Susan Bachtiar

“I enjoy one-on-one time with my son at bedtime”

Model, TV host, actress – Susan Bachtiar has assumed a variety of career roles. Her first calling, however, is shaping impressionable young minds as an English-language teacher.

“People think that I am in the entertainment business so it is what I want, but I feel the real me is when I enjoy time with my students and instill learning in them,” she says.

“They are so pure, naïve and genuine toward you. They can have a hidden agenda, but besides that they talk to you because you are their teacher, not a celebrity … They have such enthusiasm for life. I can really learn from a little person.”

Her finest hour comes at bedtime with her favourite little man, her young son Tristan. They pray and sing lullabies together (in the Indonesian, English and Dutch polyglot the boy is learning), before Susan reads a bedtime story.

“I must be the one who puts him to bed. I ask him what he did during the day, tell him that I am proud of him. If he has done something wrong, give him some “mommy’ advice. It’s our heart-to heart conversation.”