When Kaia started going to her current school, the admins let us know that about once a month, they’d have events where they’d invite parents to participate. It could be arts and crafts, story telling/reading, or holiday/seasonal events like Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Thanksgiving, or Lunar New Year. For some events, it would be a “lottery” as to which two caregivers could come. Other events would be open to all parents. When they told us this, I figured we would make sure to go to all the major events, and the “lottery’ events, we’d occasionally throw our hat in. I’m lucky that my job is flexible enough for me to do this.

Well, our school isn’t the best at planning ahead. With Mid-Autumn Moon Festival this past Monday, we were told just the Friday before that they’d host a moon festival tea inviting all caregivers in the late morning Monday. I had just asked the admin about this the day before, and she told me they weren’t planning anything. So it was really frustrating to hear that this was happening so last minute. I had already planned a Monday afternoon dentist appointment, and Chris had his calls lined up, so neither of us would be able to go with such little notice. In a class of three, both of Kaia’s other classmates had a parent or grandparent come. When I brought Kaia home Monday early evening, Chris asked her who came to the tea. She reported back (in full, complete sentences) that, “Aidan’s dad came, Bobby’s grandpa came… but no one came for me.” And then she kept repeating that “no one came for me” over and over and over. And I just couldn’t help but “awwwwwww” at that. I did feel a little bad, but it was just too last minute! And of course, you can’t really explain that in terms that an almost-four-year-old will understand.

I still remember going to the Lunar New Year performance and party last January, and one of the kids was crying almost the entire lunch period because he saw almost every other child had a caregiver come for them, but no one came for him. And I felt so terrible. I hoped that Chris or I would always be able to come to these events to support our Pookie Bear. And then, this happened where Pookster got so upset that “no one came for me.”

The mom guilt is real. But Pookster eventually got over it (we think) because Chris offered her an All Naturals jelly belly. So there’s that.

Chris and I are pretty strict with junk food/candy consumption with Kaia. Sure, we let her have bites (and sometimes even half or more) of treats we get on the weekends, like croissants or ice cream/gelato. But she never gets her own ice cream or croissant. She rarely has “ultra processed” packaged food. She might have a pouch maybe once every four to six months because we want her to focus on eating real whole foods. But it’s frustrating for us when she see her classmates get packaged junk food almost regularly. Her (natural) thought is: why do all my friends get the “good stuff,” and my parents don’t let me have it? It’s clear that some of her little classmates even get candy every single day. So when I picked her up today and she immediately demanded “Bluey cookies,” I said no, I didn’t have any. And she erupted into a tantrum and almost refused to walk down the stairs from her school with me. When we got down to the building lobby, Ah Gong, the “doorman” of the school building, immediately wanted to go into “solutioning,” and the way adults of his generation do this is by offering candy. He pulled out his metal candy tin (of course, he has one of those at his desk!), and he let Kaia pick out 2-3 pieces to take home. “It’s okay, let her be happy! She is usually so guai guai!” he insisted to me in Chinese as she stopped crying, smiled, said “xie xie” to him, and happily skipped away.

We got on the train, and Kaia asked if she could open the candies (she doesn’t quite have the dexterity yet to open these on her own, thankfully). I said no, and then inevitably, she fought me. “But Ah Gong gave it to me!” she cried.

Yes, he may have given them to you, I said to her, but that doesn’t mean you can open or eat them. The other issue with these candies is that they are hard candies, so they are, by definition, a choking hazard for someone of her size and age, especially while in a moving vehicle.

So, these candies inevitably get hidden somewhere out of her reach… and then I will eventually throw them out. Neither Chris nor I eat almost any of them, and we don’t let Kaia eat them. It kind of feels like a waste, I guess it does serve as a temporary appeasement for a toddler having a tantrum in the moment.

A few months ago when reading about child rearing and stopping intergenerational trauma, I read a single line that stayed with me, and I ended up writing it down to remember. “Kids just want love, presence, and attention.” It seems simple and straightforward enough, but given that the expectations of parenting, child-rearing, and well, living. have gone up, what can seem simple on paper can be challenging to execute in real life. With social media, work at all hours, and addictions to phones/devices, simply giving your child undivided attention and your “presence” may be a big, big ask.

Kaia, in her increasing verbal and communicative abilities, has made requests for things she wants, and we try to deliver them, within reason. Most Sundays when we have no plans the last several months (and when swimming class has been cancelled given our nearby pool has been closed for maintenance), I’ve taken her up to our building pool so that she can play in the water while wearing her puddle jumper/floatie. She also loves to ask for hugs and cuddles. Last night when I got up at around 11:15pm to wake her for a dream-pee, she actually already woke up to come find me. As soon as I came out of the bedroom, I saw her standing there looking straight at me, as though anticipating my coming out. She held her arms open and ran into me. Then, I picked her up, kissed her, and carried her into her bathroom so she could have her first of her two nightly dream-pee sessions. After she was done, we wiped and flushed, and I carried her back to her bed to tuck her in. She hugged me again and turned to her side to sleep.

I don’t know why, but in that moment, I just felt really loved… and needed. She needed mama’s love, presence, and attention in that moment, and I came to give it to her. I think that if anything, being a parent definitely gives a sense of purpose, of meaning, that nothing else can really compare to it. When you become a parent, you are 100 percent in charge of ensuring that this little blob of a being is taken care of, fed, sheltered, and loved. I love going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning knowing she is excited to see me, wants my kisses and cuddles, and needs me. It’s a really amazing feeling to be both loved and needed. And I love that she shows her affection with zero abandon.

On the flip side, I also feel sad because when I think of a child’s need for “love, attention, and presence,” I don’t think Ed got much of that with either of our parents. Our dad rarely gave us attention or any real presence growing up. Our mom spent more time yelling at us for things we didn’t do properly and definitely hit and smacked Ed way more than he probably needed to be. And with “love,” well, “love” can be shown in a lot of ways, but I also get the feeling that our mom didn’t give as much affection to Ed as she did with me, and our dad, to this day, doesn’t know what the word “affection” means. I’ve come to accept my parents and how they raised me overall; I’ve made peace with the fact that they did some things right, some things okay, and a lot of things wrong. But I don’t think I’ve come to terms with how they were with Ed. Though with this piece, I think the only way I will truly accept it is by trying to give Kaia all the things I think Ed was deprived of. So every day, I try to give Pookster my love, attention, and presence, and hope that it all works out… and that hopefully one day, she will look back at her childhood and think it was a truly happy, loving one, where she was seen, cared for, and deeply loved.