Comment | Pauline D. Loh

In three generations, the mothers in my family have evolved from sedentary mainstays to jet-setting grandmothers.

My parents' mothers were traditionally raised to stay home and nurture the brood.

One was a Straits-born Chinese who managed a large extended family of relatives and domestics with the well-wielded power of a Nonya matron.

The other was a village-born native of Shunde in Guangdong province, who made a reluctant journey to Singapore with an 8-year-old son in tow to join her husband.

There was never any question that their first duty was to family.

My own mother was, and still is, a lady with a strong wanderlust. In her mid-20s, after a first marriage failed, she went alone to Hong Kong and later raised two sons there. It was a tough decision, and she left behind a strong support network to start from scratch.

Her pioneering spirit, inherited no doubt from my migrant grandfather, kept her children close, and trained them to be independent-thinking individuals, slightly ahead of their times.

We were told there were no problems, only solutions waiting to be discovered. She was the original tiger mother, although she never did scold or physically punish us. One glance was enough to quell rebellion.

All of us are now married and her children are settled in three different places. She takes care to divide her time among us, not according to equality, but need. So she keeps three sets of clothes in three different cities, and morphs to fit the persona she adopts in each.

Almost 80 now, she has chalked up frequent-flyer miles commuting from Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, with an annual foray back to Singapore to visit her sisters.

My son is 30 this year and I reckon he will be getting married within the next few years. Unlike most of China's young and adventurous urban migrants, we have a reverse trend in our family. While my son has stayed in Singapore, it is his parents who have chosen to settle in Beijing.

When the time comes, I, too, will be flying back to Singapore to look after my grandchild if the need arises. At any rate, I will certainly be in touch through Viber, WhatsApp or WeChat to guide them through midnight feeds, colicky crying, and the doubts and uncertainties that plague first time parents.

Chinese families are ruled by bonds that are very hard to break, regardless of time and distance. It is in our genetic make-up that we come together in troubled times or glad, witness the stupendous annual migration back for the Eve of Spring Festival reunion dinner.

As China moves forward, both its psychographics and demographics will change. But there is one thing that will never shift: the ties that bind.

Who else but family will rejoice and forgive with such completeness?

Contact the writer at paulined@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 01/27/2013 page3)