For the first time in my life, I have with much reluctance, allowed my first born to go on a school trip scheduled for next month. Since last year, Alycia has been pestering us to allow her to participate in school trips. I have on all occasions said no due to various reasons. Firstly is the increasingly high crime rate that has plagued our country. Kids are kidnapped, raped and murdered with no mercy. People are robbed and shot to death in broad daylight. It is just not safe to go anywhere anymore. Secondly, it is the nightmare that I had 9 years ago when Alycia was only a few months old. I dreamt that she was drowned. The dream is still vivid and lucid to me up until today. It is because of this dream that I am reluctant to let go of my precious baby to go to places unaccompanied.
Thirdly, I have no confidence in tour bus drivers anymore and I am sure many of you would feel the same too after reading news of fatal bus crash time and again. And lastly, you would have probably read that Alycia was a hard-to-get baby. She was conceived via IUI fertility treatment, hence the name ‘precious baby’. She will forever be my precious baby, the baby whom I had dreamed of for years. She was the ‘designer baby’, perfect in every way. We have had so many firsts with her and she will always have a special place in our hearts. I have been telling her that she will be allowed to go on trips with her school only when she turns 12. But she retorted and asked me why she has to wait so long when most of her classmates could go since years ago.
After much argument with her over this trip, with her pleading, throwing tantrums and almost in tears, we have finally allowed her to go, albeit with great reluctance. It is a day-trip to some outskirt towns in Selangor. The hubs and I tried to find excuses and tried reasoning with her but to no avail. She was darn adamant on her insistence in joining the trip. She told me that there will be no swimming pool or sea or river, thus I need not be worried of her drowning!
Alycia kept reassuring me that her teacher said that “it is VERY, VERY safe to join the trip!”. I am quite certain she cooked up this sentence to try to convince me! She told me that there will be four teachers in each bus. I cannot wait for the day to come and be over with her coming back safely to me.
Would you allow your 10-year old daughter to go if you were me?
No. of times viewed = 391