It started on one of those days when I met a very rude person in a meeting. And what I mean by rude was very rude. Completely ignoring that other person in the room may have feeling this j*ck *ss constantly rambling about what he thinks should have been done, could have been done and would have been done if he was in charge. Guess what, he was not in charge. Thank God.

This show of arrogance happened for several minutes until one of my colleague activated the recording machine and voila! Suddenly his parade of anger diminished. Followed by a more civilized behavior. Since everything was recorded by a machine (not only by human memory) suddenly he felt that he must (and he could) watch his language. Apparently in his perception things are different if somehow what you said can be re-played. It somehow necessary when it could became solid evidence of his pathetic behavior.

At first I sneered at this sudden change. This person was an egomaniac and selfish person. Care only for what was important for him self. When he was in danger of putting him self in legal problem, he demonstrate an ability to restrain him self for behaving badly. When he was not, he was his true self. At least that was my first assessment.

But when I looked at my self and my son’s innocent eyes, I realized that I was no different than this character. How many times that I restrained my self not to say few things in front of him with the fear that he would repeat it later? Too many. My 3 ½ years old son is the best recording machine in the world. He absorb everything you say and everything you do like a sponge. There’s a fear in me that he would follow my not-so-good behavior and demonstrated it someplace else and people would say, “Didn’t his parents teach him to behave?”.

Right. Now I have become one of those hypocrite parents where ‘I could do that but you can’t do that’ kind of parents, which I hate. I am a strong believer of teaching by giving example but as an adult (now I have to admit that I am starting justifying my self now) I sometimes felt the need to say some bad word. Now I really have to be careful and be creative in expressing my anger.

As difficult as it seems, restraining my self is not that difficult compared to having to explain other’s inappropriate behavior. One day he saw a woman with veil run on jammed street, banged on the window of a taxi, shouted to the taxi driver and made him pulled over. My son was so intrigued with that scene and kept on asking why that auntie was so upset.

To be honest, I didn’t know what happened. The taxi driver could have had bumped that woman’s car and scratch it, who knows what might happen in Jakarta busy street and how people would react? But he was so occupied with this scene and kept on saying that she should have not bang on the window, she could have just knocked the window gently. I told him that I agreed and that perhaps that auntie was very very upset so she banged the window. Later on he asked that if he was really upset, can he bang instead of knock? I was speechless. I told him no. He should try to react gently first. But I am aware how things can be different on the street. I was merely postponing the lesson on how to be streetwise.

Another scene was during the last fasting month when a group who called them selves “The Defenders of Islam” running riots, breaking and entering some clubs that had closed earlier during Ramadhan. They tossed down the table, rummaging the place, even beaten up an innocent by passers. These people were wearing religious symbol, symbol that my son perceived as a clothes to go to Mosque or to be worn during Idul Fitri. So again he asked why these people are so upset. To be honest, I didn’t have any answer to his questions as these people behavior also sickened me. So I simply change the channel with the hope that he would forget his question. And he did. Kids forget easily. But do they?

I don’t think so. I believe whatever we do is recorded in some way. Not in theological way (recorded by the angels, that’s what I mean) or technical way but also with other human around you. Younger generations most importantly. Isn’t that scary when you realized that whatever you do will impact people that you don’t even know, let alone that you intend them to see it as how things suppose to be done. I don’t think there are many of us who realized it. Nor care. Plus everybody has their own values. What is ok for you, may not be ok for me and vice versa. So how should we protect our kids from values that we think it’s not right according to us?

Back to my previous paragraph, the answer is to consistently giving them the right sample. Aren’t being parents great? You can’t be your self if your kids around. In another word, unless you are an angel, don’t expect your kid to be one. Who am I kidding? Who wants to have angelic kid? Well, I do. To be honest. But who am I anyway? All I can do is trying my best so all he recorded are the positive one from my side. Just like the j*rk in the beginning of this rambling.

Therefore, whenever I lost my patient over my kid, usually I count over 10 before I react. I keep on reminding my self, that my kid was only repeating what he saw from us (oh yes, I didn’t let my husband off the hook of my kid’s need-some-improvement behavior). Seeing his behavior is like seeing in a mirror. It represent of who we are and how he behave. Kids are our little recording machine so you’d better watch what you said and do around them. Ain’t life great?