13/12/2025

SATURDAY | DEC 13, 2025

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Memories need no cash, just laughter S CHOOL holidays used to be beautifully simple. You knew they had arrived when neighbourhood kids gathered And to top it all up, the house air cond dies and the washing machine malfunctions out of spite. Before you know it, your “school holiday budget” has become “survival mode”.

at the taman playground by 8am – barefoot, hair messy and already sweating buckets. The only “entrance fee” was your mother shouting, “Don’t go far from the gate!” If you were lucky, someone’s parent would magically appear with a big blue cooler and pour Milo ais into plastic cups. Sometimes, it was Fanta Strawberry or Coca-Cola (that’s what it used to be called) and that alone felt like a luxury outing. And that was it – the whole itinerary. Fast-forward to today, where a school holiday can feel like a mini financial crisis. The moment December Usually, it’s just a room filled with foam blocks, noise and exhaustion. Add two kids and the weekend slot, and suddenly you are questioning your entire life path. For parents like me – with one non-verbal autistic daughter and one 10-year-old son who just wants to follow whatever the world is doing – the pressure hits even harder. My son asks, very politely, “Ma, do we have any holiday plans?” And my daughter, who communicates in her own ways, thrives on routine and calm. But everywhere around us, the message is the same: if you don’t take your kids out for a paid activity, you are failing them. Maybe it’s just me but December feels like the most expensive month in the Malaysian calendar. Car insurance, road tax, full service, tyres that somehow all go botak at the same time – and of course, no bonus. H I P O T T U B Y H A S rolls in, your phone starts buzzing with “Holiday Activities for Kids!” promos – each one costing at least RM60 per child for 45 minutes of something branded as “edutainment”.

But school holidays used to be cheap. Our parents didn’t bring us to RM98 “decorate your own cupcake” workshops (with a RM20 top-up for sprinkles). They just sent us outside. We ran, cycled, climbed, got bitten by mosquitoes and made mud cakes behind the house. Our enrichment centre was called “ main luar, balik sebelum maghrib ”. The truth is, childhood joy used to be effortlessly accessible. It didn’t require tickets, online booking slots or a marketing team calling it “play based learning”. It also didn’t require parents to perform or compete. Today, we’re bombarded with curated Instagram holiday schedules – baking classes, trampoline parks, pottery sessions and kids’ gyms – and P O I N T Malaysian parents are too shy to admit: a lot of us simply cannot afford these so-called “normal” holiday activities anymore. Between rising food prices, stagnant wages and the cost-of-living squeeze, even the simplest family outing can cross RM100 without you realising it. Parking, tolls, fuel, snacks, drinks – and that is before you have even paid for the actual activity. The pressure is real and it’s not just financial; it’s emotional, it’s guilt. We want to give our kids good memories but modern parenting insists that “good memories” must be paid for – preferably with a QR code. Whenever I scroll online and see other families doing big holiday outings, a small voice creeps in: Am I A V I S H T R I suddenly our own quiet, simple holidays feel not enough. Here is something many

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Children don’t need curated memories; they need presence, attention and, most importantly, they need us - even if all we can offer is a walk at the playground and a cold drink in hand. – BERNAMAPIC

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need for evidence-based criminal justice policy that distinguishes between harm and morality, strengthens procedural safeguards and supports enforcement agencies with clear legal frameworks. The judiciary’s insistence on proper legal justifications, combined with the police chief’s transparent acknowledgement of the evidentiary limits, demonstrates that Malaysia’s institutional actors can work in alignment with constitutional principles. Upholding these safeguards ensures that policing remains effective, fair and rights-compliant, reinforcing public trust in the criminal justice system and affirming the central role of the law in governing state power. DrHaezreena Begum Abdul Hamid is a criminologist and senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com Children don’t need curated memories; they need presence, attention and, most importantly, they need us – even if all we can offer is a walk at the playground and a cold drink in hand. I’m reminding myself of this too: that my daughter’s happiness doesn’t need to mirror anyone else’s, that my son doesn’t need a theme-park schedule to feel loved and that the Malaysian struggle is real. Sometimes, the bravest thing a parent can do is to simply keep going. School holidays used to be cheap but if we allow ourselves, they still can be. HashiniKavishtri Kannan is the assistant news editor at theSun. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

