Meet the Parents…not the Ben Stiller movie

It was Sec 3 Meet-The-Parents session on Friday.

I’m not sure if all my colleagues share the same sentiment as me, but i truly enjoy meet-the-parents sessions.

Maybe it’s because i get to put a human face to all those parents i call up and talk to when their daughters are sick and absent from school.

Maybe it’s because it’s simply fascinating to see which parent my girls resemble more.

Boy, and some girls really do look like carbon copies of their mothers. Twenty or thirty years removed, of course.

It’s also pretty interesting to see first-hand the relationship between my students and their parents.

It’s truly heartening to see how some parents are practically pals with their children. i’ve always thought the ideal parent-child relationship should be just like that, especially when the child hits puberty and  enters the awkward years of teenhood.

However, my heart did go out to those parents who were sitting alone, unaccompanied by their daughters, during the principal’s presentation.

They just seemed a little forlorn and alone, when they should have been sharing and soaking up the occasion with their daughters.

i mean, the fact that they managed to take the time to attend the session is pretty significant, isn’t it?

i wonder if my parents would have attended such a session, if they had them during my time, that is.

Probably not. My mom maybe. My father would either have been off playing golf or attending some dinner function or another. He really would.

Which only makes me feel that much more sympathetic towards those parents who bothered to come but were abandoned by their daughters.

Sigh.

Family is such a depressing topic. At least, in this broken world of ours.