain withdrawn nature. She went about her studies and her life at home in a blunt, almost expressionless way, void of any feeling. I became concerned.
I almost always never saw her parents during our twice-a-week, two-hour sessions. They were absentee parents. In their absence, the role of bringing her up was thrust onto her grandmother and the Filipino maid.
The parents ran a motor spare parts factory in Balakong and business was booming. They roped in several relatives to assist in reaping the spoils, and ventured into distributing the spare parts throughout Malaysia and within the Asean region.
In the process of amassing their wealth, they travelled extensively and frequently throughout the region. Pei Pei hardly saw them. But they never failed to lavish her with all the material comforts they could afford. She was growing up with a settled view that this must be the way of life for every child.
I sometimes asked whether she missed her parents or whether she wished they were around more often, but she seemed quite indifferent or perhaps uncertain about her feelings. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her although I thought of her as brave and stoical and lucky to have such a comfortable life.
Feeling like a thief
On the rare occasions I chanced to meet her parents, I didn’t hesitate to voice my concern, suggesting that they try to make time for her. My initial attempts were met with interest, but as time passed the parents began to avoid me. I think they thought I was going beyond my position as tutor to interfere in the affairs of their household.

But they allowed me to tutor her as she was making good and steady progress. But what I feared soon became quite real, albeit also in steady fashion. Pei Pei began to see me as a father figure and someone she could trust, confide in and relate to as a responsible adult. It came to such a point that the maid even began to insinuate that I was the man of the house. But it was a situation not of our making. Pei Pei was growing, but was bonding with me in a way that was unexpected.
Soon I began to feel like a thief. While I have no children of my own, I had not bargained for a situation such as this. I felt I was robbing the parents of the exclusive filial devotion of their daughter.
What it evolved into was Pei Pei happily paying lip service to her parents while relating more closely with me. This “arrangement” seemed to go down well with her. But it was an arrangement that came to the attention of the parents only towards the close of my tenure. They realised the bond that had grown between us was stronger than her bond with them.
It all seemed so silly to me. If only they had paid heed to me and taken my suggestions for her well being seriously enough from the beginning, it would not have come to such an awkward situation.
I feel for children who are in the care of child minders and day-care centres while their parents try to pile up wealth.
I can understand that making money is very important as parents have to butter the bread daily in a world of rising inflation. But to sacrifice seeing your child grow up and, worse still, lose their filial piety to others, is a terrible and painful loss. It can never be regained, for time has ticked away.
As I mused over my lunch, Pei Pei was as chatty as ever and carrying on with the endless details of her plans. This was something she never did with her parents; her tongue never seemed to wag and she always seemed to clam up in their presence.
I also observed how she spoke, her gestures and mannerisms, the facial expressions, her tone of voice and accent, the overall body language, and it struck me in a certain frightening way how the tutor had had such a deep impact and influence on her life.

Playing godfather
The tutor obviously had overpaid his dues in the short span of six years, or so I thought. It was just then that her phone beeped. Upon answering, she told me her parents were waiting downstairs for us to finish lunch.
It was just as well. I downed the last few morsels of my lunch and went downstairs to meet her parents. They looked sullen but greeted me politely and announced quickly that they had to rush off for another appointment and told me they regretted not being able to spend time with me.
How ironic, I thought. Throughout the years Pei Pei was growing up they also never had time for her. For some reason, this thought created a sharp twinge of pain in me. My thought at this point was that there really must be more to life and we must learn to create the space and time for people we like and love in our life.
Perhaps it all boils down to managing our time and sorting out our priorities, and knowing who and what count and matter to us most in life. I thought the parents would have realised that they couldn’t possibly have everything in life.
I suppose the world is not enough for people who greedily seek for more and more. But watching the three of them bid me farewell and walk away, I thought to myself, did they really need some more? They had everything a person would want in life, and it puzzled me that they were blind to this reality.
As I walked away towards the car park, I thought that I really shouldn’t think of myself as being a father sort of person to Pei Pei.
What I had really and truthfully become was a godfather to her. As I continue in my journey as a teacher to the young I am beginning to think if there will ever be times when I will be called upon to play godfather again.
Looking at the way our world is changing and the direction it is taking, I feel certain that there are   students out there who share the same predicament as Pei Pei and that these children who are neglected will always look elsewhere for love and attention.
Of this I am very sure.
The writer is a schoolteacher teaching English and Science at a Chinese school in Kuala Lumpur, and has also been working as a writer since 1984.