wimpy liberal

It's been a strange week. First the news of the upcoming (?) sale of The Tuition Centre -- so surprising because i never thought The Boss would ever let go of his baby. And together with that news, the possibility that someone i'd thought of as a friend, has perhaps been less honest a friend than i had thought her to be. An eye-opener, to say the least.
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Then the conversation with a dear old friend about parenting. She'd spoken, admiringly, of a friend of hers who had given her all during her children's growing-up years to ensuring that they had the best education, attended the best enrichment classes, ate the best and most nutritious food. And i couldn't help but wonder if all that was really necessary. Sure, all parents want the best for their children, but the lengths this particular mother had gone to, really were pretty mind-boggling. i wonder if perhaps some of that time, energy, and money, could have been usefully directed into other things instead. Helping the poor, perhaps, or doing something for the larger good of society, instead of channeling it all into ensuring that one's offspring get as much of a headstart over their peers in the Game Of Life as they possibly could, when they already had so much of a headstart just by virtue of being born into well-off families.
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I mean, there's a difference between less-well-off parents doing everything they can to put their children through school and ensure they don't fall through the cracks; it's quite another for mega-rich bankers and lawyers etc to be pouring their all into giving their children the elite education, elite food, elite everything, to ensure that they get the best chance they can of ending up the creme de la creme de la creme, the top of the top of the top. At some point, perhaps, necessity becomes luxury. Why not direct some of those resources into helping others, and teaching one's children to help others, too?
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i guess that's partly why i've never felt entirely at ease, working at The Tuition Centre. Because so many of the kids there fall into that category - privileged, not really needing the extra help academically. It always felt like the whole setup was part of a system that, instead of making things better for the people who really needed help, was just working to widen and entrench the existing gaps between the haves and the have-nots in our society. It never quite felt like it was the right thing to be doing.
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And then, today, meeting my old classmates and teachers, thinking about the different life paths we have taken, thinking about how opaque life is, how impossible it is to ever understand the lives of others.
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And finally, that old man crouching outside the Chinatown MRT station entrance today, in the middle of the pedestrian walkway, all huddled up in a heap on the ground. And everyone just walking past, pretending not to look, or just staring curiously. He was thirsty, needed some water. One of the shopkeepers said that he was a 'regular' in the area, spent the days walking around the neighbourhood. How, i have no idea -- he was so bent and shrivelled up. The encounter left me pensive, and thinking. There must be more like him in Singapore. It is not right that we should simply pass by on the other side. The Church, especially, is surely called to do something, to be Christ to these people. To show love. To care.
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