A Mother's Woes

Motherhood is synonymous to sacrifices, agonies, miseries, sufferings; the difficult and hard side of parenting. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been into that. My faith with God has been tested. At times, I feel like questioning Him. But then, I know that this is a test of faith in Him, like if we ever feel like giving up on our existence or in our faith with Him.

How would you feel when your loving kids and even your adopted children will get sick one at a time and even simultaneously? It’s so heavy in the heart. Aside from the emotional pain, the physical side and the financial aspect, this would give you so many burdens, basically as a mother.

How much more if you’re a single parent? It is because your husband works in a very far place? And you must play the role of both a mother and a father? Calls and texts from him may suffice or fill in his absence but I felt that wasn’t enough. This is the dilemma of a family when the breadwinner must leave if only to provide a decent living for his family. But that would be better than a mother leaving the father and her children for her to find work and provide for her family.

I have a very good friend who left her family to work in a very faraway place. She sacrificed so much. She sacrificed being away from her family just to make their life better. But it didn’t bear all good things. She must be earning so much, but there’s a higher downside of it. When she was about to get her husband and work with her in just a matter of days, her husband died of an accident. What happened to the kids? They were fatherless and they have an absentee mother. Though they are no longer kids, the absence of both parents gave them much freedom to do what they wanted to do. The ever-sacrificing mother just continues to send much money believing that her kids are doing well in school. But disappointingly, it was the other way around. They became wayward, they became school delinquents and they never finished their studies.
My friend’s entire thought, they were fine because she was giving them more than they need. But they were not.

So I hope you’re convinced that mothers’ woes are incomparable. Mothers have more burdens to care for their kids, to let them grown into fine young man and woman. And the good fathers should realize that.

A father should realize that he has a wife that can be considered a superwoman; a superwoman who from the start of daylight would start working and tending to her kids’ needs until the late hours of the evening because she has to help her kids with their assignments; a superwoman who could hold a hammer and nail to make a school project for her kid; a superwoman who should know how to repair some plumbing problems, some destroyed faucets and other facilities at home; a superwoman who would immediately run to the doctor because her son is almost in a seizure because of high fever; a superwoman who wouldn’t dare close her eyes while sitting beside the bed of her sick child. And silently, she would cry to herself, to ease herself a little from her burdens. A father doesn’t know that. A father doesn’t feel anything so heavy like that.

A father should realize that giving money to his family is just his basic role. He should realize that more than the money, his family also needs his love, care and attention.

Yes, a father should realize that her wife who was left to take care of the kids also feels tired and spent; she also gets fed up, she also feels like surrendering every time some hard to manage chaos sets in the family; she also gets sick because of the daily routine which would tax her body. After all, she’s not really a superwoman when she gets sick already. She’s just as frail and fragile and delicate like any other woman. But she has to put on a brave front in the sight of her kids. She can’t afford to get sick though her health’s condition is sending a very strong message that she’s already ill. She must not get sick, she must not show any hint of getting tired or disappointed, she must not show that there’s something wrong with her health. Yes, that’s how a mother should always display herself in front of her kids.

How much more if she’s a working Mom? Then you can double the agony. She’s tired at home and she’ll surely get tired at work. And for sure, the toll on her health could also be doubled. This time, the more she can’t afford to get sick because she has to go to work five days a week.

How about her role in school as a child’s mother? Yes, she must get in touch with her children’s respective schools because there’s need to. You would be lucky if your child is not a delinquent student and the other side of the coin, you are so lucky if your children are all achievers. You would tire going up the stage to don their medals and trophies. That’s so much consolation for a parent. The rewards for all the immeasurable sacrifices you have for them. That’s the time when you feel like you’re on cloud 9.

After all, one’s woes could be well compensated of her children’s achievements and success in school and later in life.

My Son's Dilemma

My youngest son is now a third year high school and is taking up a major in Drafting. He posted a bulletin in Friendster and I feel how he felt about his major. I was also flabbergasted how he expected his major to be so difficult. Now, he must have been in a frenzy thinking why he majored in Drafting. I find it interesting to share his bulletin to my followers, hence this post. His bulletin contains the following, written in Tagalog, but I have to translate it in English for my English readers.

di ko inexpect na ganito kahirap......... (I didn’t expect it to be this hard)

ay....inexpect ko na pala......matagal na.......jejeje (oh, yeah, I expected it to be this hard already, a long time ago, he he he)

oh bakit ang hirap hirap ng pinili kong major.......bakit ang hirap ng drafting....... (oh why have I chosen such a very, very difficult major, why is drafting so hard?)

>una....orthograpric drawing (first, orthographic drawing)

>pangalawa.....gagawa kami ng charcoal drawing ng isang teacher sa skul at portrait namin mismo (second, we’ll make a charcoal drawing of a teacher in our school and a portrait of ourselves)

>pangatlo.....pictorial drawing (third, pictorial drawing)

>pang-apat......perspective drawing (fourth, perspective drawing)

>pang-lima......kung anu-ano pang drawing na hindi mo pa kailan man narinig sa buong buhay mo (fifth, and anything else, any drawing you’ve not heard of even before and maybe in your entire life)

>at pang-anim......ang pinakamasaklap sa lahat, gagawa kami ng working drawing, in other words, plano ng furniture (and sixth, and the saddest thing of all, we’ll gonna make a working drawing, in other words, a drawing plan of a furniture)

huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu.......

