HERE COMES A CYBER MUM
How a mother retrieves her brood from an empty nest
Just because the kids leave home doesn’t mean that you can’t reach them – anywhere.
Our son has left for university and our spoilt daughter has gone overseas. Even Mother seldom v isit s now that her grandchildren are no longer around. In less than one short month, our once boisterous home has become so very quiet and desolate.
I miss my children so much that I keep in touch with them on the computer whenever I can, showing I care and to keep up my nagging. At first it was only through email messages. On several occasions I got on to the website of our son’s university to learn about his life there, and was pleasantly surprised to see his greetings on the bulletin board service: “Hi, Mum! So you’re on the net as well!” Since then I have been visiting the websites regularly hoping to catch up with my children.
My acquaintance with the computer started when I was working on my thesis. I was initiated into it, quite unintentionally, when I was looking for a convenient way to store my research material. And I miraculously became a ‘netizen’ the moment one of my students set up a personal website for me. I have since been busy communicating with my readers and students through the net. I can hardly believe it myself that a technophobe like me could somehow get entangled with the most modern technology! And that since my children left home the net has become the best way for our family to communicate and share our feelings.
We started off sending messages by email only – just to say hello, to seek help and to admonish. Messages such as: “Please have a look at this email. I can’t open it.” Or, one that I sent to my daughter says: “So you rang to say you’d lost your credit card. The very thing that I’ve been worrying about! If you don’t try hard to mend your careless ways, you’ll wake up one morning and find that you’ve lost your brain as well.”
And my son’s messages are typical in their sensational headings, such as “Help me please!” “Help again, please!” They are no different from the notes he used to leave on the white board at home when he was young. They are always about money. “I’ve bought some books for the new term and money is running short. Please help. I also bought a new pair of glasses. They have a blue frame and cost me US$90. Help me please! Help me please!”
My daughter, on the other hand, would harangue her elder brother like a grand old lady: “Don’t upset Mum when I’m not home. Go back to see Mum and Dad every now and then. They’ve only got you and me.”
Winter came. My son took his quilt and woollen blanket to his quarters at the university. He even made off with the spirit lamp, coffee pot and
toaster, as if leaving home for good. I felt rather broody and sent him an email message. “This morning when I saw you take the toaster and coffee pot, as if you were starting a family of your own, saddened us. Our expectations are that you will come home every Saturday and sit down with us to have a cup of coffee. That makes our missing you bearable.”
I got a humorous response from him the following day: “Here’s a joke for you, Mum. That school friend of mine brought a coffee pot from home. He wanted to make a good cup of coffee to remind himsel f of his home sweet home. When he emptied everything out, he found that he’d forgotten to bring the coffee!”
Recently, our son has been emailing me all kinds of articles: funny, touching, intellectual ... the lot. Recommended reading, he said, which would help me understand my students’ ideas and keep abreast of the times, so I wouldn’t be written off as over-the-hill too soon.
I read the articles religiously, like an obedient pupil. I appreciate my son’s goodwill with mixed feelings. The kid I was bombarding with newspaper clippings not that long ago has now become my mentor! So I responded with the following email:
“Thank you, my son, for all those interesting net articles, despite the confusing sense of role reversal that I have. Nonetheless, I’ll take it as a loving son’s expectations towards his mother. He must be thinking that his mother is still pliable enough for reform. That makes me feel proud. The thing that old folks lack most is f lexibility, in both muscles and ideas. I think you do feel that my thinking is still flexible, right?”
So we chat and exchange ideas through the net, and encourage each other with a gentle and beautiful language we seldom use. Every time I sit in front of the computer and read those instant messages I feel warmth welling up in my heart and a profound gratitude to modern technology.
The world has real ly become a global village. Through the internet, my children and I stay close to each other.
“Thank you, my son, for all those interesting net articles, despite the confusing sense of role reversal I have”