Trump got Covid-19.

Trump got covid-19. 

By now, it is a one-day-old news, and in today’s fast media world, that’s old news. Trump however joins his beloved counterpart, Boris, and other national leaders in Russia, Brazil, India, Australia, on the Covid-list. 

But don’t worry, he will get the best medical attention, the quickest and the most thorough, because after all, he is the President of the most advanced nation. Get-well, hallmark-like greetings from leaders all over are in fact pouring in. Japan, Korea and Israel are all wishing him and the First Lady a swift recovery. 

You can say that Trump will lick the virus and lick it good (pardon the pun). 

Well, tbh, I too wish him and Melania well, and a quick recovery (as my disagreement with him is not personal, but on principles). 

I guess if the most powerful leader in the world, surrounded by the best medical team and security guards, whose guards incidentally were also infected, has himself contracted the world’s most elusive and smart virus, then I trust that no one, especially in a nation under Trump, is safe from it. So, in a quick return jab to what he had said about Biden’s low class ranking in the recent debate, you can also say that Trump was outsmarted by a microorganism that was, well, in a class of its own. 

But, after all’s said, here’s an innocent plead to his die-hard fans: the infection effectively concludes one’s verdict of the way Trump has handled the pandemic, right? It was a resounding failure, right? 

However you would like to spin it, even when you twist it to say that he is going for herd immunity, an idea toyed and rejected by Boris, you can’t deny that when the enemy has entered the home of your leader, who was supposed to be well and heavily guarded, all other homes that follow his attitude and way of doing things thus far, will equally be, if not more so, sitting ducks for covid-19, right?

(As an aside, I know this is not the time to kick a man while he is, well, down. But that is not my point. My point is about self-awareness, self-examination, and self-correction. If you can’t even look at your own St James’ mirror and spot the flaws staring right back at you, and then do something about it, and go save lives and a nation in need of a strong, firm and morally courageous leadership, then the hope of a nation resting on your shoulders has all gone to waste. And mind you, admitting one’s error and making timely changes is not in any way deemed as a seal of failure. It is in fact the shining emblem of a successful leader, one of humility, character and integrity). 

But guys, strap on, and sadly, Trump, being true to his nature, will do none of that (pls prove me wrong). As I write this, he had just tweeted, saying, “I think I’m doing very well.” I trust knowing his megalomaniac ambitions, almost unmitigated since Nov 3 is drawing near, he will do a Neo resurrection of the Matrix Revolutions. 

The plot for the likes of Trump is nothing prophetic. Compared to the 200k death in America, largely faceless passing of lives, Trump will milk all the media coverage he can squeeze. The covid pandemic may be uncharted territory for global leaders, but we must not forget that we are entering into his home ground with this personal infection. Recall the reality tv series - The Apprentice? 

Mind you, this territory is Trump’s territory. He knows how to make a grand entrance, with alien-like floodlights behind him. He will beat the virus. He will set the stage for such glorified comeback. He will bathe in it like a young prince on coronation day. He will emerge from the spikey ashes like a rising American bald eagle with implanted follicle. 

That is the predictable Trump we have all come to know; for an orange crab can’t walk straight.

The world will then return to cheer for their hero. This time it will be loud and bold. And every word that comes out from the resurrected Trump will be gold. 

Just as the spike in the coronavirus infection comes in the daily thousands and deaths in the hundreds, the spike in his ratings will hit the roof. The world is looking for a hero, and the one who comes back from near death is the best (for when we lose authentic leadership, the leadership left for us to contend with are largely shallow ones).

Here, I recall these words by James Madison: “No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable without possessing a certain portion of order and stability.” 

But, he is forgetting that “order and stability” is not the only way to govern. In a democracy, one as wild and divided as America as it stands today, where partyism trumps bipartisanship, tribalism trumps diversity, and racism trumps unity, one can still govern well, at least for a glamorised electoral season, by exploiting disorder and instability to perpetuate one’s stranglehold. 

That is why in the Art of the Deal, Trump unveiled his art of dealing with people with his signature playbook rule applied with equal foolhardy zeal from the boardroom to the Oval Office: -

“I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole.”

Anyway, let me end with what one author wrote about Trump leadership: -

“He was like a twelve-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flights frantically diverting away from the airport. This was not how it was supposed to be.” (“A Warning Anonymous”). 

