We saw this sign at a construction site. I think it was an MRT excavation site.
It all makes sense now – “Safety first for our prosperity”. Safety’s good for business. Doesn’t slow things down. Like when the highway caves in, or when cranes collapse. Nothing to do with the lives of the workers, who get ferried to and from work on very dangerous modes of transport anyway.
Today, while helping Naomi’s mum shop for things at IKEA Tampines (honest, we only bought two, three things for ourselves), I realised this problem was endemic. People simply don’t care about their kids’ safety.
Kids were simply running amok today (that sounds like an IKEA product too, “amok”), pushing each other in the trolleys and tearing down the aisles of the self serve areas where people were struggling to load shelves and other things on their trolleys. You might think it cute to hear little feet pitter pattering about, but it won’t be so cute when they go pitter patter pitter splatter.
Plus, being a Saturday, there were thousands of people there, several hundreds more than there were at the Singapore International Film Festival’s opening at Lido the night before. So, as you can imagine, it really was quite dangerous for the little ones to be running around.
So, this is what I want to say to parents of young children in Singapore:
If you really have to bring your young kids to IKEA for some reason or other (they can’t really be helping you carry your Fakum glasses and Rektum vases), keep them close to you.
Don’t let them run around where large boxes of unassembled Epileptik lights or Hemoroyt sofas can fall on their heads.
It’s ok if you want your kids to grow up as dumb as you. But it’s not fair for them to grow up dead. It’s not their fault because they don’t know better because they’re kids.
So please. Safety first, for yours and your kids’ lives. Can?
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