Living In A Hotel

I was about 22 years old when I moved out from my parents’ home to share a rented house with my sister, Bridget. I was earning miserably little then—I was teaching full time with a take home pay of slightly over RM500 each month. That was a decent income back then, but certainly not good enough for a “comfortable” lifestyle. So to supplement my full time job, I also gave tuitions in the evenings for a few hundred bucks more. Yet at the end of the day, I was hardly able to save any money.

I suppose if I had continued living together with my parents, I could’ve save a bit of money, but having a place of my own meant a lot more than saving a few Ringgit. Of course it wasn’t really “a place of my own”, since I was still sharing with Bridget. But it felt different from living under the same roof with my parents somehow.

Later on I moved to Brunei and worked there for a good 13 years before deciding to relocate back to KK again. During those few months of maneuvering my way back to KK, Mia was already expecting. I spent a bit of money to renovate a room in my parents’ home. That was where we had intended to stay “for the time being” until we find ourselves a permanent home. At first the “for the time being” meant 2 to 3 years, but it turned out that as soon as I was back to KK, we quickly bought a house and moved out just before JJ was born. I’m so not into living in my parents’ home, if you know what I mean. I don’t know if it’s me, but I don’t believe women can actually live together harmoniously under the same roof for a long time. Well, OK, I’ll admit that some of them—very few of them—can, but most of them can’t!

Anyway, I’m bringing all this up because I happen to know some people, in fact people closely-related to me, who’re way past 40 years old and still living together with their parents. Although they have what they call “work”, they never contribute anything for the household expenses—they don’t pay any rent, not a sen for food, electricity or water bills; and they don’t even wash their own laundries. They are easily annoyed when mommy takes a bit longer to prepare dinner. They are truly the best examples of good-for-nothing children. It makes one wonder what will happen to these creatures when mom and dad are no longer around one of these days.

Looking out a little bit further, we can still find quite a number of similar households in Sabah. A small house with, say, 3 bedrooms, and each bedroom occupied by a family of husband and wife and children.

I think when my JJ is all grown up, it will be very difficult for me to let her live on her own. But if she wished to find her own place, I will try to suppress my fatherly instinct and let her be independent. I just hope that once she’s out of my house, she won’t keep moving in and out again, with everything paid for, and treat my house like a hotel!