Right and Wrong

Dear Kid

How am I supposed to teach you what's right and what's wrong when everywhere I look, I see people doing wrong, getting it wrong and plain being wrong and getting away with it?

It depresses me when I read about all the systemic failures that our government is partly responsible for (I don't know why I read this stuff every day, it's like cocaine, they should really ban critical analyses online by private citizens like they did for the Straits Times so that people like your dear old Mum here won't get all angsty and indignant every morning).

It angers me whenever I am having my meal at the hawker center to see elderly, semi-elderly and some able-bodied folk going from table to table hawking a handful of tissue paper for $1. I am instantly guilt-stricken for wondering (for a split second) if I should "buy", because I am subjecting the poor chap to a moral judgement of his deservedness (you will understand when you're older that he is not really a simple purveyor of disposable wipes) and then after I decline politely but firmly, I find myself glaring pensively at his back, berating the State and its stingy anti-welfarism for allowing this sort of daily assault on my conscience.

[Note: your Pa and I have had a discussion before you were born about our position on mobile-tissue-vendors, as we didn't want to send you mixed signals about charity. We reached a consensus that we would "buy" if the purveyor looked like he/she was really in need and not if he/she looked "healthy and capable of working for a living". I have since decided to revise this position because let's face it, means-testing beggars according to how decrepit looking they are is really the epitome of hypocrisy and conceit. You either give to everyone or you don't give at all. I must admit my moral conscience hasn't been quite persuaded by this logic cos I ignored one yesterday, telling myself "I had already bought one handful yesterday!" Obviously I am more screwed up than previously thought and I have to go back to the drawing board on this one.]

It also pisses me off when I'm driving at over 60kmh and I have to do some major braking when a stray pedestrian jaywalks -- no, when he sashays -- across my path with impunity. First, this causes me to swear and when you, kiddo, are in the back, it's one less "fuck" you should be hearing. Second, along with all other types of traffic misdemeanours your Mummy encounters daily, the perpetrator gets away with it. Third, I am reminded of all the times your Pa and I have done it ourselves and I have another dilemma about teaching you what NOT to do.

Should I apply a continuum of rightness and wrongness to your lessons? E.g. "jaywalking is okay as long as you don't do it like a imbecile asking to be run down"; or "we should be kind to this one poor old folk, but we shouldn't be giving money to all the poor old folk cos then they will all stop going out to hawker centers to sell tissue packets or pick up cardboard boxes and just stay home and wait for the handouts".

You see kid, it's not so easy to tell you what's right, because sometimes it isn't and then some people will disagree that it's right and then I'd look like a right fool telling you that. I don't think I could be completely sure about what's wrong either, because there are some people who do a lot of wrong and they get off scot-free while other people get in a lot of trouble. Then there are things that FEEL really wrong, but because the powerful people tell you it's right, you kinda wind up confused. Like how people need to be paid millions of dollars for being a politician so that they would want to be a politician even though there are other people willing to do this job for a lot less except they don't know the right people.

So there you go. Your first lesson on right and wrong. If you're a lot more confused than when we began, tell me about it, cos Mummy here has no clue either.