Parenting is a tough road that is why not all took it. For parents out there, things are hard but at the end of the day, it will be fulfilling. As children, we sometimes do not understand the ways of parents especially our mothers. Mothers have their moments of spontaneity, rigidity and warmth which sometimes confuse us.

Sometimes, we do not easily fathom and grasp our mother’s methods just to show her unconditional love. There are times that we even misunderstand her. This is the time that we try to understand her methods and ways because her ultimate goal is to find what is best for us. We often hear things from our mothers. It might not make sense now but it will eventually.

Here are some pieces of advice that she relentlessly gives:

• Half of all our money goes to savings: It doesn’t matter whether our aunt or grandfather slipped us extra dollars because it will go to our savings. We become impatient because we want to spend it all on Hello Kitty stuffs. We will find it worthwhile when we use our savings to buy things like maybe a used car.

• Nothing good happens (to a teenager) after 10pm: For teenagers, the real fun begins at 10pm. Our mothers know that but sometimes, we ignore it thinking that she is all wrong. We will realize she is right (even if we swore that nothing will happen) when we are there.

• Pretending she wasn’t waiting for us all night: When we are in college, going home late at night is a familiar occurrence. When we go home at 1am, we suddenly see our mom watching TV claiming that she “lost track of time”. This is the typical mother. We wouldn’t understand how worried she was unless become mothers ourselves.

• Calling our grandparents: We sometimes do not understand why she keeps on telling us to talk to our grandparents. There are even others who find the company of their grandparents boring. Our mothers “force” us to get the phone and dial their numbers. At the end of the day, we find talking with our grandparents is fun.

These are just some things that we do not understand about our mothers but we will comprehend eventually. Growing here in Singapore is a challenge for some mothers but they haven’t lost track of their child’s development. Our mothers only value one thing and that is the family.