Saturday, November 3, 2012
I Am A Father
I felt bad after penalizing my two teenage sons by hitting
them both, on their buttocks and thighs, three times each with the handle of a Baguio
made soft-broom. I felt bad that I hurt
them instead of talking to them for the bad effect of their wrong doings.
The reason
for the punishment was they did not give back a complete change left from the
money they used to buy materials their grandmother asked them to purchase at the
hardware store; instead, they gave back
less than half of it.
I got angry
because it was not the first time they did it.
They got
used to the idea of not giving back loose change back when they were only
little kids. They were asked to buy
something at the small store at the neighboring house, and when there were
small loose coins, it was given to them to buy candies, as their price for
being good and not lazy, and as their motivation to follow what was requested
for them to do. However, the good thing
went out of hands. As they were growing
up, they learned to just kept loose change, even when they were not told to do
so, until those loose coins, became paper bills with significant amount. Amounts, which are worrisome because it makes
you worried next time, you’ll again ask them to buy things, you can’t trust to
get all the change you expect to have.
They were
told many times to give back change, especially, big amounts. They were told they could spend loose coins
but not hundreds of pesos just for something to eat. However, it became a habit
that was already hard for them to not do it, even with threat they will be
punished by their mom(For I was abroad as an OFW during their kiddy times). But their mother’s threat was only words they
obeyed at first but found out it was only a joke after testing her by
disobeying her order a few times.
Then, I came
home.
As father
who was “lost” for a hefty number of 10 years, I became soft to them for their
“childish” misbehaviors.
Nevertheless,
the time came, I had to threaten them with a whip – not once but a number of
times, because I saw their “habit” will become their own problem when they grow
up and be a fulltime part of the society.
So, I started to condition their mind, they will get it from me one day
if they do not straighten their ways. They obeyed, once, twice, then fall back to
same way until I felt they thought my words were a bluff.
It was hard, nonetheless,
as I was giving them the warnings, I was also preparing myself, especially, my
mind how to carry out the punishment, and for them to understand why. I am thankful, that remembering my own
father, his advice echoed to me: “When
you say a threat to your children, make sure the threat must be doable, and is
not overstated, so that you can execute it without hesitation, else, your words
will be toothless, and look like foolish to them!”
My first boy
was only 4 years old, and my third child was only one year and two months when
I left for overseas.
Though I
tried my best to communicate with them, they were not that interested to get in
touch with me. I called home every week, but there was not much talking done. I thought, maybe, they were not talkative.
How I envied
some of my friends whose children were so eager to talk with them, even if they
spent more than an hour talking on the phone.
I was very
excited when the internet became available. I spent a bulk of my salary just to
buy me a laptop so that we can talk and be able to see each other using the
webcam. But, to my dismay, the computer
games were more interesting to them than speaking to me. They cannot even spend five minutes talking
with me. After they said, “Hi” they just
disappeared from the monitor. When I asked their mother or their sister, they
told me they were in the other computers playing games.
Some of my
friends, told me it was okay, but, for me it was a signal I should go home and
be with my children. I have written
letters to them – telling them some words of advice or wisdom a father must
tell his children, but, I didn’t think it was enough, specially, when I saw
copies of their grades and their teachers’ remarks.
I was so
worried they will grow up without self-discipline and moral values I wanted
them to learn. They live in the city and
there is no way they can learn the importance of work, and education there,
especially with the passing of a stupid law against “child labor.” Children in the city are now treated like
innocent child till they are 18 years old;
no wonder they still act childish when they should be acting matured
responsible people. In the province,
they could work in the farm, and in the garden, and they learn to become
responsible citizens.
I grew up in
a farm. When I was six years old, my
father entrusted me to take care of our carabaos as my first responsibility.
As early as
four in the morning, I ride on our carabao’s back and bring it to the open
fields to graze grasses; knot its string, which is about 15 meters long, on a
piece of pointed wood driven to the earth.
I leave it there until the sun is up and starts to become blistering
hot, then take it near a river or of an irrigation and leave him there until
the sun is down and its heat is no longer burning. Then together with other children, we go take our carabaos and bring them to a
grassy area and let them graze on the healthy grasses. In the evening, when the sun is hidden behind
the mountains, we fetch our animals – ride on their back and guide them home. Not only that. I also helped during planting season to
distribute the rice seedlings to be planted.
Also, during harvest, we worked ‘til midnight whipping the stalks of
rice to a bridge of wood connected to each other to separate the dried seeds
from its stalks or we got up early at two in the morning to finish the work before the sun is up
and burn our skin.
My children
never experienced even a fraction of the works I had experienced. I don’t mean they have to go through the same
experiences but I want them to at least know that work is important and its
value.
Aside from
the work, I want them to learn about what is good behavior. I believe all things about a person’s attitude,
and character mold while still young. As
parent, I believe it all depends about me.
The things I teach them now will prepare them on how will they function
when they are older.
My belief is
this, “We, the parents, are the future of our children.” Because we are the ones who shape their
attitudes and characters which will define them when they are adults. We tell them what they have to do, back-up by
our own actions. Their environments also affect them but, still, it’s the
parents’ teachings come first before they gave in to outside influences.
My parents
were not the kind of parents I wanted if I was given the chance to select one. They were poor, and had nothing when they got
married. They grew up without their parents,
and they barely finished grade school. My
father was orphaned when he barely had memory, and my mother was raised by a
different family and was treated like a slave.
Nevertheless,
I owed a lot from them. I learned from
my mother the spiritual strength I used to fight the bad influences of my
environment. My mother was not religious
but she believes in God and believes in the teachings of the bible, and made
her efforts to transfer it to us-with my siblings . As a young child, I love reading
stories. And since the only books we got
are all about Jesus, and the bible, those are the things I read
repeatedly. I loved reading the book of
proverb and the book of Ecclesiastes. It
was there where I learned about controlling one’s anger; a thing that help me overcame the challenges
of people’s foolishness. I learned from
the bible how powerful our word is if only used effectively. I saw how my parents earned the respect of
the people in our community by choosing the right words to speak when somebody
was saying foolish things to them.
Because our parents had no adversaries, my father was always asked to
reconcile neighbors who made differences against each other – until he was
appointed as one of the peacemaker, not only in our neighborhood, but also
called up to different communities who had problems settling disputes in their
community.
These are
the simple things; I want my children to learn.
I want them
to be prepared physically, and most important, spiritually. They may not have wealth inherited from me,
however, I will do my best they will absorb what I learned from my own
experiences (Things I did not learn from school) to overcome the challenges of
life, and become victorious, and eventually become successful.
Thus, before
and after the punishment, I made them understand that what they were doing will
be implanted into their system, and will be carried by them to anywhere they go. I explained to them why there are many
corrupt people everywhere – government and private, because as children they
unknowingly learned a habit of not giving back loose coins, or small change
that it became a “mental” sickness because they believe it is alright to take
small things. But, the small things
became big things.
I told them,
that the punishment they got from me was to let them learn and be reminded that
those kinds of practices are not tolerated in a civilized society. Therefore, self-discipline starts now while
they are young, not when they are adults when their ingrained attitudes and
behaviors are no longer easy to change.
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