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Closing the gap between generations

SINGAPORE — It is as simple as picking up the phone and calling one’s children or grandchildren, but many grandparents today still prefer to stubbornly wait at home, expecting their children to make the first move, and missing out on the chance to improve family ties.

SINGAPORE — It is as simple as picking up the phone and calling one’s children or grandchildren, but many grandparents today still prefer to stubbornly wait at home, expecting their children to make the first move, and missing out on the chance to improve family ties.

Hence, Madam Fu Chuan San, Geylang Serai’s Family Life Champion (FLC), has made it her cause to get her peers to change their attitudes and make the first move.

“Kids these days are very busy, so I always tell grandparents, if you miss them, just give them a call, go to their house, because times have changed,” said the 72-year-old, a grandmother herself.

Mdm Fu has been active in promoting family bonding within the Geylang Serai community since 2005. Last month, a monthly event she organised, 3G Yoga for all generations, received the Best Grandparents Event Award at the People’s Association (PA) Family Life Champions Awards.

“Many grandparents and grandchildren today are not close, without a place to spend time together, so we hope to give them the opportunity to get together and bond,” she said.

This is increasingly true as more families are no longer living together. “As grandparents, we must be open-minded and proactive. We ourselves have to take the first step in building the connection with the kids,” she added.

Together with a team of 10 volunteers known as Family Life Connectors, Mdm Fu organises activities for families, from three-generation (3G) yoga to an intergenerational choir. Activities range from small, intimate cooking classes to large-scale outdoor yoga events with up to 500 participants.

Through these activities, children not only get the opportunity to bond with their grandparents, they also participate in the community.

“Kids must know that they are part of a community, and not just serving themselves,” she said.

Her popular 3G Yoga classes have seen cold, unhappy families grow closer. Through the activities, children see a different side of their grandparents — not “old dinosaurs”, but “active, fun people”, she said.

Community service, just like grandparenting, is an ingrained part of Mdm Fu’s life. For 40 years and counting, she has consistently been a familiar, bubbly sight in her neighbourhood.

Mdm Tipah Ali, 78, said she takes her family along to every activity organised by Mdm Fu and her team. “We go to all the activities, always support,” she chirped with a big smile.

Mdm Fu joined the PA in 1972, when she first became a member of the Aljunied Women’s Executive Committee. The enjoyment she found as a participant in community activities inspired her to spread the joy to others. She later served as Chairman of the Joo Seng Community Centre Management Committee for five years.

The same persistence and dedication to helping others is seen in her loyalty to her logistics management job at a cosmetics company, in which she remained for the entire span of her 40-year career. “I’m very faithful, because I must manage well and be efficient, and then I will have more time to do community work outside,” she chuckled.

As a grandmother of three, her greatest inspiration comes from her family. Growing up, she shared a close relationship with her grandmother, living together for more than 20 years. She attributes her strong value system and commitment to service to the good upbringing she received in a close-knit family.

With more parents busy making a living, the role of grandparents as role models becomes even more important, coming in to guide the children when their parents cannot find the time and energy to do so. “We must teach the kids family values for them to become positive contributors to society,” she said.

The ideas for her community activities also stem from her interactions with her grandchildren. She fondly recalls her grandson pestering her to make a favourite pastry for him. Always on the lookout for opportunities to bond, Mdm Fu agreed, on one condition: That he made it with her. This later became the intergenerational cooking class that she organises.

She has accepted that today, the children are king. “We as grandparents must follow their interests, learn what they like to do,” she said.

She stressed the need for humility, patience and persistence to build strong relationships. “Sometimes we need to put ourselves ‘lower’ than the young,” she said, recounting a funny moment when she purposely exaggerated her inability to use a computer to get her grandchildren to teach her, with laughs along the way.

Even for more difficult relationships with rebellious children, Mdm Fu believes that things can be turned around. “It is not easy, but we have to try, just give it time,” she said.

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