by rossanahead | Mar 8, 2012 | career, children, Education, family, Jing Lejano, parenting, technology, travel, woman
By Jing Lejano
When we started the Smart Super Women blog exactly one year ago, we never thought that we’d play witness to daredevil feats of adventures. We wanted to hear inspiring stories of mothers, daughters, sisters, warriors, peacemakers, intellects, vamps, homemakers, career rats, readers, adventurers, and dreamers who were going through their everyday lives. But we didn’t think that they’d do so with such daring and gumption.
Take the case of Mari-An Santos, a cum laude graduate of the University of the Philippines. We happily read about her trips to Thailand, when she suddenly revealed that she was packing her bags and moving to Romania! She had received a grant to pursue her Master’s degree in that European country. In her latest entry, she writes, “Studying in a foreign land has not only opened my eyes to the reality that I am a citizen of the world, it has made me appreciate my being Filipino all the more. Even as I learn about other peoples, cultures, and places, I have learned to value home even more.”
A collection of personal essays for and by women, the Smart Super Women blog was created to inspire its readers to tackle everyday challenges with courage and to work for the fulfillment of their dreams with conviction.
Most of the contributing writers are working mothers with school-aged children. They discuss such topics as careers and children, literacy and education, family and friends, and the quest for self-improvement. Because the writers contribute on a regular basis, readers have seen them tackle different challenges, resulting in a very interesting read.
There’s newspaper editor Gina Abuyuan, who never got around to traveling alone when she was single, but who finally had the nerve to roam the streets of Chiang Mai all by her lonesome now that she is “older, tougher, not afraid to tell someone off.” Her latest solo trip had her enjoying the sound of waves crashing at a beach side resort in the provinces. Oh, and may we add that she also recently opened a pub together with her life partner and some friends?
Of course, the adventures aren’t always of the adrenaline-pumping kind. Sometimes, we see these women finding epiphany in a cup of coffee shared with friends, in the few hours they sweat it out in the gym, or in the few minutes they spend with their children as they drive them to school.
But whether they’re raising their kids in the Philippines like writer Ruth Floresca, who’s a work-at-home mom to four boys, or juggling their time between career and home in Australia like editor Lyra Pore, who gets up at five in the morning to bring her daughters to the day care center, these women always find creative ways to make every opportunity a learning experience.
Ruth goes on date nights with her sons as a way of catching up with what’s going on in their lives. She writes, “It’s a continuous process, this getting to know one’s children because they grow up so fast and I don’t want to wake up one morning to find out that I don’t know anything about them anymore.”
Lyra Pore Villafana takes swimming lessons as a way of relaxing from the challenges of living an immigrant’s life. “Life overseas is so different to what we’ve all been used to… But doing something for oneself isn’t unique to Asian moms coping with the stresses of building a new life in a different country.”
Maridol Bismark bombards her sons with questions to learn her way in the digital world. She writes, “I work for an online entertainment portal. Every day, I am exposed to words and phrases that are just starting to make sense to me…I feel like a child lost in a newfangled world, groping for a hand to guide me. Fortunately, the hand belongs to the boy who appreciates everything that I’ve done and will still do for him.”
As these women continue on their journey to live, love, and learn in the modern age, Smart Super Women will be right alongside them, watching their every step, hoping to inspire others to live as fearlessly and as brilliantly as they do.
by rossanahead | Jan 31, 2012 | career, children, Education, family, parenting, technology
By Maridol Bismark
How does someone born at a time when computers were still unheard of survive in this techy world? Bombard your child with questions, that’s how.
I work for an online entertainment portal. Every day, I am exposed to words and phrases that are just starting to make sense to me: URL, landing page, sites, chatting, etc. I even get my pay through a system that at first, I couldn’t make heads or tails of: sending a vendor summary form through the magic of Excel.
So I holler at my son, not once, but many times over, and ask him to take a look-see, fast! He looks up reluctantly from his books, rolls his eyes, and does as he is told. It helps that he’s still in school and relies on me for his tuition and daily allowance. In other words, he has no choice. LOL (That’s laugh out loud!)
“Mom, just check what you see on the screen!” He tells me, half-pleading, half-incredulous.
I point to the button that says, “Do not click this Web site.” He clicks it while I watch with bated breath. Voila! The screen starts to respond!