That about sums up how Trump had handled the coronavirus pandemic. It has in fact come home to roost. And the one virus the commander-in-chief has spent his last year of his first presidential term fighting against, ironically, breaking all the rules of social distancing and mask-wearing in public, and boasting that like a miracle it will go away by April, is now battling with it from inside his body.

No doubt, he will overcome it. But the more important and urgent lesson is, will he learn his lesson? I really doubt it. Prove me wrong...pls.

 

Are we raising our kids right?

Are we raising our kids to be secure, independent and critical thinkers?

It's the eve of school's reopening tomorrow and a public holiday for all, and what greets us this morning in the Home section has to do with our younger generation. 

It reads: "Abusers getting more brazen." It's about drug abuse, and the abusers are getting younger, more daring, and incidentally, very bored. 

Jessica, only 15, and had tried marijuana, said, "We were scared (of getting caught) but we had nothing to do between classes. Boredom kind of overthrew the fear (of getting caught)."

Should parents worry?

It also reports that one of those (caught) was a primary school pupil who tested positive for Ice. 

His mother said he used to be a "joyful" boy, but he "fell into bad company, lost interest in school and started taking drugs."

A programme manager, Mr Robin Tay, from The New Charis Mission remarked, "It was very uncommon to hear of students doing drugs in school in the 1980s and 1990s, but I think there are more of such cases now. I think students have become more daring."

Should parents really worry?

Mind you, the undergrads, national servicemen and young working adults are riding "high" on this bandwagon too. But they are getting high abroad to avoid detection. 

One lawyer, Mr Amarick Gill, said, "They have the money to travel and some of them even organise "drug trips" overseas with the intention to try drugs and have a good laugh. They think that as long as they wait a few days after taking the drugs, it will be gone from their system and they won't get caught."

Here's the (double) hook. 

It reports that "sometimes the older youth provide drugs to the younger ones for free at the start. Once they get hooked, however, they will start to pay the price, literally." 

The price for cannabis is on average $33 per gram. Ice costs $120 per gram. 

My friend, lawyer Ray Louis, said this in the papers today, "The profile of young drug users is no longer pigeonholed to a particular stereotype of children from broken families or those who join gangs. Some of them also come from good schools." 

This is in line with the reporting that reads:-

"Unlike the past, when drug abusers tended to be from lower-income and troubled families, more of today's young drug abusers hail from middle and even upper middle-class families, with parents who have no history of drug abuse."

Should parents panic now? Should all parenting hell break loose?

Lesson? I have three, but here's the background. 

I believe poverty and affluence both have a price to pay. At the risk of oversimplifying, the poor (youth) fall into crime for survival and the rich kids go wayward for kicks.

Now, there is also the issue of peer pressure, trending, bad company, boredom and "don't overreact lah dad, it's just one harmless drag."

In Singapore, although the poor still exists in large numbers, and the rich are riding high in gated community (thanks to widening income and social inequality), the larger picture, I believe, has a lot to do with our delayed response and fumbling ability to deal with, adjust to, and live above the challenges of a changing, technologically driven, internet-fuelled, open and liberal society. 

Our values are changing fast because the world is changing fast. 

As parents, let's admit it, we are struggling with the internet (and their internet savvy friends) to sway our kids' opinion. The world is their virtual oyster. 

They can now tell you what is, in their view, right and wrong because Google has been their go-to sinseh of worldly knowledge. 

While parents are still struggling with Casio handheld calculator (to borrow an analogy), our kids are embracing and enjoying embodied cognitive technology to tell us off, keep us at bay, draw the line, and accelerate their learning (while leaving their character development and maturity lagging behind).

I further believe success is not the solution for failure just as wealth is not the solution for poverty. You don't vindicate yourself for being poor by getting rich. It is not payback. 

Likewise, being rich ("living your dream" as advertised in the world) is not the summit of our human struggles, the destination of it all (that is, the end all).

In other words, we don't finally "arrived" (so we think) at our early thirties by having more possessions, titles and wealth (or successes or hits) than our neighbours, competitors and friends. If anything, we have only just begun our lesson (or learning) in life. 

Trust me, success can be a tougher teacher than failure, more demanding (and crushing) sometimes. 

If life is a journey, you just can't "retire" halfway by naively proving to the world you are successful in the material sense without wondering what you are going to do with this (so called) success in and for the next phrase of your life's journey, or how it is going to change you - for good or bad.

Against this background, I will now introduce my three lessons as I have told you earlier. 

First, our children need to grow up to be critical thinkers. 

In the papers today, there is an article entitled "Ponder this: Philosophy churns out high-fliers too."

