'pat-pat'

pai-pai, pok-pok or whatever name you fondly call it

The ole’ pat-pat on the bottom is used as a technique to lull babies to sleep. However many of us have the experience of being patted to sleep continue into the early years of our childhood. Most are not actually conscious of the point at which their mothers stop patting them when they grow up. Eventually, mothers stop the pat-pat to teach children to self-settle. The move marks an important stage in one’s growth, characterised by the learning of independence—a natural distancing from parents in terms of dependence.   

The pat-pat is not an experience that the grown-up children usually reminisce or harbour feelings of lost towards, as a facet of their childhood. However, it is a symbol of the close intimacy—both physical and emotional—between a mother and child during our childhood; in this phase of our lives, our mothers shower us with attention and affection.

This bond between us and our mothers while we were younger, on the other hand, some of us might feel nostalgic and loss towards. The gradual decrease of dependence on parents is implicated with a corresponding reduce in relational intimacy for some. Going out more often, staying in hostel and getting a room or house of the own, children—older now—see and interact with their parents less and less (while it used to be them wailing for mothers to be by their side 24/7).

Growing up, some of us have grown apart from our mothers.

Even if we do not have a distanced relationship, the mother-and-child bond has most certainly changed from the time our mothers used to pat us to sleep.