Of Living, Love and Filial Piety.

The evolution of mankind, the modern world of living, the society of stress, of small families, eroded the very essence of family cohesion, warm, communication. With all that, a total fallout of parental and siblings understanding; giving rise to family alienation and lost of filial piety.

In olden days of yonder folklore, with cohesive large families staying together under one roof and sometimes three generations of family members co-existing in harmony. The patriarch of the household was well respected and all children, from parents to young siblings showed great filial piety to the grand old parents. And family value was passed down in practical lesson of example everyday. The elders were held in great esteem and parents, grandparents or even great grandparents were respected and filial piety was the order of the times.

Today's society is a sad cry of the past. Families are disspated. Both parents are working their wits out to maintain a status quo for the well-being of their one or two kids and along the way lose the very essence of emotional wants rather than materialistic wants. The children are brought up with maids and show little respect to the maid who looked after them. Where can they learned the finer points of respect and filial piety. The decadent of family unity, togetherness and warm.
No time to impart strong values to the children resulting in many unable to even behave in public not to say at home.

The education system of S'pore is a total failure on social etiquette. Many school kids are left on their own as lackies and roamed the Malls with alot of pocket money to spend. Sad, to look at their manners in public. Yes! there are good kids too but far and few.

Filial piety is not just a 3 minutes watch on a video produced by MCYS. It is a process of instilling a kid from young the importance of elder respect , of love , of care , of compassion and empathy for the very folks of yours and on a wider scale of society's under-privileged.



During Mother's Day on 9th of June 2010, I held a talk on Filial Piety at YWCA under the auspices of ARA (Active Retirees Association) and was well received with a packed room.




Love makes the world go round, understanding brings togetherness, sympathy brings care but filial piety brings about the cycle of human greatness unsurpassed in the perpetuation of emotion and spiritual well-being of one human to another, of child parental relationship in eternity.



Is there an eternity in our present faceless society of senseless pursuit of material wealth, casting aside the very wealth of human emotion and understanding and the bondage of a happy cohesive family?

We are lost in the vast universe of modernisation, unrealism, and we do not have a 'life' to live.....Is not living a life better off than we are not living ?

A simple good life is a happy good living.

Patrick Lee Song Juan