As with most Asian families, my family believes that having a white-collar job is above anything. This is very evident with a couple of relatives who force their children to go to medical school. Any career other than a doctor is a sin in their eyes.

My mother was open-minded about my choice of career. The only condition she had was that I should have at least a bachelor’s degree before getting a job. So, I started working in the IT industry after college graduation. I had decent pay, I was able to learn and experiment at my own pace, and I even got an opportunity to work abroad. I was happy with my career.

Things weren’t easy at first, as with all jobs. I struggled to settle down with the workload and the new city. I reached out to my family to help me find a job near my home. My entitled relatives got hold of this piece of news during a family gathering.

Instead of helping me out, they scoffed. My aunt told my younger cousins:

Aunt: “See, this is why you shouldn’t be an engineer. You’re going to struggle and end up with nothing. After all, a doctor is the most respectable job in society.”

I blinked at her. I was shocked that she could just insult my career in front of everyone. I was also disgusted at her because she’s a teacher and I expected her to know better. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I didn’t talk back. But someone else did: my mother.

My mother is a single parent. She was a brilliant student at school and dreamt of being a teacher. But that was all gone when she was married off. She regretted that when she was divorced and struggled to live. She wanted her daughters not to go through the same thing. She sold her jewellery and spent her savings to get us a decent education so that we could get jobs. She was furious when someone insulted our hard work.

She didn’t hold back her anger as she thundered:

Mother: “Are you out of your d*** mind, [Aunt]? You’re a teacher! Can’t you show a bit of dignity when you speak? Don’t you have common sense to think that your daughter couldn’t work in a hospital with electricity, running water, machines, or software if there were no engineers? Even a janitor at the hospital has their value. If you ever insult my daughter or her choices again, you will see the worst of me!”

The room was silent as everyone watched my aunt process what was going on. Nobody had ever seen my mother that mad.

But it did a good thing. [Aunt] never raised a word about her children’s careers or mine after that. Also, two of my cousins got into the engineering stream following the incident!

When I was a kid, my parents, aunt, and uncle sent my cousins, my brothers, and me to church youth group every week. One night, my parents were too busy to get us there, so my aunt offered to drive us along with her kids and even get us all some dinner beforehand. Since we were short on time, we went through the drive-thru of a nearby fast food restaurant so we could quickly eat at the church before youth group started.

Like most young kids anticipating fast food, my cousins and brothers were rowdy. With six or seven kids (including me) crammed into one vehicle, you can imagine the noise. My aunt had to repeat herself a few times at the speaker until I got fed up and turned around in the passenger seat.

Me: “SHUT UP OR YOU DON’T EAT!”

The car went quiet, my aunt finished placing the order, and everyone got their food. My aunt even thanked me once we got to the church!

My two girls are polar opposites. The youngest is kind, easygoing, and content to let her sister decide how every game is played. By contrast, my oldest is a natural leader. She will take charge of a group of kids and is amazingly good at getting them to go along with her dictatorial decrees of how to play. Unfortunately, while I love her dearly, I have to admit that this also means she can be just a tad stubborn and refuses to admit that she can be wrong at times.

As most parents do, I end up placing my youngest daughter’s car seat on the driver’s side (left side, for you non-Americans), which means my eldest is assigned to the right seat.

When my girls were much younger, their uncle ended up staying with us for about a month, and he commandeered both girls as his full-time playmates, taking them out to parks and entertaining them. I admit that I was rather sorry to see my self-appointed live-in nanny leave when it was time for him to go.

Early during his visit, I was driving with him and the kids, and we were pointing out Christmas decorations we saw while driving. 

Me: “Look! There is a Santa on the right.”

Eldest: “Which way is right?”

Uncle: “We talked about this today. Which side do you sit on?”

Eldest: “Oh, I’m right!”

The girls oohed and ahhed at the decorations for a second. After we passed them, I spoke up again.

Me: “[Eldest], I love you knowing which way is right. I’m impressed.”

Uncle: “Want to tell her our mnemonic?”

Eldest: “What’s a ‘new mount tick’?”

