ARMED with the experience that comes with having a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Adrian Ong and his wife Lee Su-Yen are looking forward to the birth of their second child.
“We don’t know whether we are getting a boy or a girl. We like it the old-fashioned way – to find out on the day itself,” says Ong, 40.
He describes their first-born, Christina, as being a very strong-willed girl who used to wake up every two hours to wail at the top of her voice.
“I’m really excited about having another set of feet in the house, but I have to say I’m dreading the hours!”
When they were first-time parents almost three years ago, Lee, now 36, decide d to do without any help with the baby.
“I went along with that, thinking we could manage,” Ong recalls. “But the first night, Christina woke up, crying, then soiled her diapers. When there is this mess all over the place at four in the morning, and you are half asleep and not exactly practised in the art of changing diapers, it can quite traumatic!”
Well, he made short work of hiring a confinement lady the very next morning.
“The agency sent over a nice, soft-spoken lady and she was a godsend. This incident made me realise it’s not easy looking after a newborn. You gain a lot of respect for the parents who do it on their own.”
But even the thought of sleepless nights does not dampen his obvious excitement over the arrival of a second child. Ong says the most rewarding part of fatherhood is watching the child grow up, and it amazes him how quickly a child learns new things.
“I remember the first time I gave Christina a bath, the first time she managed to string a whole sentence together herself, and the first time she said her name. I’m sure we can expect different, but equally enjoyable moments, with the next child.”
Parents should shower their children with lots of love, guidance and time, and Ong, an investment banker, says that he often finds it a challenge to spend as much time as he would like with his family because of his hectic work and travel schedule.
“There was a time when I was on a plane every week, but now I make weekends almost entirely family time. It’s funny how when you have a child, your whole life changes.”
Quiet weekends have become a thing of the past. Now, everything revolves around Christina, he adds.
“We’ll get up on a Sunday morning and feed her breakfast, then maybe go for a walk. When we come back, I try to read the newspaper for perhaps 20 minutes before it is time to fix her lunch. And when we go out, it can take easily 45 minutes just to pack her stuff and get everything ready.”
But these are the little joys of parenthood and Ong says at the end of the day, they want their children to grow up with certain values that are important to them: “to be kind, loving, generous and good; to have objectives, purpose and ambition in life”.
He adds that he wants his children to be well-educated, well-read and worldly, and he intends to guide them through all of that.
Ong is taking a leaf from his relationship with his father.
“My father never really said very much, but he made sure that he gave us a good education. He put me through the best schools, whether he could afford it or not. That’s something I will do for my children as well.”
Although he shares a close bond with his father, Ong hopes his children will be more demonstrative with their love.
“I’m very close to my father, but as relationships often go between men, things are often unsaid. It is about what we do, rather than the hugs and kisses.
“But I don’t think there is anything that my father, who is now 69, wouldn’t do for me. Similarly, I think he knows that I would do the same.”
And as a father with a toddler running about the house and another little one on the way, Ong has this to say to new fathers:
“Babies seem such delicate little things that my greatest anxiety when Christina was born was how exactly to pick her up. The bad news is that you might have one or two awkward moments in the beginning, but you learn faster than you think. You really do. So don’t worry too much about that.
“And get a confinement lady – it’s more important than choosing a room colour for the baby,” he adds, laughing. – ROUWEN LIN