Next, I point to YM (Yahoo messenger) and wail that I can’t see my previous messages. He clicks on the “show recent messages” part and everything appears right before my eyes. I could have kissed his hands right then and there except that he’ll find it corny and laugh his head off.
Why, I can’t even get my pay if not for his know-how of Excel!
Ah, the joys and pay-offs of motherhood!
I hear the same story over and over again from classmates caught in the same situation. This doesn’t only apply to computers but to cellphones as well.
My editor sends me a text: “What’s the model of your cellphone?”
I text back: “Let me ask my son when he comes home from school.”
She replies, “I do that, too!”
I look at my son straight in the eye and say, “What will I do without you?”
I feel like a child lost in a newfangled world, groping for a hand to guide me. Fortunately, the hand belongs to the boy who appreciates everything that I’ve done and will still do for him.
So let the new jargon come, full blast. I will not be afraid. I have my son’s hand to hold when the going gets tough.
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Jan 21, 2012 | children, Education, family, parenting
By Romelda C. Ascutia
Father and son were squatting in front of their gate, hunched over black dots on the ground that as I passed by took on the shape of adorable ducklings.
Children and animals go beautifully together like coffee and cream, and my two sons had their own share of animal bonding while they were growing up.
A long list of pets became transient visitors in our home over the years. During mall visits, a stopover at the Bio Research store was a must for the boys, who wanted to admire all the animals on display. Sometimes my kids would succeed in convincing their parents to make a purchase, promising to take good care of their wards. We were naïve to believe them.
One time we bought hamsters, which came complete with a convoluted cage that had all the works including spinning wheels, tunnels, and turrets. For weeks the boys would rush home from school eager to check on their pets, feed them, caress them, and clean their cage. But as time passed, the boys, with the typical short attention span of children, lost interest and moved on to the next attraction, and I was saddled with the care of the abandoned creatures.
The parade of critters in our house included turtles, tropical fish, and white mice that my kids snuck into school, kept hidden in their breast pockets to be shown to their classmates during recess.
The school was another rich source for acquiring pets. Ambulant vendors outside the school premises would entice the pupils to buy goldfish contained in little plastic bags filled with water. There were also chicks and ordinary brown birds given a makeover and dyed garish pinks and blues and greens. My children never let any of these opportunities to bring a surprise pet home pass.
At one point they brought back ducklings, and had a merry time being trailed everywhere by the baby ducks that had mistaken them for their mothers. Unfortunately, the ducklings would later be accidentally squished underfoot.
Of all the animals they had, my children were most obsessed with, to my dismay, spiders. They used up their school allowance to buy spiders locked inside matchstick boxes. These were not regarded as pets, but as combatants to be placed on broom strands and pitted against the spiders of peers. I was glad when they outgrew that phase.
Two particular pets stand out in my memory. One was a pair of outrageous quails which had the most eardrum-splitting squawk I ever heard. Like roosters with a sore throat, they woke us up in the morning with their hoarse noises, and curious neighbors would come by and ask us what those horrid sounds coming from our house were. We grew fond of those awkward fowl which, sadly, met a horrible end in the jaws of the neighborhood cats after my sons forgot to bring them inside the house one night.
The other unforgettable pets we had were hermit crabs. These creatures were sold by pedestrian vendors then, but recently they have found their way into malls. Their shells have been painted in bright colors or cartoon designs and they come housed in proper cages. Of course, they also carry a much fancier price tag.
Our hermit crabs resided in a cardboard box and were actually a breeze to care for. But when my children got tired of them as usual, the neglected crabs escaped from their box, and I assumed they had died from lack of food. Then one day, like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, I saw a strange form dart from behind the refrigerator. It was a hermit crab. The hardy creature had apparently survived for months scavenging on its own (which probably does not say much about my housecleaning skills).
My kids no longer ask me to buy all sorts of pets for them. But they have learned the valuable lesson of taking responsibility for other living creatures they take under their wing, and they now help me feed and care for our pets. They have also learned to respect the right to life of all animals, and during heavy rain would catch frogs that cross our street to put them back safely in the vacant lot where they came from.
Photo by David Jusko on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Jan 19, 2012 | children, Education, family, parenting
By Maridol Rañoa-Bismark
“What do you like more? High school or college?” I ask my son, who’s on his third year at the university.
“College,” he replies, without missing a beat.
In college, he tells me, you get to meet more people from all walks of life. You also have more freedom, the freedom to choose your teachers, your schedule, and your extra-curricular activities.