Uncle: “How do you know which side is right?”

Eldest: *Excited enough to be practically screaming* “Because I’M ALWAYS RIGHT!”

I thought this was just my brother being silly with the girls as always, but from that point on, whenever there was a question of which side was which, their uncle would ask something along the lines of, “Do you think [Eldest] got her directions wrong?” and my eldest would scream that she was “ALWAYS RIGHT!” and suddenly remember her directions.

By the time my brother left, my daughter had her left and right quite firmly down. There could be no doubt of that fact since she was so eager to find any excuse to explain which way was which so she would have an excuse to declare, loudly, that she was “ALWAYS RIGHT!”

In fact, even her younger sister soon had a firm grasp of the concept by repeating the same mnemonic that her sibling was always right.

A little while later, I was on the phone with my brother.

Me: “I do appreciate you teaching them right from left, but couldn’t you have done it in a way that doesn’t have my daughter shouting that she is always right every day?”

Uncle: “Definitely not! I told you before she was even born that I was eager to be an uncle so I could come over and teach your kids bad habits, didn’t I?”

Me: “But I didn’t think you actually meant it!”

Uncle: “Well, that’s your fault, not mine, isn’t it? In fact, do you know why you should have known that I would do exactly what I promised?”

Me: “Why?”

Uncle: “Because… I’M ALWAYS RIGHT!”

My mom just died in 2021, and we inherited some money from her. I invested mine into my tiny home, and I was waiting for it to be finished so that I could move out of my mom’s house, where I was still living when she passed away.  

I live from month to month on a fixed income.

It was getting to grass-cutting season, so I called my uncle and asked him if he would come cut my grass, which he had always done for my mom. He said that he always was paid $40 to do so, in addition to a $10 tip. I said okay to the $40.

He came and cut it, and he left the grass all over the concrete; he did not blow it off or anything. Well, I had already made out the check for $40. He started to bad-mouth me, saying that it took gas to come up here, blah, blah, blah, to try to get the extra tip out of me.

Me: “I already made the check out for the amount that we originally agreed on.”

He accepted the check as it was written, but the next time he passed by the house, guess who was cutting her own yard? Me! I had managed to save up and get myself a push lawn mower.

I never asked him to help me with my own yard again as long as I lived there.

For many years, my family would take trips with other family members. All of these trips had one thing in common: my aunt, uncle, and cousins would be late for everything. This used to really irritate my parents, who are pretty punctual and had a lot more kids to organise (four of us) compared to my two cousins.

By mutual agreement, any other family involved in these outings decided to go along with my parents and give [Aunt] and [Uncle] the wrong time. For example, if an event started at 11:00 am, they’d be told 10:00 am. This was pretty effective until [Aunt] and [Uncle] started realising they were being given the wrong time. I believe other family members explained why that was and that they were fed up with always waiting on them or being late.

[Aunt] and [Uncle] weren’t very self-aware and didn’t realise they were the issue, so they decided that it wasn’t their fault and told my parents:

Aunt & Uncle: “Give us the right time from now on, and you’ll see we aren’t the problem!”

My parents (especially my mam) hate the idea of people missing out on something, but they are also prepared to let a natural consequence occur if it’s not too harsh.

The very next week, we had a day trip booked on the ferry. This was something we did once a year, over to the UK and back in one day. It was fondly known as a “booze cruise” back in the day due to the opportunity to purchase cheap alcohol. Kids would explore the ship and when we docked, we’d raid the pick-n-mix and buy confections that we couldn’t get at home. It was something everyone looked forward to a lot. (What can I say? It was the early 1990s.)

With the best will in the world, the ferry waits for no man. So, it was a sad day for four people who were told the ferry left at 8:00 am sharp (the correct time) and who arrived after 8:30 to see a small, ferry-shaped speck in the distance, heading toward the UK.

Sadly, it didn’t make them any more punctual after that, but they were always told the correct time as requested, and if they were late, we didn’t wait anymore. For months, whenever we’d see them after that, my parents used to cheerily wave and say, “Ferry nice to see you!”

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Time Is Just A Social Construct, Or Something