By Jing Lejano

On the way home with V the other night, she asked, “You don’t wake your kids up in the morning?” “No.” “Who wakes them up? “They wake up by themselves.” “Who makes their breakfast?” “They’re old enough to make their own breakfast.”

V gave me a look of utter surprise, as if I belonged to some other planet. She goes on to tell me that her mom still wakes her up in the mornings and fixes everybody breakfast. V is in her twenties.

D, who is in his thirties, also once told me that his mother makes sure that breakfast is ready for everybody. And I gave him a look of utter surprise, as if he belonged to some other planet.

Well, apparently, I am the one who belongs to a galaxy far, far away.

I don’t wake my kids up in the morning, but I can stay up with them all night. I don’t do breakfast, but I can cook Lasagna, Sisig, Pata Beans, and Chicken Pickle whenever I have the time and the inclination. I don’t do the laundry, but I work–although my work is on such a crazy schedule that it might see me wracking my brains one day and sleeping all day the next. I may not be able to attend each and every school-related activity but when I do, I am my child’s loudest cheer leader—much to his consternation. I may not be able to help them with all their schoolwork, but I hyperventilate whenever they get sick, and could hardly sleep unless something happens in the middle of the night. I can’t iron but hey, I can sing and  I can dance.

There are all sorts of ways of being a mommy; this is mine.