Dear Boys,

The both of you have reached an age of your own thinking and making, you are old enough to be an agent of your own destiny, and chart your own course the way you deem fit. By the age of 15 I was already holding a full time job, making some ‘big boy’ decisions, and facing the world with little parental guidance, parental guidance I hope I had, and parental guidance I hope to be able to provide no matter how old you both are.

Consequences

Back when you both are younglings, I can smack your head if you misbehave, dashes across the road or throws a tantrum. Back then, reasoning would be futile, we need you to stop your wanton egregious acts immediately before you hurt and embarrass yourself and us (potentially)

When things are calmer, we will explain why we smacked you in the head, because there was dangers you cannot see, and doesn’t have the maturity to understand what bad stuff lies around the curve of consequences. Of course as your parents, we knew better.

We still know better

Smacking your heads now won’t work so well, and we can only reason, often forcefully to make sure you get our point. Even at your soon-to-be adult age, there are still dangers and faux pas you both cannot see and has yet to experience.

We can only direct you both to past cases we have encountered in our lives. There are dangers we can discourage you from getting into, but no longer possess the ability to physically stop you. If one of you deems ‘fun’ to jump into a tiger’s den, and gets mauled to death, we can’t be there to save you.

Arguments abound!

I’m glad we are still talking, and you both still comes to us for counsel and we still sit around dinner discussing our days and talked about what happened. We often reminiscence the good old days, some mistakes people made. Sharing of ‘war stories’ and reminiscent some of the old stuffs we did and explore some of the new stuffs you both want to do.

There might be something you thought to be new fun and potentially exciting. Or new friends you might have met along the way. We will tell you our opinions and sometimes you can disagree, but often it turns out to be true to how we saw it, because we really knows better. Despite of all the arguing, you can still choose to defy us and do as you deem fit, just 2 words – Caveat Emptor!

Back to consequences again

Despite of all our input and protests, you can still go ahead with your actions against our better judgement, and we cannot stop you anymore. If you chooses to commit crime, the law no longer sees the both of you as minors and can be arrested and hauled to court if you are caught. There is no more parental shield that we can use, because you have to be responsible for your actions. We can only get you the best lawyers we can afford.

This is the cold hard consequences of growing up and these are no longer the good old kiddy days where you can get away with stupid things by just being cute. Despite of these heavy reality of responsibilities that will be bestowed upon you as an adult, there is much rewards and satisfaction to be gained being one. Getting hurt, rejected and dejected is the trial and tribunals of getting to these life goals and we as your parents will always be there for you, no longer holding your hands, but will still be holding them as long as we can.