A few weeks before finally deciding to let mateo join the 1A (youngest) class of the Preschool level, I distinctly remember asking andrea how sure she was about the idea. I told her that the moment mateo starts school, it was the first step to letting him go. Now, eight months into the school year, we finally realize how true my fear was.
Back in October, andrea and I experienced one of the worst heartaches we’ve ever felt. We lost our second baby. She was only three months old and still in her mommy’s tummy but she was ours. Now, several months after, here we are again, expecting.
Today, Ramil and I celebrate four years of being husband and wife. Dare I say four years of wedded bliss? Most of the time, yes. Because honestly speaking, our four years as a wedded couple has been more peaceful and relaxed than our five years together before getting married. We almost never fight. We have more time together – intimate and otherwise. We are content, happy, and satisfied.
This love affair did not happen by accident. It was a conscious decision to go for it, a conscious decision to make a lifelong commitment to another person. Nevertheless, it was never forced. If nothing should come of it then we wouldn’t be any less happy, we knew the right time would come.
So imagine our excitement when we realized that God is agreeing to the love affair. I was pampered and allowed to eat anything I want. We were expecting a commitment that will last for the rest of our lives. Imagine the pain and shock when we realized that it was ended abruptly, with no warning at all.
Mateo just turned two last January but we’re hoping to enroll him in the youngest class of the school where we teach. The class often consists of children from 2.5 to 3.5 years old and Mateo would barely make it to the minimum age. However, since it’s better than staying at home with a yaya we’re trying to condition him for school.
I teach in a small, private school where the average tuition fee of each student is around five months worth of a teacher’s gross salary. It is a school where expensive cars line up the street during family days, report card days, and Christmas programs. It is a school where some students get cars as their HS graduation gifts, where family vacations for the students mean going out of the country, where some students have a PSP, a PS3, a desktop, a laptop, an iPod, and such, ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
A lot of the kids nowadays are so used to getting what they want and most of the time they also decide how and when they want it. Some don’t do chores anymore because they have yayas and helpers. Some don’t study at home anymore because they are always online – chatting, browsing Facebook / Friendster, or playing online games, practically anything and (God forbid!) everything they can do online except school work (which is always their excuse for going online in the first place).
It’s not surprising that some of these kids end up failing in school when they don’t even bother submitting requirements. You’d think one or two failing marks should be enough to tell them to shape up and to get serious with their education. However, some of these kids put the blame on the school, on the teachers, on their classmates, on the subject, on the exam. They put the blame on anything and anyone but themselves. It makes you wonder where they get the attitude but when their own parents would come to school demanding to know why their child did not pass, why their child will not graduate, why their child did not get an award, you realize that the apple does not fall too far from the tree.
MU (mutual understanding). Dating. Special Friends.
These are just some of the many terms that young people nowadays use to define their relationships. It’s no secret that kids are now going into relationships earlier than kids were ten years ago. What’s worse is that it’s not unusual anymore to hear of some girls getting pregnant at 14 or 15. Some kids now start having crushes as early as 6 while kissing for some could start as early as 9. Most of them think it’s okay while most of us in an older (and wiser!) generation can’t help but wonder what these kids are getting themselves into.
Almost two years ago, we were completely new to the concept of a baby. After almost 24 months of experimentation, much browsing and a ton of advices (both solicited and unsolicited), we’ve relatively mustered the basics of taking care of our own, at least when it comes to changing diapers, feeding, checkups and lullabies. But now that mateo is near the age of questioning, decision-making and relative independence (terrible two stage), we’re again starting to feel like newbies – hounded by hesitation and a million what and what ifs.
Even before I got married, I knew I wanted children. I went as far as deciding that if I am unmarried by the age of thirty-five, I’d look for an attractive, intelligent man and get myself pregnant. When I became a mom however, there were times when I would feel so down especially during the post-partum baby blues stage that I would wonder why I ever wanted to have one. From being a carefree, independent couple, Ramil and I got stuck at home with a small creature who dictates our meal times, bath times, monthly budget, and the amount of sleep that we get. No wonder there are some men or women whose choice is not to have a child.
If there’s some kind of societal expectations when it comes to marriage and the age one is supposed to get married, then there’s so much more when it comes to having children. Most of my unmarried friends would express their longing to settle down because they know that their biological clocks are ticking. A few of them, however, are now enjoying their careers and financial independence so much that they’d get irritated with questions of ‘when are you getting married?’ or ‘when are you having kids?’
Whenever the phrase ‘high school reunion’ is mentioned, what comes to my mind is the movie ‘Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion’. The movie flashes back with so much more clarity now that Ramil and I will be attending our own 10th year alumni homecoming this Saturday.
I remember writing a ‘10 years from now’ essay for my English journalism elective class back in high school but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember a single thing that I wrote.