How often do we refer to our mothers as our best friend – or rather, “one of the bros”? For Cassandra See, her son does.
The local actress appeared as a guest on the YouTube talk show DNA uploaded on April 2, sharing in detail to host Rebecca Lim about her bond with her 25-year-old son Lukas for the first time.
In a discussion about spending time with friends and parents, local actress Rebecca, 39, asked Lukas: “Are you the only one in your whole friend group who still hangs out with your mum?”
Citing his friends – who include Zheng Geping’s son Calvert, Pan Lingling’s son Beckham and Guo Liang’s son Marcus – he said: “Yeah, I’d say they don’t really have a close relationship [with their mums to this extent]. When we were growing up and I was doing all that, I thought that it was common for mother and son to be like this.”
The talk show focuses on honest conversations between well-known figures in local showbiz and their children about family, upbringing and life with public attention. Previous guests include Zhu Houren and his son Joel Choo, as well as Xiang Yun and her daughter Chen Yixin, all of whom are actors.
While many teenagers go through a phase of detachment from their parents, Lukas said he never experienced such a thing, always enjoying his hangouts with the 55-year-old.
“I always see her more like a bro, or like a sister,” he explained. “It’s easy to talk to her about my relationships and everything.”
With his consent, Cassandra revealed that he had freshly broken up with his girlfriend of four years, resulting in long talks between mother and son up till two in the morning.
Giving advice to young parents seeking a relationship like theirs, Lukas said: “Don’t see your mum as an educator, but rather as a friend. At the end of the day, whatever happens in the world, the only ones that will be there are your parents. So it’s good to have a kind of relationship where you’re close.”
Upon saying this, Cassandra soothed his upper arm dotingly and cooed: “Good son.”
She admitted to exhibiting the same level of affection even in front of his girlfriends, which prompted Rebecca to ask – had Lukas’ previous partners ever questioned his tight bond with his mum?
“Yeah, some get quite upset,” he confessed.
‘When people see things, they guess and make assumptions’
Lukas introduced himself as a brand manager of various alcohol brands in Singapore, a vast difference from his mother’s field of work.
“Has your mum ever encouraged you to enter the entertainment industry?” asked Rebecca. Cassandra immediately confirmed that she had never done so, even going so far as to say that Lukas isn’t suitable for the competitive space.
She explained: “Not everybody can be an actress or actor, you know what I’m saying?”
When Rebecca countered that he’d “won half the battle” of having what it takes to be an actor, Cassandra said that he couldn’t sing, even jesting that she was the better singer between them.
When asked at what age he realised his mum was a public figure, Lukas said: “Very young, because I always saw her shows. I knew that she was very popular in Singapore and even when we were together in Hong Kong, she would also get noticed sometimes.”
He pointed out one incident there where he had been trying to grow a mustache and while walking to a supermarket, someone mistook him and Cassandra for a couple instead.
“I get a lot of these because we’re public figures, so when people see things, they guess and make assumptions,” lamented Cassandra, who remarked she didn’t “really” miss that part of showbiz.
‘Messed up as a mother’
Even with such a picture-perfect relationship, Cassandra and Lukas have seen their own troubles, including one incident where the former felt she “messed up as a mother”.
When Lukas was four, she had asked him to bring her new laptop from up the staircase but after fidgeting around, he ended up dropping and breaking it as a result. Angered, she asked him why he had done that and slapped him across the face.
Cassandra recalled: “One day, when we were having a talk, he said, ‘Mum, do you remember that you slapped me and I remember what you did?’ Let me tell you, my heart was like, ‘Oh no, he remembers’ – I thought he’d forgotten.
“I apologised to him and said, ‘I’m so sorry, can you forgive me?’, then he said yes and we were good again.”
Altogether, how did Cassandra cultivate such a relationship with her son throughout the years? She detailed: “For young parents, maybe when your kid is about three to four years old and they start to talk, you can bring them into your life.
“When Lukas was very young, I would share with him about my problems and tell him about random things, like ‘I went to work and this is what I experienced – what do you think? Do you think you can help Mummy to think of a solution?'”
Even if she felt that his solutions were unrefined, given his young age, she would praise him and say that she would take them on, encouraging him to share more as he grew older.
“He would start sharing [about his own issues] because he thinks it’s very common that we’re talking about our problems,” she added.
Cassandra entered showbiz in 1990 through Mediacorp’s Star Search competition, where she was crowned Most Charismatic. She starred in numerous Channel 8 dramas until 2000, where she left to focus on her personal life. Lukas is her only child from her marriage to a German, whom she divorced in 2003.
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