After a week of persistent December rains, I woke up on a cheerfully sunny Saturday morning debating over whether I should be sending a text. As the coffee machine whirred, I made sure to remind the daughter before her 18 hour flight that she should “strap up at all times, keep hydrated and warm in the plane”. You know, all the advice parents have for their children that you might be familiar with or even associate with nagging. I can see her eyes rolling already as I pressed send.

The one thing that no one tells you when you become a mother is that you may come to love and protect your offspring more than anything else in the world. As it could have been the case for our parents, this affection which expresses itself in so many ways can be smothering. However, as the years go by, and as our parents age, the attention and love they had formerly displayed that felt too much, starts to feel different. It softens and we are better able to see their concerns for us through kinder lenses.

The fact is some of us as parents, like our own, may not have the capacity, the words or the ability to communicate our immense love for our children the way they may prefer to receive them. My mother is a compulsive nagger and for years I was resistant to her behaviour. A recent episode of a broken femur and her months-long hospitalisation made me look at her with new eyes. However, it took me 53 years!

Our children may never understand the depth of our love for them. They may never comprehend why as parents, we have feelers that stretch years ahead into their future because we know them so well. Yet, isn’t our job to also trust they can find their way? In countless such moments from the first time they make it home safely in Singapore in their primary school years, to them wrapping up a 4 year degree alone and overseas thousands of miles away, we are invited to practice trust. Trust in them, and trust in ourselves.

As an educator, I get it that if you are paying someone and entrusting the tutor to coach your teenager, you are effectively saying, “Here, take care to make sure she scores, but see her as a person. Be empathetic with her learning challenges and development. My daughter may be one of many you teach, but she is the world to me.”

My thoughts as we wrap a year in which I decided to start online teaching here? Every student matters. In a highly competitive environment where General Paper and English O Level tuition appears to be pricing itself out of the market, my conviction is to remain in a space where service has to be rendered with quality, and not factory-style, bulk teaching. As a one-woman show, I know I am no where near raking in the fortunes. Yet, I choose to offer a boutique approach where I get to offer unhurried, timely updates to parents and serve wonderful young people for whom the future holds endless possibilities. If you can see that for your teenager, please add me to your team!