required RM60 tickets. The truth is, Malaysian childhood has always thrived on simplicity. Ask any adult and their happiest memories rarely involve money; they involve people, sounds and smells: the roti man, the kacang putih uncle, the ice cream motorbike bell, the playground slide that was always too hot, the banjir puddle everyone was forbidden from jumping into (but still did). So, maybe the issue isn’t that school holidays have become expensive; maybe the issue is that we have forgotten that free joy still exists. If you can afford the fancy outings, wonderful, enjoy them. But if you can’t or if December has hit you with every possible bill and breakdown, don’t let guilt convince you that you’re providing “less”.

doing enough? Are my kids missing out? With my daughter, I want her to experience joy in her own way, safely and calmly. With my son, I want him to feel seen and heard, even when December has drained me to my last sen. But I have realised something important: Children don’t measure joy the way adults do; we are the ones overthinking it. My kids have been happiest doing the cheapest things: My son helping me bake orange cake, proudly announcing he “made 90% of it”, my daughter pouring water from one cup to another over and over again, smiling every time she gets it right and both of them running around at the local playground while I sit on the bench pretending the humidity doesn’t bother me. None of that

COMMENT by Dr Haezreena Begum Abdul Hamid

When morality meets law, the Constitution must prevail THE recent moral raids have sparked wide public discussion, not only about the policing of “immoral activities” but, more importantly, about the legal safeguards that must govern any deprivation of liberty in Malaysia. The recent case, in which 171 individuals were arrested during a moral raid but subsequently presented before the court for remand consideration, offered a clear demonstration of judicial independence and restraint. by the enforcement leadership. The Kuala Lumpur chief of police’s acknowledgement that the evidence was insufficient demonstrates professionalism and a clear regimes can create uncertainty about what constitutes an offence and who has jurisdiction.

Criminological studies of plural legal systems show that this overlap can lead to inconsistent outcomes and differential treatment of communities, making the constitutional role of the courts and the commitment of enforcement agencies to legal thresholds all the more important. International developments similarly reinforce the value of grounding criminal justice in harm based principles. Jurisdictions such as India, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada and the UK have reformed or abolished offences relating to consensual adult intimacy, recognising that criminal law should intervene only where real harm or exploitation exists. These reforms reflect global trends in aligning criminal justice systems with human rights norms, proportionality and contemporary social values. The recent events highlight the

understanding of the legal threshold required before continued detention can be justified. His openness about the lack of evidence reflects a commendable adherence to the rule of law and reinforces public confidence that enforcement decisions are guided by legality rather than pressure to pursue punitive outcomes. This clarity from the police chief is crucial in ensuring that operations are aligned with constitutional standards, and it signals a willingness to uphold due process even in sensitive or high visibility cases. Malaysia’s plural legal landscape, where secular criminal law intersects with religious morality-based enforcement, heightens the need for constitutional and procedural safeguards. Overlapping enforcement

Situations involving large-scale operations can easily blur the line between consensual private conduct and criminal wrongdoing, particularly when enforcement relies on confessions or an “admission of victimhood” to establish an offence. These complexities highlight why constitutional protections and judicial oversight are indispensable components of the criminal justice process. Articles 5 and 8 of the Federal Constitution guarantee fundamental liberties and equality before the law, ensuring that the criminal process is driven not by moral pressure or public sentiment but by legality, proportionality and evidence. It is in moments of heightened public attention that the judiciary’s role becomes visible and most crucial.

The magistrate’s decision not to mechanically endorse a remand order and instead scrutinise whether the legal threshold had genuinely been met reflects exemplary judicial professionalism. By insisting on sufficient grounds before allowing further deprivation of liberty, the magistrate upheld the Constitution, the Criminal Procedure Code and the broader principle that justice must never be carried out on assumption alone. This careful and principled exercise of judicial discretion sends a strong signal that the courts will act as a robust safeguard against overreach, regardless of the nature of the case or the pressures surrounding it. Equally important is the role played