GE 2011-Confessions of a middle class child Part 1

As GE 2011 begins the campianging process, 1 can keep hearing PAP promising they will not forget the lower income group and make sure they will progress with the whole nation..How nice, that is veri nice of you..But did you juz forget the sandwich class(middle class) plp?? Yes, you certainly did..Afterall, our combine household income exceeds the limit governement had set for qualifying for a low income family..We are too rich to allow the government to help us, too poor to lead a better life..Its a case of either here nor there..

Let me as a child growing up in a middle class or lower middle class family shed some light on my growing up years...Might Need a few posts..Whahaah

My younger days (1-16yrs)

I have 2 silblings, 1 elder and 1 younger brother. I was born to a construction supervisor dad and a housewife mum. Dad was the sole breadwinner in the family, taking home SGD 3,500 per month. House was a 3room flat in clementi. There was no car to dream about. You might argue, 3.5K was alot during that time. Beri true, but its for 5 persons' usage. Average is 700 per person, do u still think its enuff..

Here's how my mum managed the household:

1. School:

• There was no new uniform, all were hand me downs from neighbours whose kids were olden than us and had outgrown the uniforms.It helps that we were quite pettie back then, uniform can last average 3 yrs..
• 2 pair of school shoes per yr if you haven outgrow the pervious pair..And mind you, its from Msia Bata, where we will buy in mum's hometown when we are back during holidays. Its cheaper as compared to here.Even show white was brought there and each 3 of us gotta lug it back from Msia. Mum say she cannot be carrying all our shoes, so we are responsible for them ourselves.
• Textbooks were never new in my memory unless syllabus is updated. My bro would received hand me down from neighbours and will pass to me and finally to the youngest 1..The only thing is workbooks and excerise books..
• School bags will onli be replaced if your currently 1 prove to be utterly unusable..I remembered I once cut a whole in my bag so that it will wear out quickly juz to make mum buy me a new 1...In the end, she help to sew it bak..Thanks lo...
• Pocket money was 50 cents from P1-4,1 buck for P5 & 6, lunch was always at hm, not to mention dinner.
• Got 4 bucks a day during sec school that is inclusive of breakfast and lunch or tea break when schools onli ends at 4pm...
• No pocket money on wkends.you are suppose to stay at home whole day while mum provides you with all the meals..You can buy abit of snacks however, IF you manage to save any thing from the miserable amount you have..
• Never had tution as mum thinks its god damn expensive..Everything is on our own..You are suppose to listen to your teacher who is suppose to teach you watever you are suppose to know..This is good you know?No extra work..whahaha
• You know there is this craze on who brings the most colour of colour pencils to school? My mum will onli buy us the basic pack consisting of 12 colours. She say will be enuff..Juz colour everything the same colour will do..No wonder, 3 of us are bad at art class..whahah

    2. Luxury items:

This is abit ambiguous, for us back then, everything was consider luxury..wahahah

• Depending on how many days there are for CNY holidays. this is exactly the same number of NEW outfits we will get for a year..Anything else, is always hand me down..At 1 point, plp tot I was a boy, cuz I use to take my bro's clothes n wear...whahaha
• Toys were scarce, mum always have her way to find plp's hand me down for us.Especially me, as I am the onli gal at hm, it is quite wasteful to buy toys for me as the 2 other guys would not get to play.. I remembered, sometimes we will visit our neighbours to play their toys n smtimes get cold shoulder..Afterall, which kid will wan to share their toys with outsiders?
• Macdonalds was taken once in a year, every 1st day of CNY, dad will bring us there for breakie as all coffeeshop will be shut for the festive..
• Overseas holidays means going on short trip to Msia.Monies will come from our savings,Mum seriously keep a record of our savings and a detail deductions on everything we brought..Even my study table was brought frm my own savings..
• Mum will bring us to shoppin trips once in a month, by shoppin, I mean window shoppin..whahah.. We will take the train to Dhoby Ghaut and there is a mall store there name "IN KIDS" where they would have toys for us to play..She would bring us there n play but will make us promised b4 hand that we will not ask her to buy anything.True to our promise, we did not for fear that we will lose our only chance to get to go out..
• There were no extra CCA or interest lesson or watever you called it..Monies was the issue again.
• We brought a PC when I was in P5, bro need it for project for sch..1 hr per day per person is what we have.No extra, this is to save on the electricity.
• Tv time is frm 5-8pm.Save electricity again.Its bedtime after tat, where we will get into pillow fight almost every night for an hr due to boredom.
• Mum brough a super la po ka air conditioner for us, its onli from 8pm-7am. Not allowed to on during the day, by 7am we gotta wake up for breakie...
• Dad brought us a gameboy which we had for ard 10yrs and still in good condition as mum had warned that there will be no replacements..whahaha Limited to 1 hr play per day per person during school holidays onli. Batteries are expensive too.
• You will neber find snacks/ soft drinks in our hse unless its Chinese New Year. Its plain water and bread whole yr round.Even during CNY, you gotta see Mum's mood to depends on how much goodies you get this year.
• CNY angbaos is for looking purposes onli. Mum will consolidate all, deduct whatever she give out to others, and divide it by 3 and bank into our accounts. I seriously lost the happie feeling of receiving ang bao after the 1st few years..is basically touchin it onli.. This customs remains till today where the 2 brothers still following it. I am not entitled to collect le..whahah
• School holidays is always spend in Msia with mum's maiden family as the cost of living there is lower as compare to SG and mum need not have to put up with our nonsenses whenever we r bored here.And mind you, she onli send us bak, she is not with us there, and we will be following which ever Auntie/Uncle we liked..Mostly, we spend our time separated except during meal times..
• I will take bus where ever I go during my sec school days, even it means to need transfer 3 bus before reaching hm and the whole journey would take 1hr 30min.Reason being, Dad onli gave monies for bus concession not the hybird 1 where you can take the train too.

This basically sums up the life I had during my schooling days.Seriously, it is not as bad as those lower income family. But judging from the way my mum brought us up, it is no where near good life either. How much does the governement knows about what kind of life we lived?I seriously dunno, from the way I see, their candidates all had better backgrounds, they would not be able to empathised with our experiences.