Explaining things to children (continued from an earlier post). A light-hearted example.

I am sure that all families will have examples of when they tried to explain things to children and their best efforts have backfired.

Since I am thinking of dual heritage families in this blog, I would like to tell you about a very good friend I met in Malaysia in the 1970s. I shall call her J.

J. was brought up in Australia. When some young Malaysian men came to her home town, her mother was worried that she would become too interested in them. In fact, she did meet one of the men. She fell in love and married A. He was a handsome young man, a Muslim and J. went to Malaysia with him, to see if she could marry him and live in such a different country. Her mother was not happy about this, but her father was much more supportive. They did get married.

They subsequently had five children. They were a great family. J. had a gift for re-telling events in a hilarious way. I always thought that she should have written a Memoir. She had plenty of good stories to tell.

In Malaysia in those days the only milk available to drink was dried milk in tins. J. wanted her five children to know that in Australia people drank milk and that it did not come from tins. It came from cows and was delivered to the house in glass milk bottles. She explained all this carefully on a visit back home to Australia. Her children would have to continue drinking dried milk when they returned to Malaysia, but this was all part of their general education.

Image courtesy of Supertrooper / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 The day came for J. to visit a farm in Australia with all her children. The youngest ones were too small to take much notice, but the eldest was fascinated.

Eventually after the whole milking session was over, the eldest child still lingered. J. urged him to come along. There were other things to see on the farm, but he stood his ground.

“I’m waiting for it to ‘do’ the bottle” he explained!