PS. Third year lang yan ha..... (PS, that’s just in the 3^rd year ha)

mas masaklap pa pagdating ko ng fourth year........ (and surely it’s even more bloody dreadful comes fourth year)

huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu......

ANG HERAP..... (It’s so hard…)

TULONG.... (H E L P !!!)

See? He needs HELP……….

Fantastic Dual Role

For quite some time now, I’ve already been used to playing dual roles to my kids at home – a father and a mother at the same time. Modern age dilemma you may say. Yes, probably. It is already an accepted norm. The father leaves home to work outside the country, thus leaving the mother alone to care for the children. But this sounds better than the opposite where the mother leaves to work abroad and the father will be left to tend for his children, thus assuming a more complicated dual role.                       

Playing both father and mother sometimes have some glitches. Imagine the thought that you’ll gonna have to accompany your boys to a doctor for the circumcision procedure? I have three kids, two are boys. When their age for circumcision came, sure, you guessed it right.

I could hardly find the right words to console them of the pain they underwent after the operation and most of all, I can’t do the task of cleaning and dressing their cuts so they’re left to themselves to the painful routine. I wanted to cry. I felt that I should not be the one doing this and that and if their father was around in those moments, he should have done it patiently. But thank God, we made it. My boys’ wounds healed through my fatherly supervision. I felt I was superman then.

My boys have regular visits to the barber shop. Again, while watching the barber cut my boys’ hair, I would again feel sad and reminds me of the thought that if their father would have been around in those moments, it would be to his delight to see his boys grow up and enjoy barber visits. But he tries to make up every time he’s with them. He would cajole them to go to the barber shop every after two or three weeks. Making up for lost times you know.

But being able to cope up with the demands of being a father and mother at the same time sounds fantastic isn’t it. My husband would always console me and would tell me that I should not be sad about it because in doing so, I deserve a medal for Supermoms. And that would surely put a smile on my lips, and it will make my heart fat and it will inflate my ego. Supermom, huh! Anyone out there? Join my club!

Vanity Sizing

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest Mom of all?!

Every Mom wishes to be the best to their children. On the other hand, do children also wish to be the best kids to their Moms?

The generation x kids are in various quandary nowadays. There’s what they call “high maintenance kids,” “the entitled kids” and the kids who are victims of “vanity sizing.”

Vanity sizing is defined by one book author as “trying to make everyone work behind the scenes to make us feel good about ourselves.”

Honestly, our kids need great Moms to prevent their children from falling into such impasse.

Based from the book that I read, vanity sizing is exemplified this way: One mother was in hurry shopping for clothes. She has tried several sizes but nothing fits her well. While paying to the cashier, she asked about the odd sizing. The cashier explained, “that’s our ‘vanity sizing.’”

Indeed, vanity sizing has migrated from the dressing room to the classroom to the home. Even my own kids are being “vanity sized”, of which I only realized it when I was through reading said book on parenting. My son Kevin is one typical example. He performs in school a little weaker than his big sister and his kid brother. At home, we simply avoid the truth by trying to give him praises for little achievements which when compared to his siblings, are mediocre ones.

If he excels in competitions which rarely happen, we are all praises to him. As if he is the center of our world at home. We give him rewards; we praise him so much believing that this will develop his elf-esteem. If this how we treat our Kevin, will it result to positive things to him as a person?

To quote Dr. Guthrie in her book, “The Trouble with Perfect”, “Vanity sizing in and of itself is not terrible. It’s a simple ploy, a mild trick to fool people into feeling good.”

“It’s like calibrating the bathroom scale at a bit under zero, or setting our watches a few minutes fast so we’re always “early.” But it’s a good example of the kind of parenting technique that ultimately backfires and encourages attitudes like “entitlement” that render our children high maintenance. These are children who expect the world to come to them; who feel that they deserve the best, who believe that they are “entitled” to the best life has to offer. They often have difficulty making good moral choices and empathizing with others. Vanity sizing doesn’t cause high maintenance; it’s only one factor common to parenting today that encourages this trend. And it seems to encapsulate mistaken notions of what children want and need from their parents.”

Vanity sizing our children is quite unfair to them. Why can’t we praise them for the real thing? Why can’t we recognize them for the real achievement?

This attitude and practice of praising a child not for the real thing is quite dangerous. I have observed one little boy, about the age of three who’s constantly vanity-sized by his parents. The result? We found in the behavior of that little boy as he grows older, the signs that he has an AD/HD problem. When he’s not given constant attention, he shouts and utters bad words to get attention. He cries on end without any valid reason. He keeps on talking about non-sense things. His sight of him becomes irritating to other people because of such display of behavior. At a young age, he knows how to utter threats like “I will kill you”, “I’ll cause a grenade to blast you to pieces”, “I’ll fire my gun in your face”, and other foul words you wouldn’t expect a little boy like him could utter.

Vanity sizing our kids at a young age will not help them grow and mature emotionally the natural way. Instead, they will develop an attitude which craves for unrelenting praises and adulation. We’re not helping them that way. In a capsule, “we’re crowding out the well-rounded development of our children.”

Let us veer away from the trap of vanity sizing. Let us be great Moms to our kids the natural way and we’ll surely produce great kids, too.