by rossanahead | Apr 23, 2011 | children, Education, family, Gina Abuyuan, parenting, woman
By Gina Abuyuan
Many people find it strange—nay, downright unbelievable—that my ex-husband and I are on good terms. As I wrote in one of my old magazines, it’s almost impossible to salvage positive feelings about a person who has caused you unimaginable pain.
For a time, even my fiancé, believing that it would be in my best interest, thought I should cut off all ties with my ex-husband.
It’s impossible, of course, considering we have twin boys between us, and I’d like him to be a part of the twins’ lives and vice versa. Besides, there’s the practical stuff like tuition fees, medical expenses, and extra-curricular activities to discuss—so wouldn’t things be easier if everyone just got along nicely?
I quote Brooke Burke of ModernMom.com when she talks of her own relationship with her ex: “We decided to take the high road for the kids.”
Two years ago, I coined a term for this sort of relationship: “co-parenting.” Does everyone believe in this? No. Is it for everyone? No. But if you’d like to try and make things easier for you, your ex-spouse, and your kids, here are three jump off points:
Get third party help. Both of you should see a psychologist, therapist, counselor, or join a self-development workshop or seminar (don’t get addicted, though, or else the seminars will drive your life, and leave you dependent and disempowered). I recommend Bicbic Medez of the RCW Foundation (which also has short courses on re-grouping and getting clear on where you want to take your life). Call (2) 436-0710 or 426-6832or visit www.rcwfi.org for more details. Maribel Dionisio of The Love Institute (loveinstitute.multiply.com) can also help. As the organization’s name connotes, it helps couples and families heal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll try to get you and your ex back together. Just be honest and open about what kind of relationship you’d like to re-create.
Take charge of the transformation. The real change has to come from within you. My ex-husband and I had countless fights and misunderstandings before achieving this sense of harmony and peace. Those blow-ups began because we felt the other was over-stepping boundaries, assuming the worst of the other, and thinking the one “should’ve known” or “should’ve known better.” Remember, the issues you’re supposed to be focusing on now aren’t about the two of you: they’re about your kids. Let me be extreme about it: Talk like you’re talking business, but learn to negotiate nicely. Get sticky issues like expenses, schooling, schedules/holidays out of the way. But learn to be flexible too.
Agree on the non-negotiables. Here are some things you can let slide: what foods they’ll eat, what they wear, what sports they take up. Here are some of the things my ex-husband and I will not budge on: a holistic, exceptional education and life experiences, their freedom to explore their spirituality later on, addressing immediately any circumstance or individual that hurts them (e.g., on two occasions, I let go of two drivers, on the spot, within minutes of learning they made my kids cry—the first, by driving too fast and the second, by cracking a cruel joke. I didn’t even allow them back in the house or subdivision to pack up their things). Harsh? Maybe. But we want to reassure them that though Mommy and Tatay are no longer married, we’re still part of the same team when it comes to them.
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 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 7, 2011 | family, Gina Abuyuan, parenting, woman
By Gina Abuyuan
It started mid-last year, me taking my daughter to the mall, allowing her and her friends to walk around without me or other parents chaperoning them. I’d sit by myself in a coffee shop armed with my laptop and a grandé, trying to look cool. But each time they’d rush by—a gaggle of adolescent girls, their male companions ambling awkwardly after them—I’d shoot straight up, my neck craning, try to see what they were up to, what they were doing.
My partner, who spent two years overseas and did not see the more gentle parts of this transition—from playdates to Mom-daughter dates to barkada dates—still feels a little crestfallen when S asks him to drive her to this mall and that. “May sarili nang lakad,” he says, his mouth in an upside-down U. “I never thought this day would come, and that I’d feel this way.”
But who ever is? I spent the majority of my time away from my boys until only last year, due to a variety of (stupid) reasons—too much work, too much partying, too many problems in my love life—and now, not only do I regret it, I find myself trying to make up for lost time by squeezing every possible iota of cuteness out of them while it still exists. But they’re already seven. Pretty soon, they’ll have to get circumcised, want their own time away from Mommy, and will be reminding me to buy extra razors. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that.
Some parents don’t want to let go because of sheer over-protectiveness. I don’t think that’s the case with me. No one wants their children hurt or harmed, but disappointment and pain is a way of life, and shapes character.
Some don’t want to let go because, to put it simply, they don’t trust their kids. They believe Mom/Dad knows best, and that kids will never be able to take care of themselves on their own. This isn’t the case with me either; a huge part of a parent’s role is to bring up their child/children so they be self-sufficient, are equipped with the smarts and skills to deal with difficulties and live life the best way they want to. Any action or belief contrary to that is disempowering and unfair to the child—and the parent.
So what has me still mulling over S and her teenage shows of independence? What is it that has me poised breathless, almost on the brink of fear? Maybe it’s the thought of her leaving me. Maybe it’s the thought of her choosing her friends, and eventually, her boyfriends and spouse over me. I’ve gone through the cycle. I’ve got good reason to be afraid, haha.
Of course, I know I’m getting ahead of myself more than a decade here, but still. You get to think about a whole lot of junk while you’re sitting in a café, nursing a grandé.
by rossanahead | Apr 5, 2011 | family, parenting, Ruth M. Floresca, woman
By Ruth Floresca
Just last night, at a movie premiere where I brought my youngest son with me, some friends teased, “Pabata ng pabata ang mga ka-date mo ah.” (“Your dates are getting younger and younger.”) We all laughed at the joke because I’ve just “dated” my eldest son at another movie premiere a couple of weeks ago while my second son accompanied me to the press preview of a theater play last week.
As much as possible, I try to take time to bond with my boys, including hubby, one at a time at least once or twice a month, or more, if time and budget permits. See, I am guilty of getting caught up almost every day with writing deadlines and house chores that I don’t get to talk to them as much as I’d like to.
But when we’re traveling on the way to and from our dates, I am able to catch up on what’s happening with them and get to know each young man better. 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.
Thus, I am very grateful for those moments we are given pockets of time to bond. My kids do sometimes protest that they’d rather stay at home and watch DVDs or catch up with friends on Facebook. But I do hope that when they’re all grown up and have families of their own, they’ll remember those instances when they had a great time laughing with their mother during a hilarious play or movie; eating a new dish they got to try the first time we ate at a restaurant we’ve never been to before; or getting lost because we rode the wrong jeepney and hilariously panicked together because it was nearing midnight and we had no idea how we’ll get to our destination.
Someday, I’m sure I’ll also look back at those moments and have a great time remembering …
