Kids take on jobs and downgrade flat to help hawker mum pay $300,000 gambling debt, but she still goes to casinos and is willing to lose up to $5,000 a day. -TNP
Wed, Apr 13, 2011
The New Paper
By Maureen Koh
ON THE third day of Chinese New Year, their mother threatened to kill herself.
The reason: her children had tried to stop her from gambling.
After a two-hour stand-off, the 51-year-old hawker got her way and stalked off to a casino.
By the time she returned 24 hours later, she had lost $7,000.
It was at that point that the pair of siblings gave up all hope of getting their mum, who had racked up debts of more than $300,000, to quit gambling.
At an interview in their four-room HDB flat in Simei, Mr Jayden Liu, 24, told The New Paper: "Now, we can only pray that a miracle happens before we lose her or the roof over our heads."
The accountant recounted the tense incident when his mother went from crying and pleading to lashing out at her children.
When Mr Liu's sister, Jessie, 16, blurted out angrily that they had considered applying for a family exclusion order, their mother went ballistic.
She pulled a stool to the kitchen window and threatened to jump.
Mr Liu said: "We weren't sure if she'd really do it, but we couldn't take the risk.We had lost our father (to cancer) six years ago, we didn't want to lose our mother."
He is worried about Jessie, who will be taking her GCE O-level examinations this year.
"She used to be a bubbly and outgoing girl but in the past year, she has withdrawn into a shell. She doesn't go anywhere after school," he said.
Jessie works part-time at a convenience store on Saturdays to earn pocket money and help pay for her maths tuition.
She took on the job in December to help ease her brother's burden.
She refuses to take money from him, saying: "He should be dating and not taking on another job after office hours and over the weekends."
Mr Liu works part-time as a member of the service staff at a karaoke chain. More than half of his regular $3,900 take-home pay goes towards paying relatives from whom he borrowed money to settle his mother's debts.
He has become the sole breadwinner as Mrs Liu hardly goes to manage her fishball noodles stall nowadays.
He continues to pay the $350 rent even though on most days the stall remains closed. The family had renewed the stall's lease for another two years just before they learnt of Mrs Liu's gambling addiction.
Mr Liu said: "I also have to set aside money in case my mother chalks up more gambling debts."
He is also saving to pay for Jessie's education if she makes it to university.
He had no idea of his mother's addiction until creditors showed up last September. By then, she owed more than $300,000.
She had resorted to borrowing from credit companies to feed her addiction.
Mr Liu, who had just started working then, said: "We were shocked. All the time when she was out, we thought she was either at her stall or playing mahjong."
When he confided in his uncle, he received another shock: His mother had borrowed sums of between $500 and $4,000 from several relatives and friends.
With his uncle's help, Mr Liu managed to raise about $200,000 in loans from relatives to pay off some of his mother's debts.
Another $80,000 came from the profit from the sale of their five-room HDB flat. They downgraded to the four-room flat that they now live in.
The siblings also emptied their bank accounts to repay the rest of the debts.
Their mother promised to quit gambling.
"But they were just empty promises," said Jessie.
"By December, we found out that she was back at the gaming tables."
Each time they broached the issue, their mother would "disappear and not return home, or answer any phone calls".
The desperate siblings explored the possibility of applying for a family exclusion order.
Mr Liu said: "Just when we were contemplating that option came my mother's suicide threat. So, we're now in limbo."
After her suicide threat, Mrs Liu's trips to the casinos became even more frequent.
During the interview on Wednesday, Jessie said: "If you don't believe us, call her now and she'll likely be at either of the two casinos."
She was right. Mrs Liu was at Marina Bay Sands.
She was unhappy that her children had spoken to this reporter, but she didn't refute their claims, except on the sale of the flat.
Mrs Liu said in Mandarin: "It's not exactly true that I was forced to sell the flat. I was planning to do so as we didn't need such a big place."
She denied that she always lost money at the casinos.
"There were days when I won several thousands of dollars," said Mrs Liu, but she conceded that this was "not frequent".
Her biggest single loss was $35,000 and she claimed: "Now I limit myself to $5,000 a day."
'Not their business'
On her children's despair, she said: "I really don't think it's any of their business what I do, even if the creditors come hounding. If they are so unhappy, they can always move out."
What about her suicide threat?
Mrs Liu laughed, then said: "Hah, I only 'puak harng' (threaten in Hokkien). As if I would do it."
Mr Charles Lee, a senior counsellor at Tanjong Pagar Family Service Centre, is not surprised by Mrs Liu's behaviour.
He said: "Normally, when a gambler is in a desperate situation, he will resort to emotional blackmail."
Mr Lee, who is in charge of the problem gambling counselling programme at Tanjong Pagar FSC, said that only trained and experienced counsellors can spot the difference between threat and real intention.
He added: "While no one should take it lightly, most times, the threat could be just a threat."
Mr Lee advised those worried about a loved one's gambling addiction, like the Liu siblings, to seek professional help.
"It's not only gamblers who can come to us. Family members can also approach us for advice and we don't even need the gambler to come along," he said.
"We will coach them on what to look out for, and how to react and respond when confronted with such a scenario."
Mr Lee, who has handled such cases before, added: "Often, we managed to work with the family members to successfully convince the gambler to agree to an exclusion order."
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110412-273231.html
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