Didn’t Their Mamas Teach Them None?

By Justin Ong (The Malaysian Insider)

AUG 30 — I must have been five or six. No more than seven, I’m sure, when I first heard the phrase. I can’t remember what it was I did to make the woman say that to me, it was such a long time ago. Maybe I ran around like little kids are wont to do. Maybe I sang a little too loudly. Or a lot too badly. Who knows?

I thought nothing of it. Barely more than a toddler, I took it literally. I thought she meant I hadn’t been in school for long, which made sense seeing as I hadn’t. But for some reason, it incensed my mother.

So I asked her why she was so angry with the woman for saying I hadn’t been to school. It was the truth, I said. Then she told me what the words meant, that the slur was not so much meant for my ears as it was for hers.

The way she told it, it was like there were few insults more hurtful in our culture than the one used by the woman. It reflects not just on your own behaviour but also your upbringing and, consequently, your parents.

Seeing how the words hurt my mother then seared itself into my psyche. It got hardwired into my mind that this was one of the worst things you could say to a person. Not that it hurt them. No. It was worse because it also slights their parents.

I’m careful to not use it, even at times when I think it would be fully justified to lay it on inconsiderate parents with out of control kids. Not that I have a prudish view when it comes to language, mind; those who know me will vouch I have repertoire of colourful words and phrases that I’m sure many wish I didn’t use so freely.

But two recent incidents make me feel that there is no way more appropriate to label the miscreants involved in them. The face of disrespect and the pinnacle of insensitivity, any sensible human being would be ashamed to have gone through so much trouble to squeeze these lumps of turds out into the world.

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