by rossanahead | Apr 23, 2011 | children, family, Mari-an Santos, Uncategorized, woman
By Mari-An C. Santos
My mother turned 60 last month. But looking at her, you wouldn’t have guessed it. Her hair is still jet black and her face hardly has any wrinkles. Her voice is clear and she walks with sure-footed steps. I usually associate 60-year-olds with grandmothers. But my mother is not a grandmother. (Don’t remind her though–she might decide to take it up with me and my sister.) She is a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, aunt.
Everyone says we look alike. I always say I got my looks from her but my temperament from my father.
Mama always worries about what to cook for the next meal, that I have a complete first aid kit for my trip, and that our balikbayan relatives have everything they need. Whenever I come home to Manila, we always have these long mother-daughter talks. Aside from telling me about the interesting things that happened around the household, she tells me about her past. That’s how I found out about the time when she went up to Baguio all by herself to meet my father. But since they didn’t talk about where and when they’d meet, Mama had to go to different places until they finally, literally, found each other.
She told me about the first time she came to Manila all the way from Zamboanga. Mama was a nurse and had come to the “big, bad city” to work. Save for her older sister, she did not know anyone in Manila. She stayed at a boarding house and worked the graveyard shift at a small hospital, treating people at odd hours for the most bizarre injuries.
These were revelations to me. My mother, who’s usually escorted by my father, commuting a very long distance for an undetermined date? My mother, who’s always with someone, alone?
I’ve known my mother all my life but it seems that I do not really know her. Listening to her stories, I realized that we have a lot more in common than I had previously thought.
I look forward to many more years of getting to know my Mama better.
by rossanahead | Apr 20, 2011 | children, Education, family, Karen Galarpe, parenting
By Karen Galarpe
Walking into my room one time, a friend said, “Do you read all these books?”
And one time, my aunt came in, looked at my son’s bookshelf and said, “Ang dami niyang libro ‘no?”
We’re a family of readers, my son and I, and have been so for as long as I can remember.
Growing up, I buried my nose in books during vacations, and during school season, I would be in the school library almost every day. I felt a certain kind of high filling out my library card for the year in just a few months, and requesting a crisp new one to last me the next 3 months.
My books of choice when I was growing up were varied: fairy tales in the early grades, then Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins later on.
By the time I was in high school, I was into Sweet Dreams, Sweet Valley High, Mills and Boon, even Barbara Cartland romances. But my mom said I should read better stuff, so I shifted to John Steinbeck and books about the Holocaust and the Nazis.
The reading bug continued to bite me while in college, and today, I have to read a book every day no matter how busy I am. Sometimes, just 10 to 15 minutes a day, or a chapter, would do. Having an hour to read is bliss to me.
My reading choices today have become wider: from parenting and personal finance to history, fiction, Christian living, psychology, food, arts, et cetera.
With my son, I have started reading to him while he was still in my tummy. As a baby, he would look at the images I would point out at the board books we would read every day. It also became a ritual for us to read a storybook at night before he went to sleep.
Among the books we would read over and over again when he was small were “Ang Ambisyosong Istetoskop” by Luis Gatmaitan, a story about Jose Rizal’s stethoscope; a book on American presidents; a book series about Lego toys; an atlas; and so much more.
Today, his books have gone more eclectic, from “1984” by George Orwell to books about politics, history, cars, and manga.
To make your child enjoy reading, you have to enjoy reading yourself. When a child sees how much joy you derive at reading and learning, he will gravitate to reading himself. And as Dr. Seuss said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
by rossanahead | Apr 19, 2011 | parenting, Ruth M. Floresca
By Ruth M. Floresca
We live in modern times. Despite being labeled as a third world country, the Philippines cannot be said to be behind other countries in terms of technology and lots of other things. In fact, if we look around, there are so many indications that we are not as backward as people of other nations might think.
Unfortunately, as we continue to travel the path towards modernization and, if I may add, sought-after sophistication, many Filipinos barely notice how much we are going farther away from things that should matter. I’m talking about culture, particularly, Filipino values.
It saddens me these days to see and hear young people scarcely showing respect to others, especially their elders. I grew up in the province and was thoroughly instilled with the importance of family ties, saying “po” and “opo,” and speaking in deferential tones when conversing with older people.
My husband and I are doing our best to raise our kids the same way. Thankfully, most of the things we keep teaching them seem to be sticking. If they sometimes forget, they get reprimanded and reminded. Truthfully, if there was one thing I would hate hearing about my kids is that they were not raised to practice good manners. On the other hand, I’d usually get surprised and mildly offended whenever some of their friends or classmates address me like a peer with matching authoritative tones to boot. I have to admit that there were times I imagined washing their mouths with soap if I could.
I understand that there are parents who believe in equality and mutual respect. Well, when I got married and had kids of my own, I saw my relationship with my parents veer in that direction. But I don’t think that kind of association can be, nor should be, applied yet to parents and very young children.
Many foreign and local TV shows, music, and movies don’t help. Young people nowadays are bombarded left and right with role models who are not very good examples to begin with. Which is why we parents should doubly focus on correctly teaching our kids who and what to believe in.
