Being the eldest, I always tell our “Bunso” that in the good old days I had to travel by jeepney (sometimes FX kung kaya pa!) to get to school or malls. Or tell her that we didn’t have an aircon, or a Playstation then. Or tell her about the nights that we had to sweat through it all to the morning because the electric fan broke. Or the days when “fun” meant that you were playing jackstone, read a ball with 9 punes)” with friends, and not watching television with Regine Velasquez singing in SOP (my favourite).
As the “sermon” goes, my sister bows her head and pretends to listen to the literary and events she didn’t have to go through because our parents worked so hard to get them for us.
It is envy of things that breaks my heart. It is not her. I know my kid sister; she knows the value of material things. She knows and understands that we have are products of new parenthood.
What I can’t understand are the other kids. I hate it when the young talk back to their elders. I even have classmates who talked back to our professors (freedom of expression, give me a break!). It is a lack of respect and I see it all the time, some as young as three years old, up to the “responsible” age of twenty; the generation-xers as they are known. In my time, talking back to an elder in a real manner was a capital offence. It meant a big spanking up ahead (ouch!)
So when I was younger, I thought that respect was instilled from the end of the sites, or from the belt. So I respected my parents for they had the “bigger hand”.
Yes, there were times I made “kulit” to my parents to buy something, and they said “no.” I would let them know about my feelings with harsh words I rude stares. And yes, even the crying past (huhuhu!)
I also talked back to them when I thought they were wrong. Those were lucky days when I would only be reprimanded. But also, there were days when lady luck seemed to have turned her back on me and I’d usually get a good spanking (strike two!). Always, the session ended with our parents telling us why they did it and what we did wrong. As I grew older, I saw “respect” in a different height.
In my elementary and high school years in Gumaca, Quezon, I saw hungry children begging in the streets. Children selling cigarettes and newspapers to earn money so their family could eat at least once a day. I saw children suffering from diseases. I met people who cannot continue their education because of poverty and this, suffer the cruelties of life at such a tender age.
I saw different heights of people. I pity them, yet all the while I was comfortable and healthy. Eating three meals a day (not to mention the snacks in between them) and never having to work for a living. But then, I only thought that “malas naman nila”, never and I think that I was already blessed.
But when I became a college student here in PUP, I realized the reasons why my parents pushed me so hard to attain a goal. I understood them with all clarity.
As a college student, so many “firsts” happened to me, my first time to live away from home. The first time I got to handle an organization as a president (dalawang org.pa). My first courtship, my first girlfriend, my first time to get dumped, my first failing grade and my first tear from that grade (in fairness, wala nang sumunod pa, four sems na lang!) My first time to live with other people in a house since I was living with my aunt. My first allowance to budget (magkasya kaya?).
I also learned how it feels not to have even a single centavo to dig from my pocket, to feel hungry because I was not able to budget my allowance right and thanks to Jhen, kasi lagi niya akong pinauutang. Not understanding that my hardships were nothing compared to what my parents were enduring for my expenses here in Manila.
Though my parents have their share of problems, I still have them to run to if I have mine. I have my parents to provide for me. I have my parents to seek for advice, and, as though they are beside me. I hurdle through my problems and from them I have my strength and the knowledge that the two most important people in my life are helping me; my parents.
I saw that I was blessed, I have comforts. Because of there I thank my parents. I thank them for the small things and the big things in my life. I thank them for the preparation. For the great future ahead, for what they taught me.
But most of all, I owe them in the greatest light. I give them my utmost respect. I hope you understand the importance of your parents. Give them their due. For, as an old maxim goes, “It is not until you become them what we truly understand what they are trying to teach us.”
Whatever happens to my life, I will be thankful I have my parents.
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