{ Good Abang }

Was on the way home at abt 9pm. The good thing abt going back at dis time is dat the MRT train’s relatively empty. The bad part is dat its almost 10pm and I’m still abt an hour away from my house 😑

The cabin I was in had a family in front of me. So I became an unwilling witness to the drama ahead.

There were two parents and their 4 children, wif one ‘abang’ (Malay for older brother) among those kids, who was slightly older.

Anyways, one of the child – a little girl, probs abt 5 years old – was making a lot of noise.  Throwing abit of a tantrum. Yelling for the sake of attention. Typical ~ annoying child things ~ ✨

The dad was busy wif the other kids, whereas the mom appears to be having none of dat. She was looking at her direction, but completely ignoring her. Seems to be tired and done wif her shit, lol.

At the same time, there was the abang. If I had to guess, he’d probably just abt hit puberty. He himself looked abit tired and overwhelmed by the situation.

But he went abt tryna fix the problem a lil differently. Instead, he got her to sit down on the floor, then sat beside her. She instinctively went to lean on him.

Dat sorta worked, actly, as it got her to be quiet for a lil while. Then she got up and started hopping abt in place. She at least went abt it quietly dis time, so das great 👍

The abang tried to get her to sit back down, cos…. well, it’s probably not very safe for a child to be doing dat in a moving train, ye?

The mother however wasn’t too supportive of his idea. She told him to ignore her and let her fall and hurt herself to learn her own lesson.

The abang didn’t seem too thrilled abt dat, but was forced to comply…

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Ok… while I noe dats like, the typical parenting strategy over here, I still dun rlly noe how to feel abt dat. Seems a bit harsh ye? Or maybe I’m just soft 😔…

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I low-key pity the abang the most. He seems to have a good heart. U can tell he doesn’t rlly wanna follow his mom’s stricter parenting orders. But he’s got no choice, as talking back to ur mom at dat age is essentially a death sentence 💀

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It’s never fun to have to choose sides in these dumb minor family “conflicts”. When I was younger I’d go thru it too sometimes. It always made me rlly mad and upset and hate women (hehe, u can tell which 2 in my family wld be the ones getting into disputes based on dat).

I’m pretty sure there’s some long-term implications to one’s mental well-being, as well as one’s relationship with their parents, if they’re going thru dis ‘dilemmas’ on a frequent basis. So I feel for the good abang there. Hope the world treats him better, and he manages to maintain his good heart thru and thru 🫶

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18.06.2026