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'It is a different era'

So, here we are at one of my favourite topics - bags!

First bag, the NS backpack. Rather expectedly, ST ran an article linking the maid-NS backpack thing to the daily maid-schoolbag scenario we see all over Singapore. I would like to suggest that the root of it goes a little deeper than just the expectations of many parents and children that their maids should carry their bags. The start of all this, as I see it, is the fact that schoolbags are too heavy (that used to be one of my favourite topics). If the schoolbags were a reasonable weight, nobody would see the need for maids, parents or grandparents to carry them. I will shamelessly declare that I shamelessly carried the boy's bag for him when he was in lower primary. If you compare the weight of the bag with the size (and weight) of the child, it would be the logical thing to do.

So then, when and how you wean the child off this bag-carrying business is another story altogether. Obviously, if weaning is not done successfully, you will still have maid, parent or grandparent carrying the bag even up to Primary 6 (when the bag is still heavy, mind you) and, apparently, way beyond that. And this is where the ST article provides some pertinent points.

'Once you decide to have a maid, you have to be realistic. It is a different era, and ironing clothes and tidying rooms are things maids do,' a parent was quoted as saying. That sure is telling, isn't it? Now do we see where the maid-dependence attitude comes from? What's so unrealistic about a kid growing up learning to iron clothes and tidy his/her room and carry his/her bag, even if the family has a maid? Good training and a good dose of reality for the child to do all that, I would say.


Next bag, Kate Spade. Here, I would say, it truly is 'a different era'. Twenty-somethings do buy (very) expensive bags these days. It is a fact of life in Singapore, isn't it? I saw this little feature in Her World, where these twenty-somethings owned Loewe and Balenciaga bags, and this other twenty-something said she owned stuff from Pedder Red, which she found to be 'affordable'. So, against this backdrop, cutesy Kate Spade is not a big surprise.


Third bag, Kei Nishikori's Uniqlo bag! I think it's cool that he is sponsored by Uniqlo and his bag is kind of nice but I could not find a picture of it. So I'll just have a picture of him here, in his Uniqlo outfit, because it's also cool that an Asian boy is coming up the ranks, in this new tennis era. Go Asians!

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