The scoops of water my son flings at me break into blinding beads of miniature suns.

And through this curtain I watch his smiling face shine through.

I'm sitting on an off-white plastic deck chair, wet hairy legs stretched out, smiling back at him because his aim falls short of target. And also because my heart warms at the sight of the happy child. That wipes away my irritation at him.

I had been upset that he wasn't swimming as much as he should. And let him know in harsh tones.

Most times, he just hangs around the deep-end, and flips over and dives to the pool's bed as the mood moves him.

But now, his sun-bathed face, teaches me a lesson, and nudges open the treasure chest of my own childhood memories.

Swimming or any other childhood activity should be fun. After all, we were not aiming at raising an Olympic champ.

Then, too, childhood, like the rest of life, is so fleeting; why deprive him of his enjoyment.

During our turn, in a world so different from his, we had to sneak out of home to steal an hour or two at the muddy sea waters off the main ferry terminal in Butterworth. That was in the 1950s.

Call of the sea

On our return, mother played detective. Run finger down the body and lick it. And we'd be betrayed. Not only were the ears subject to assault but also the bodies with a broom composed of coconut frond sticks.

But the punishment still failed to still the call of the sea.

My son's mother swam regularly while carrying him. That was part of the regime of exercise she kept religiously so as to ease labour pains.

And when a toddler, at the first sight of the sea, he cried out in delight, and rushed naked into the waves.

From swimming ring to water wings, graduating to kickboard and final independence from supports, the boy has had a love affair with water ever since. Second only to computer games.

Now it's a joy to watch him laze about the water so comfortably confident.

He cannot imagine a world so primitive that it had no TV or computers. Or running water from taps, nor hauling water from wells.

In our time, too, adults were god-like creatures whose word was law. And for some in their teens the whole world crumbled at the shattering discovery that these gods were more than capable of prevarication, and why, even outright lies, even as they sanctimoniously preached the importance of observing noble values.

That bitter sense of betrayal can scar some for life. I think that's why the rallying cry of the 1960s young was: Don't trust anyone over 30.

Now my 10-year-old son, talks back as does his five-year-old sister. She with more sense and he to be clever and to score points.

With satellite television beaming the world into the living room, their general knowledge is a universe apart from what ours was at that age. Their vocabulary, too, reflects the changes the world has undergone. Like the argot of computer games.

However, all the modern conveniences that children enjoy these days do not provoke envy in me. Only regretful sadness. The best part of their childhood poached by the binary age. Since they're ignorant of that experience, they don't miss it. I'm doing it on their behalf. Silly, isn't it?

At the age of four my son attended his first kindergarten. At that age our whole life was devoted to play, like our parents and theirs before them.

Maladies new and old

Still one should not look at those days with misty eyes. They were dreadful too, with their diphtheria, malaria, polio, which deform limbs horribly, tuberculosis which makes one spit blood from diseased lungs, among a host of other sicknesses.

Most of them have disappeared but some like malaria and TB are making a strong comeback, so it's been reported.

We are also facing new forms of ailment like repetitive stress injuries which paralyse your hands beyond repair.

One by-product of the computer age may eventually be an unusual number of hunchbacks from the hours devoted to computer games, and later compounded by the hours at the workplace before a similar beast.

Our main fear, as he stands on the threshold of his teen years, is he may run with the wrong company, and ruin his life. For, once you're a teenager, parents and adults are generally uncool and boring.

Our fervent hope is that he'd be able to escape the lepak and bohsia culture by devoting his time to developing his computer skills, and constructing model war planes and ships that he so enjoys.

All we want is for him is to be able to think independently, and lead a more fruitful life than ours — the prayer of most parents.

And most important of all keep to the straight and narrow while breaking convention, if he is so inclined.

But, what the heck. He might probably take to the Himalayas. What do I know. Just exercising a parent's prerogative, that's all.

K SUGU began his journalistic career in 1964 and has worked in the New Straits Times, The Star and The Sun . He became a Buddhist monk in 1981 and had his first taste of press freedom when he worked in Bangkok for The Nation . He is now retired and spends his time writing and trying to get a handle on the fleeting nature of life.