In the book The Kite Runner, author Khaled Hosseini explains how all sins are a variation of one: theft.
It goes: “When you kill a man, you steal a life; you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”
But when I was a child, differentiating between right and wrong wasn’t defined by words.
‘Wrong’ was what I recognised from a movie scene where mummy cried when daddy brought home another woman. I thought if mummy is sad, daddy probably did something bad and shouldn’t do it again. ‘Wrong’ was simply causing hurt to another being.
However, the older I grew, the more complicated adults seemed to be.
7-year-old me couldn’t fathom why my school’s canteen stall uncle had to hit his wife when her frail hands accidentally let slip a hot bowl of noodles. “Stupid woman,” he’d mumble.
I used to religiously buy 50c yellow mee from the couple during recess time until I saw his abusive ways. Today, I can only recall the taste of a bitter question that sat on the edge of my tongue: why did she let him speak to her like that?
I believe kids learn more from what adults do, than what they’re told to do. And when a child’s spoon-fed reality is twisted, they often create their own.
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*Names have been changed to protect identities
One of my close friends, *Jamie, was born into a traditional Chinese household where infidelity was often tolerated by the women.
Growing up with her, I was close enough to spend intimate reunion dinners with her family, but distant enough to watch the shitfest unfold from a removed, outsider’s perspective.
Jamie’s father had a mistress. Her grandfather, a poised businessman and philanthropist, frequented love hotels. Once, he got caught for receiving sexual favours from his domestic worker.
At 18, Jamie was impregnated by a man who never acknowledged his son. He was from a wealthy family who placed their pride above a ‘bastard child’.
At 21, she chose rags over riches and married a ‘normal’ man who was able to accept her first child as his own. But when his drug addiction and abusive habits surfaced, he guilt-tripped her into believing she was responsible for his shortcomings.
After his release from jail, she bore him a son, thinking a child would finally make him settle down. But it did not, and they soon divorced. The last I heard, he beat up his second wife.
By the age of 27, Jamie was a single mum who had three kids fathered by different men. But, bad luck wasn’t the root of the problem; her mindset was the reason that drew her to men who needed ‘saving’ in the first place.
She was an educated, likeable, and hardworking woman who remained stubborn in believing that if her mother could forgive her father for his infidelity, she should too.
As a ‘Tiger’ lady, Jamie’s mother often put on a brave front and feigned nonchalance to suppress her problems. By internalising her pain, she became too cold to provide motherly love, and too lost to give the right advice.
But one day, Jamie’s mother told her, “Your father cheats, but you must respect him. He’s a good father, though he’s disappointing as a husband.”
By seeing how her mother loved her husband, Jamie learnt to fall in love with men who needed ‘saving’. It was a vicious cycle: she’d see a part of herself in them, try to fix them, and eventually get hurt.
“Saying ‘it’s okay’ though my heart was broken, was really… I don’t know. Funny? Silly? Stupid?” she scoffed. “It’s disgusting, my dad’s mistress is nearly the same age as me.”
“Imagine my disappointment when I matured, had my own set of morals and realised my dad is not the superhero I used to think he is.”
“For sons, fathers who cheat are telling them, ‘It’s okay to treat women this way’. For the daughters, ‘It’s okay for men to treat you this way’.”
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Jamie’s younger brother, *Dan, who was a charming and polite boy in his teenage years, often bonded with his sister over a mutual hatred for their father’s cheating ways. But, his reality was slightly different.
Dan was the only son in the family, and his father’s favourite. As the youngest child, he was often shielded from the truth.
So when his perception of his ‘perfect’ family was tainted, he was crushed by denial. “I don’t want to talk about it” became his coping mechanism. But the more Dan refused to acknowledge his feelings towards his father, the more conflicted he became.
At times, he would tell me how sorry he felt for his mother, or how he hated his father, and would “never want to be like him”. As a result, the driving force that motivated his decisions weren’t based on what he liked, but what he disliked. And as years went by, the negativity surfaced.
I saw a boy’s strong sense of self turn brittle with age, which made him snap at the slightest criticism. Even in his own relationship, paranoia and distrust sparked petty arguments.
Many times, his inflated ego overcompensated for his insecurities. Soon, the gambling, drinking, splurging and flirting, became a routine.
To outsiders, Dan was a ‘rich man’s son’ who often boasted about his father’s success. But to me, I saw a boy who simply wanted to feel proud of his dad, though deep down, he probably loved his father as much as how disappointed he was in him.
But why does parental infidelity leave such a long-term impact, such that almost 55% adult children who come from such families are alleged to end up being cheaters themselves?
“Because everyone’s dad is their superhero,” Jamie bitterly retorts. “How can superheroes be wrong?”
From observing Jamie’s family life unfold and the life choices she’s made, it’s made apparent if either mum or dad cheats, there’s a good chance a child’s structure of a ‘normal’ family is damaged.
At an early age when kids are still impressionable and tender-hearted, it’s a good chance they’ll find it difficult to understand their family’s ‘unique’ situation.
Sure, kids from harsher backgrounds might grow up ‘stronger’ than their idyllic counterparts, but not all are able to live with scars that last a lifetime. Many tend to gravitate towards one parent, and blame the other, and engage in the same destructive ‘normal’ their parents later on in life.
So even if overcoming the negative is possible, parents should never forget that showing their children how to build trust in a relationship is often a far more valuable lesson than coding books or learning a musical instrument.
This article was first published on 19 March 2018 and last updated on 23 December 2023.
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