If high school is the time to form cliques, then college is the time to widen one’s social circle, and to create as many of those circles as one can. No longer bound to one section, your teenager can hop from one college to another like a butterfly flitting from one flower to the next. He may make friends with schoolmates who are so unlike him, or who come from a province or a country that he has never been to.
I myself am fascinated at the big university my son goes to. When I enter the building, the guard greets me “Good morning,” thinking that I’m a professor. Since my age and eyeglasses allow me to assume another identity, I get to enter different school buildings and walk through an ongoing exhibit or diorama. Why, I even get to know about job openings for students. They’re posted all over the bulletin board!
Another big bonus: finding out what events my son has signed up for the month, at least we have something to talk about at the end of the day.
I pepper him with questions: Did you find the career talk useful? Are you joining the college fair? Did you meet anybody interesting in the outreach program?
It’s a great way to bond with somebody who’s turning out to be harder and harder to catch up with.
School activities are generally safe subjects to discuss; he won’t recoil when I ask about them. Sometimes, when I’m feeling lucky, I segue to more delicate matters like grades, teachers, and girls. I step on the brakes when he suddenly turns quiet or starts answering my questions with a standard, “It’s okay.”
It’s his way of saying, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I’ll just try another day. He’ll ask for my opinion when he needs it.
For now, I enjoy the sights and sounds of the university. I walk around the campus that it is my child’s second home and try to see it through his eyes. And here’s what I saw: all these young happy people, eager to learn, eager to grow, and excited about all their tomorrows. I am instantly filled with joy and say to myself, “Wish I were in college too!”
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
by rossanahead | Jan 11, 2012 | children, family, parenting, woman
By Tina Arceo-Dumlao
Some popular movies, songs, and television shows would have us believe that marriage is a fate almost worse than death, often referred to as a trap, the end of the happy life or a one-way ticket to endless misery. But marriage can be the exact opposite, believe it or not.
Instead of a trap, marriage can free us to become better people. It may be the end of the carefree life but also the beginning of a more meaningful and fulfilling existence. If you decide to have children and become parents, it adds another dimension to your relationship. Instead of misery, marriage can indeed lead us to our real destiny on earth, the reason for our being.
Last Dec. 11, 2011, my husband and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary and we like to believe that we are as happy now as we were that day in 1993 when we became man and wife in the eyes of God, if not more.
And so the young and restless colleagues and friends who are about to get married ask me, how do you keep the marriage happy and fulfilling?
Here are a few tips based on what worked for me these past years.
Pick your battles. Not everything is worth fighting over just so you can say you’ve ‘won’ an argument. Fight for the big decisions you really believe in such as what kind of a parent you’d like to be or where you’d like your children to go to school, for instance, and just agree to disagree on others. You win some, you lose some. Compromise is at the heart of any working marriage.
Decide on money matters as early as possible. Assuming that both of you work, it is best to have separate individual accounts and then maybe a joint account for joint expenses. You’ve earned your money, so you’ve certainly earned the right to spend it the way you wish. But of course, agree to share in big expenses, just so you won’t end up paying for everything yourself while your spouse spends on luxuries.
Fix the schedule for the holidays. One of the major sources of heartaches is the holiday schedule. Talk about where you want the family to spend Christmas and New Year’s or even Sunday lunches or dinners. Once that’s fixed, there will be less haggling over where to spend these important dates, and less whining over “but we always go to your family.”
Respect ‘alone’ time. It’s not healthy for any relationship – even marriage – to be perpetually in each other’s pockets. We are individuals, after all, with needs and wants that cannot always be met by your spouse. So go out with friends, have a weekend alone, or just go somewhere you can recharge. It’s not a crime. Remember, there is a you, there is a he or she and there is an us.
Don’t try to change your spouse. We all have our quirks: some are annoying, some are cute. Don’t try to get rid of each and every one of them just to fit your notion of what a spouse should be. Nobody is perfect. Not even you, so don’t expect your spouse to be perfect. I always tell the romantics out there, if you were annoyed by one habit before you got married, chances are you will still be annoyed years later. So can you take it?
Lastly, share loads of laughter. There’s nothing like laughter to cure any ills in a relationship. I always say, if you can laugh about practically anything and everything with your husband or wife, then you’re on your way to a fulfilling journey together that will hopefully last as long as you both shall live.
Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash
