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The Effects

The poem highlights the debate around parenting styles in Singapore through the perspective of a distant observer disturbed by a neighbor's noise. The observer criticizes the mother for her harsh and selfish approach to her son's education, suggesting that her obsession with perfection is more about her image than her child's well-being. Ultimately, the mother's failure to recognize her role in her son's struggles leads to negative consequences for both of them.

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15 views1 page

The Effects

The poem highlights the debate around parenting styles in Singapore through the perspective of a distant observer disturbed by a neighbor's noise. The observer criticizes the mother for her harsh and selfish approach to her son's education, suggesting that her obsession with perfection is more about her image than her child's well-being. Ultimately, the mother's failure to recognize her role in her son's struggles leads to negative consequences for both of them.

Uploaded by

OLUOTCH
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as ODT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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While such questions are raised and not directly answered, the framing of the poem helps us

understand the wider debate around parenting styles in Singapore. The speaker is a distant
observer, awoken from an afternoon nap by the noisy row emanating from his neighbour’s house.
While probably annoyed that his cozy snoose has been so rudely disturbed, otherwise, he should be
pretty neutral on the issue of education. Yet, from his objective point of view, he nevertheless paints
the mother as a vicious person, quick to lash out verbally and physically when her son disappoints
her. From his position, she lacks kindness, empathy, and acts selfishly. Her insistence on constant
improvement and perfect performance isn’t for the benefit of her son, but for the benefit of herself
in terms of how others perceive her; her son’s successes and failures reflect her, so when he ‘fails’,
she’s failed, which is something she cannot accept. It’s clear that her style of education isn’t
producing the desired results (that word bewildered, placed near the end, connotes confusion rather
than clarity), yet she doesn’t acknowledge her own role in this sad state of affairs. Rather, she
pushes all the blame onto a child who may be trying his best – with unintended but all-too-
predictable consequences.

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