By Anna Cheang

Dear Singaporean parents,

I am 16, and so yes, I am a teenager by definition — not simply because of my age but also by character and mindset.

Yes, like others my age I am idealistic, naïve and inexperienced in the ways of the world as compared to you adults, but I hope you’ll be able to hear me out.

I know that it is difficult for you to understand us and our actions, especially since we don’t always open up to you. This lack of understanding, however, has the potential to strain our relationship — possibly even to break it, and sometimes irreversibly.

Both you and I know that the only way to resolve this is through honest and open communication. Although it's not much, I hope that these thoughts I have will give you a new perspective — at least an opportunity to step into our shoes and think as we do.

1. To begin with, I hope that you will stop being kaypoh towards our affairs, especially with regard to our school and social life.

Now, don’t take this the wrong way — it’s not that we don’t trust you. We all want privacy, and would love and appreciate your respect of it. There are just some problems we can never verbalize, or issues that we feel are best kept a secret from you.

Personally, I find it difficult to tell my parents about my problems because I doubt they would be able to understand or empathise. If I tried telling them about how challenging a particular academic project was for me, for instance, they’re unlikely to be able to understand my difficulty because they never did it themselves. The world, our society and education system in particular has evolved so much since the time you guys were in school; how could we expect you to know what we’re going through now? If you keep nagging us about it, we’ll just get frustrated and shut you off even more.

2. The basis of all lasting relationships is trust, and to me, it is absolutely essential that my parents trust me. My parents’ trust gives me the support and confidence that I need, especially when I am facing tough periods in my life.

Certainly, this trust has to be earned, especially because teenagers are often said to be impulsive. I don’t deny this, either, as I have made many rash decisions already thus far. I would argue, though, that there are even more times when I actually make serious and calculated decisions, especially in matters which concern my life and my future.

Being a teenager means that we’re at a transition point between a child and an adult. To that end, I definitely get frustrated when I’m not allowed to make my own decisions and do the things that I want. We are no longer children who need guidance and direction in every aspect of our lives; what we need are opportunities for us to prove ourselves to you and to earn your trust. Give us a chance, have faith in us, and I promise you that you won’t be disappointed.

3. In order for us to open up to you more, we need to feel accepted by you.

We are already judged by our schoolmates (sometimes on a daily basis) on social media, even by random people we meet on the bus or the MRT. Home and family should be our safe havens, but if home is also full of judgement and comparisons made by our parents, where else can we turn?

I’ll be honest. I have a lot of insecurities. I constantly compare myself to the people around me in terms of grades, my appearance, and even the number of likes on Instagram I have. Needless to say, when I get home after a long and often stressful day at school, just to hear my parents casually comment, “Oh, so and so scored so much higher on her piano exam than you”, I get extra sensitive and upset. It’s even worse when — especially after I try opening up to them — they respond with something like, “Why are you complaining so much about school? When I went to school last time I never complained about anything.”

For one thing, school has become a lot more difficult since your time, so that comparison isn’t valid anyway. For another, and more importantly, we already have a lot of competition in our lives, and so could really do without the added stress and unhappiness. You may think that you are motivating us to work harder by comparing us to our peers, but the reality is you’re just demoralising us even more. Is it really that difficult to accept and appreciate us for who we are?

4. To truly understand and communicate with us, you also have to listen to us (and I guess by reading this, you’re taking the first step. Thank you!).

Many of you already find it tough to get us to open up to you. So on the rare occasion that we do, the last thing you should do in response is dismiss us by telling us our concerns are trivial compared to your big worldly problems. They matter a lot to us, and we share them with you hoping you will listen to us at our level, and accord us (and our issues) the same respect that you give to your fellow adults.

It’s the same when we have thoughts or opinions on issues as well. If our perspective is flawed because of our lack of experience or maturity, don’t ignore us — instead, please give us advice or correct us, especially if our views are formed from ignorance.

If you just took the time to listen to us properly, we would definitely be more open to share things with you — it would also do wonders for our self-confidence, something that’s almost always lacking in us. After all, if even our parents do not want to “waste time” listening to us, who would?

5. Beyond all this, I want to tell you that we love you.

These are not mere words; they are emotions, expressions and actions. Fair enough, we teenagers seem to have a problem showing our love for our parents, and I don’t mean through Instagram posts with long captions on Fathers’ Day or Mothers’ Day that you folks won’t ever see anyway. I mean giving you, our parents, the love and respect that you deserve.

Thank you for lovingly and patiently bringing us up and for working hard to provide us with the comfortable lives we get to lead. We may not always show it, but please believe us when we say that we have never stopped appreciating you.

We may have laundry lists of complaints about you, but deep down we know that you do and say everything that you do for our own good. All we’re asking for now is mutual understanding and trust. Let’s work together to repair our relationship.

Top photo from here.

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