Mum’s Life

Source: Unknown

“How could she let herself go like that?”

“Wow, she really let herself go.”

I’ve heard people say these words with a slow shake of their heads.⁣

I hear this phrase often when a woman gains weight. When her usually slender frame gains another layer. When she takes up more space than she used to. When she doesn’t have the time to dress up and the two craps to give about calorie counting, the scale, ANY OF IT.

But, you know what I think?

She didn’t let herself go. In fact, she’s done quite the opposite. She’s letting herself live.

She’s too busy making memories with her kids, sharing chicken fingers, and comforting their fragile hearts to put makeup on and get her hair colored every time she sees a gray.

She’s too busy living and enjoying to put that useless pressure on herself. So instead, she's accepted the cellulite on the back of her thighs, stomach sprinkled with stretch marks and extra skin as a gift from her babies. They’re a representation of her strength as a mom.

So really:

She’s let herself go of worrying about appearances.

She’s let herself go of the traditions she was raised with but never felt at home.

And she’s finally free of societal constraints.

So, the next time you hear “she let herself go,” look past her messy bun, and her mesh shorts, to her happy heart—and know that she’s free.

And smile for her because you know she’s never looked better, and felt more 𝘩𝘦𝘳.

Shared with permission from Living FULL
Artwork: This Mama Doodles

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Well said indeed.. RIP to the boys and May God heal the living…

𝐀𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐘𝐚𝐩 𝐊𝐚𝐢 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 叶凯胜 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐘𝐚𝐩 𝐄 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 叶育成, 𝟏𝟏 (𝐝. 𝟐𝟏 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐)

𝑇𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦, 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑.

For the past eleven years, he was a parent of two special needs twins, Ethan and Aston.

On Jan 21, he could take it no more. He was a broken man. His sons were dead.

This is a tragedy on so many levels. We can’t even begin to imagine the pain of the twins’ mother and their loved ones.

Taking care of children with special needs is an exhausting, frustrating and stressful experience.

However, we need to be careful of how we frame the “burden” of raising children with special needs as a justification for murder.

Because in doing so, we are dehumanising a person with special needs to the extent that a premeditated and brutal murder becomes “involuntary manslaughter”. This is a slippery slope to take.

The fact remains that people with disabilities are at a higher risk of violence and neglect, both physically and symbolically.

Regardless of the circumstances, we must always bear in mind that a disabled life is never worth less. Their special needs should never be a motive for murder.

But still, we can and must show sympathy to the father and his family’s experiences. More importantly, we must empathise with all who have been left behind by this tragedy.

The father will be judged by the law and on that basis, he will receive his dues. But that does not take away the immense emotional, psychological, financial pressure, accumulated over the months and years, faced by the parents and their extended family members.

This is not merely a murder investigation. This is not merely a family tragedy. This is a wake-up call to us all and to society itself.

We don’t have the answers. Neither can we bear to think why this has happened, and we can only, in hindsight, ask for a different outcome.

But the stigma around children with special needs to be erased. Our personal stereotypes, often borne out of ignorance, and societal attitudes towards special needs and physical disabilities must change.

More respite and support, emotional and financial, needs to be provided to parents and carers so that today’s tragedy will never ever visit another family.

Perhaps a white flag system needs to be in place – when someone is struggling, they can safely take their children to care. Maybe our support networks are lacking, and this tragedy reminds us of what remains to be done to plug the gap in our social support towards children with special needs and their families.

In the wake of the Greenridge Crescent deaths, we all need to play our part in ensuring that people with special needs/disabilities and their families are included and supported in the community, and that they can ask for and receive adequate help.

They should never be left alone or feel that the whole world is against them.

In the days ahead, as we find out more about the father’s story and circumstances, we also need to give voice to the victims of this infliction, including the two deceased.

If we focus merely or mainly on what the father may say, we are, ironically, dehumanising the twins and stripping the agency from their family members left behind.

At the same time, we need to remember that most caregivers do not kill persons with special needs under their care, so blaming murder on a set of hardships relating to the care of persons with special needs or the physically disabled is never the full answer.

Cases where a caregiver, including a parent, will kill are rare but not unexpected nor unique. Each case needs to be put in context so that the consequences of dehumanising people with disabilities or failing to provide adequate support can be made visible to the general public.

No one parent wants to give birth to and raise children with special needs or disabilities. The responsibilities and the perpetual worries that are thrust upon a parent, till their deaths, can be suffocating to anybody.

Right up to their deathbed, a parent of children with special needs cannot help but constantly worry about what is going to happen to them after they are physically gone. That is simply excruciating: a lifetime of uncertainties.

Today, the twins are dead, the father will face his day in court but no relief will be in sight for their family.

A father is dead in his transgressions. A mother is grieving over her sons and husband, and a family is shattered to bits.

Today, more than a pair of twins died.

Photo credit: 8视界新闻新加坡 8world News

Behind every seemingly perfect mum is a lot of tears, frustration and moments of “losing it” big hugs to all mums this Sunday!

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