We Filipinos are known for our hospitable nature. But I hope that we can also become known as a people who are raising children who don’t talk insolently to adults as if they have every right to do so; children who’d rather be with their families instead of bonding with their friends majority of the time; and children whom other parents would speak well of for being raised properly.
In her book “Anything We Love Can Be Saved,” author Alice Walker writes about soul nurture as “that infusion of spiritual carrots and spinach that one’s own culture can give, and that the dominant culture under which we live cannot.”
To those of us who proudly say we are Filipinos, whether we still reside in the Philippines or have chosen to live in another land; whatever outside influences have come into this country and into our lives; however Americanized (or Europeanized, etc.) many of us have become; and whether we allow these factors to seep into every facet of our being or not; I hope we can all continue to strive to keep intact what good Filipino values we intrinsically have and treasure them because they are, to begin with, part of who we are.
by rossanahead | Apr 17, 2011 | career, children, Gina Abuyuan, parenting, woman
By Gina Abuyuan
I would probably now own a Mac Air, have a year’s worth of rent paid, and a lilac Gucci handbag made of the most sublime, buttery leather if I were paid a peso every time I’ve been told/asked:
* “I-feature mo naman ako,” (“Can you do a feature on me?”) when people learn I edit a magazine (well, when I did);
* “Masakit?” (“Did it hurt?”) when they see the tattoo on my wrist; and
* “May lahi kayo?” (“Is it in your genes?”) when people learn I have twins.
And I would probably be now driven around in a mini-van if I gave myself a peso every time I promised myself: “I will not get dramatic about my being a working mom”—and broke it.
Don’t get me wrong—I love being a working mother. I love the adrenaline and challenge it gives me; I love being paid for what I love to do. But sometimes, the stress gets the better of me. I retreat into my selfish, self-centered world and resent the fact that other people (my sister, for instance, who I love dearly, again please don’t get me wrong) have got it easy: their husbands bring home bacon (a full slab at that!), all they’ve got to worry about is the kids’ baon, bring them to and pick them up from school, and make sure dinner is ready when hubby arrives.
But is it really that easy? I once was left sans yaya, when my twin boys were still babies, and a whole day taking care of them left me more sapped than 48 hours putting my then-magazine to bed. I marvel at the energy of my partner’s ex-wife, B, who’s chosen to be a homemaker to her current husband and two daughters. She’s up at dawn, cooks the family’s meals, drives the kids to school, hangs out in the mall while waiting for them to get out of class, drives them back home, takes care of her husband, and drives them to extracurricular activities during the weekends.
One time, when we were corresponding about her son’s schooling and she had missed an e-mail or two, she was profuse in her apologies. She was so busy, she said, but probably not as busy as I was, an editor. I stopped her right there. No way, I told her. It’s OK. Nothing can be busier than a full-time mom and homemaker.
So, yes, I do get emotionally frayed sometimes, especially when deadlines are piling up, editorial assistants are calling, and texting non-stop to follow up on stories, book clients are asking (“but no pressure! Just asking!”) if the copy is ready, and public relations practitioners are requesting for interviews “at the most convenient time.”
But, as I remind myself, that just like B and my sister, I made a choice. I made a choice to be a working mother. Not just a 9 to 5 pencil-pusher, mind you, but the type of worker who needs to hustle and have the ability to speak/write/understand different voices. Sure, I can un-make that choice, but that will mean going against who I am, what I was meant to do, and what I’m happy doing–occasional dramatics notwithstanding.
by rossanahead | Apr 17, 2011 | Jing Lejano, woman
By Jing Lejano
Every so often, my sister M and I would have these marathon phone sessions. She lives in Canada, you see, and we try to squeeze in several months of our lives into several minutes of talk. Our last conversation was a wild one and peppered with much laughter.
While talking about the many shades of dating these days (casual, complicated, what-have-you), M blurted out, “Hindi na ko cool!” (“I’m not cool anymore!”) I replied right back, “Matagal na tayong hindi cool!” (“We haven’t been cool for a long time!”)
I’ve never been cool to begin with, if your definition of cool is an au courant hipster. I’ve always seen myself as some kind of geeky cowboy. My sister M, however, is “cool.” She will forever be an artist with that “tortured soul” vibe about her.
When I became a mom, however, I was suddenly cool. When I get to meet my children’s friends, they’ll always tell me afterwards that their friends thought I was cool. Huh? Me? Cool?!
Is it because I knew how to take care of myself while the mommies of my kids’ friends started going losyang? Or is it because I was open to the idea of them participating in field trips, going on parties, or meeting up with friends? Or is it because I still liked hanging out with my kids? Or is it because I talk with their friends?
Maybe it’s all of the above or maybe it’s none of the above. But one thing’s for sure, I chilled out a bit because of all the things I learned from having kids. And I’m not just talking about their taste in music, which I make a point to listen to, or their sense of fashion, which I always take note of, or their passion for games, which I occasionally try to play.
No, I chilled out because I learned to relax. The obsessive-compulsive in me learned to let go because, really, how can you control everything when you have four different lives to think of? You can’t. And so I rock, and so I roll, and at the end of the day, I can sleep with my sanity intact to face another exciting tomorrow.
