Hong Kong is famous for its fast pace of life. Before we know it, days, weeks, months and even years have hurtled by in a blur, leaving us musing: 'Wow, is it really May 2012 already? Where did all the time go?'
Having a child really hits the time-accelerator pedal. Before this, my wife and I prided ourselves on carefully planning our future, mostly our immediate future. Which restaurant, where to spend our next holiday and whether to stay in Hong Kong for Christmas or Lunar New Year were usually the heaviest decisions we took. With the recent addition of our daughter, Maggie, we now find ourselves broadsided by a whole slew of important ones.
The first decision shock arrived when a well-intentioned friend and mother of two toddlers advised me to enrol my baby at a kindergarten as soon as possible.
'What?'
Here I am, a new, stay-home dad with a one-month-old child, struggling to cope with sleepless nights and nappies, and I'm already being advised to plan her schooling? My friend briskly brought me up to speed on how things worked in the city: the right playgroup leads to the right kindergarten. The right primary school ensures a place at the right secondary school. The right college is imperative to being accepted into the right university. The whole process seemed inextricably sewn together with an endless list of deadlines, all screaming for my diligent execution. Looming over the process was the evil spectre of non-compliance: a doomed future for my daughter.
My life lay clearly before me, and it was in the form of a child's competitive, educational road map. Time began speeding up, and my own timeline rapidly withered. According to some, from now until 2020 I will be working from a new rulebook. School application deadlines, entry exams and child interviews will take priority. Extended exotic holidays and other personal pet projects will be shelved - permanently. I have been buckled into the unstoppable Child Conveyor Belt and, for a late starter like me to the procreation business, by the time I reach the end it will be: 'Thank you for travelling on the one-way Child Express. Please take the next exit on your left and follow the signs marked 'pensioner'.'