My mum was conversing with one of her sisters when suddenly my aunt asked:" Did you know XXX just had a son?"

And my mum replied no, and there was the usual "duno what's going on" commentary. After which when they hung up, my mum proceeded to call XXX to congratulate on the birth of her newborn. I was in my room doing stuff, but from what my mother said to XXX's mum, it seemed that the child was already 2 weeks old, yet none of the relatives knew as they didn't inform us, claiming they were too "busy".

XXX is my cousin, and her mum was married into the family of my mum's side. I don't really have any personal vendetta against that particular family because I hardly interacted with them since young. And also because I have heard so much gossip over annual family gatherings, and unpleasant incidents that my sister and mum had with them that naturally made me stay away.

My mum was going, "aiyah if she didn't wanted to let us know, I shouldn't have made the call already" and my sister was going "XXX's mum must be very proud that she finally has a grandson lor".

2 things.

1. Although we are all family only in legal terms, I would have never even bothered to give a call. If people want to pretend, what I would have done was to just act along like nothing happened and only give a dramatic *gasp* when I finally "knew" the news. Of course it's not what I normally do; only for people that I don't like, or am not familiar with. And in this case, it's generally most of that particular family. All along, all the relatives have been trying to get along with XXX's mum, treating her as part of the family and being nice but she's the one who's been giving a detestable attitude. Don't get me wrong: I don't mean that she's a horrid person, but just thinking about past incidences of stuff that she did especially to my mum has given me a rather bad impression, and more or less I think many relatives would agree with me generally.

2. Boasting of a son. One thing that I never understood was why having a son would give such a sense of pride while daughters don't have that much. I tried scratching my mind why it was so good to have a son and all I could come up with was just tradition and the carrying of the family name. I remembered when I was born, my uncle was eagerly bugging my sister to know my gender and upon hearing that I was a girl, everyone was disappointed. Of course I'm grateful that my relatives still treat me like any other person, with care and love but this constantly reminds me of the fact of how some things never will change even if we become modernised and globalised. Equality? Fairness? Maybe that's what everyone preaches but somewhere down there there's still this little nugget of biased view.

There are so many things that I have to count myself lucky for. Lucky to be born in this era (and in Singapore, so I don't have to get dumped into rivers in China), lucky to have 2 parents that loved me as much no matter who or what I was (especially papa who dotes on me), lucky to be sheltered and protected from all the negative criticisms of being a girl due to the fact that we are supposed to be progressing towards globalisation and thus less stereotypical.

Obviously this post is skewed from a feminist's point of view. Would not be very surprised if there's any person who disagrees with me. But anyways, although every parent would be proud to have a child, XXX's mum focusing on the fact that it's a son(confirm hao lian de) just pisses me to some extent because I don't really like her(yeah I'm reallyyyyyyyyyyy biased, neh neh ni poo poo), and it's too early to see how capable he will be anyway. I'm not cursing her son, but if he happens to not shine like how she'd love him to, I'd say she deserves it.

Labels: family, thoughts

/