Carly Fiorina (former head of Hewlett-Packard) majored in philosophy, and she laments about the public perception of philosophy. 

People have a dim-view of philosophy (sarcasm unintended). Professor Christopher Morris remarked, "Most people don't have much of an idea of what philosophy is. People imagine us sort of sitting there casually talking away with a glass of wine."

According to a journalist, Katy Tur, she said:-

"Philosophy majors get a bad rap. I would argue that for the vast majority of people, an education teaching you to think critically about the world you are in and what you know and what you don't know is useful for absolutely everything that you could possibly do in the future."

Of course I am not asking for parents to run helter-skelter to enrol their children into some philosophy 101 class or degree. Alas, there's always a solution that seems simple, sensible and popular, but wrong. 

More urgently, we as parents need to inculcate that habit of thinking critically in our kids, making sure they are questioning everything, weighing pros and cons deeply, examining the root of all things, resisting crowd- or groupthink, pursuing the larger picture always, and honouring timeless values. 

Secondly, our children need to learn to be independent thinkers. 

Again, the papers today talks about helicopter parenting. It is entitled: "More schools shoot down "helicopter parenting."" 

It has got to do with a parent rushing from work just to pass his son (Pri 2) a robotic course textbook for his enrichment class because his son said that "he couldn't continue with the lesson if he didn't have the book". 

My god, some schools say that they have even put up signs "urging parents to turn around and leave." 

It further reports this:- 

"The Ministry of Education (MOE) appears to be making a similar push to weed out such excessive parenting practices. Earlier this month, it put up a Facebook post highlighting examples of helicopter parenting, such as debating with a teacher to get one more mark, or taking homework to school for a child when he forgets to take it along with him."

One parent admitted to this:- 

"I may be guilty of being a helicopter parent at times, but it has dawned on me that it's important to teach my son that he has to bear the consequences if he forgets to take an item to school." 

Likewise, we as parents have to leave room for our children to grow, and at times, it means letting them go through the consequences alone and learn them the hard way. 

It cannot be over-stressed that life is not going to place her challenges (or trials) for our child (or when he or she grows up) in a silver platter with neatly arranged utensils and all, and a spot of broccoli at the side. 

And we can't always be there for them when the shit hits the fan. And it will, sooner or later.

As such, the best way we can prepare them now (in their growing years while we are still around) is to let them fall, have some skinned knees of their own, allow them to struggle to get up by themselves with our encouragement by the side.

And when they do, that is, finally standing on their own two feet, we then go and hug them with love, hope and faith (never before all that).

Alas, there is no gain without pain, and no dispelling of fears without the shedding of tears.

And finally, the third lesson for me is our relationship with them. This is uncompromising. 

We choose to give birth to them (jointly), and the least we can do is to be around for them (wholeheartedly).

I have this theory that our children are ill-equipped to deal with the fast changing world because they do not have a stable (confidence-building) one at home to begin with. 

We as modern goal-getter parents are unavoidably busy. Most of us are even highly successful. The world out there recognises us as such. But the world in our family most times hardly recognises us to start with. 

We mistake pricy gifts for our company, big presents for our presence, and expensive holidays for playing and learning together with our kids. 

Essentially, our children crave for simple pleasures with substantial, deep impact, and not substantial gifts with shallow impact from us.

I have thus learned that there is no substitute for building relationship, one sincere gesture at a time. 

No gifts, holidays or grand birthday bashes can make it all up. At best, they are secondary to relationship. 

Ultimately, the relationship always come first, and the gifts later. The order cannot be reversed for what you do not want is for them to come to you solely expecting monetary rewards. But you desire that they come to you because they want your support, encouragement, love and assurance, that is, the resilient relationship you have nurtured and built over the years with them. 

We are therefore their first port of call for things/values that really matter in life. That is, things/values that money cannot buy, or are beyond such superficial metrics.

So, we as parents must never forget that one hug from us, one tears shed with us, one word of encouragement from us, one smile that we are proud of them, and one hand to hold with them to go through tough and confusing time as they grow up, is worth all the rendering of gifts, presents and holidays we desperately try to make up for lost time. 

Let me end by saying that as a parent, I am far, far from perfect. At best, I am still perfecting. But I will always keep those three lessons in my heart to guide and remind me. 

For in this fast-paced society, our children need us to provide them the security, trust and love they crave after in the world we call family so that they will grow up to be secure, independent and critical thinkers to face and confront the issue and challenges that the world out there brings. Cheerz.