TAN KHENG HUA

Mother of Shi-an, 23

“Years ago, a friend introduced the concept of ‘benign neglect’ to describe how he felt we were parented. This concept worked wonders for me. On hindsight, the best thing my parents ever did was to have a simple but steady love, provide a safe home and then go about living their own lives while leaving me to my own thoughts a lot of the time. I’ve raised Shi-an in pretty much the same way. She has enough quiet to know her own mind and to find her own way. She has an unselfconscious, easy sense of freedom and follow-through, as well as her own taste and interests. She’s my responsibility, but she’s different from me and that’s okay. Unless she does something horrible, I hold back my displeasure. I don’t project my desires on her as long as what she wants isn’t wrong. My role as a parent is to ensure she has the tools to be on her own and go out and make the world a better place, in her own way. I’m not scientific but this simple tool has worked for me. Begin sentences less with ‘you should’ and more with ‘what do you think?’. Learning by osmosis is far more powerful than being told something verbally. They’ll learn by being with you, so be the best and most authentic person you are. Your children are looking, even when you think they’re not. Your world is their world, and it’s the only world they know.”

Homegrown actress and producer Tan Kheng Hua played the role of Kerry Chu, mother of Rachel Chu, Constance Wu’s protagonist in the Hollywood hit, Crazy Rich Asians. She has been cast in the 2020 reboot of American martial arts TV series, Kung Fu