Henry Thia, Who Has 3 Daughters, Wanted More Kids 'Cos He Was Disappointed About Not Having A Son
The 69-year-old comedian said he used to value sons more than daughters but would later realise the error of his ways.
In a recent appearance on LOVE 972’s Breakfast Quartet show, comedian Henry Thia revealed that just how strict a dad he is.
The 69-year-old was a guest on the radio show's Father’s Day special where the four hosts — Chen Biyu, Dennis Chew, Marcus Chin and Mark Lee — chat with celeb dads about fatherhood.
But before he talked about his parenting methods, Henry, who has three daughters, admitted that he really wanted a son in the past.
Like many traditional and old-fashioned Chinese parents, he valued sons more highly than daughters.
“I used to want a son and [my reaction to my first child was] ‘Aiyoh, a girl. Let’s have another child’,” Henry said. “[But now I've realised that] it doesn’t matter if you have a daughter or a son. What matters is how you bring the child up.”
And Henry took his role as a father very seriously.
When Henry started out in showbiz, he was already a father of three. At that time, he was working in a factory and was a cast member on massively popular '90s Mediacorp variety show Comedy Night, where he was paid $25 for every episode.
With his income, he struggled to support his family.
“When I got married, my dad gave [my wife] a bracelet. We pawned that and all our jewelry. When we heard that we could sell our pawn tickets, we sold those too," said Henry.
This pic of Henry's family was taken last year
Mark then asked Henry why he didn’t approach his friends for financial help. Henry explained: “I’ve never relied on anyone in my entire life. I didn't want to find trouble, and I didn’t want to ask for too much. People have asked me why I don’t want to move into a condo. Then I ask them in return, ‘What for? I have a perfectly good [HDB flat] to live in’.”
When his daughters were younger, Henry was very serious about their safety and he bought each of them a pager to keep track of their whereabouts.
"[Even though] I was busy with work, I wanted to know when or if they were going out. They’d send me an ‘I’ if they were back in the house, and an ‘O’ if they were heading out (…) They had a 10pm curfew, but I’d allow them to go out at night if they wanted to. I’d ride my motorbike to wherever they were and pick them up," said Henry.
When any of his daughters behaved badly or rebelled against him, he’d whip out the cane.
“Our toilets used to have aluminium doors," recalled Henry, laughing. "When I took out the cane to discipline them, they would run into the toilet to hide. But I would remove the entire door by taking out the pins that were used to hold it in place (…) The sound of the cane hitting the aluminium door was really loud, so they were really afraid.”
These days, he's happy being a doting grandfather
Photos: Henry Thia's Facebook
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