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I more than sympathise with TMF ( What are we doing to our children? ).

Not only do our children have no facilities to play in the schools, they also have no place to play at home.

In Taman after Taman, fields are being taken away by unscrupulous developers and building being erected instead. The government lifts up not even one hand to stop them; instead it colludes with the land grabbers.

In new housing areas, they have dispensed with even the temporary fields. As a pitiful substitute, a small playground is erected which invariably breaks down in a short time, never to be repaired until the next general election. In my Taman, the field has long disappeared and a posh foreign kindergarten not meant for the residents has appeared instead.

It's hard to overestimate the damage we are doing to our children. No wonder then that cybercafes are full, petty crime is up and we are hard pressed to excel in sports regionally, let alone internationally.

My kids have resorted to kicking a ball around our small lawn. The neighbour's dog regularly chews up balls, which are inadvertently kicked over, and our house windows are broken equally often. I don't complain. I consider new balls and windows a small price to pay because my generation has not been able to provide them a field to play in.

I guess it is a reflection of what our government thinks about its young. Lest anyone cites lack of space, even 'land-scarce' Singapore has much more easily accessible facilities for young people than Malaysia.

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