This week's prompts are interesting topics. And to me, these topics really hits home. I was born to a warehouseman turned electrician, turned carpenter, turned pedicab driver with a little bit of side hustles father and a seamstress/hairdresser/manicurist/vendor mother. Both my parents did not graduate even highschool because it was not in their options back then. Life happened to them and then they met each other and had me and my siblings.
Back in the day, I used to heae my parents and their friends talk about their children. They would all say to each other "Yang batang yan ang mag aahon sa amin sa kahirapan." (That kid will save us from poverty.) I can see them agreeing woth each othet, all of them has the samenidea about their children. Then we all grew up.
Nowadays, some parents pass on to their kids the family responsibility after they graduate from school. As a parent, do you agree with this, or will you allow your kids to shoulder burdens that are not supposed to be theirs? As a child, is it necessary for you to pay back your parents' laborious efforts even though it means you have to sacrifice your freedom?
As soon as I graduated college, I was expected to look for a job that would sustain all the needs of the family. I had a different plan. Since I had to work so that I could finish college while helping my sibs with their studies as well, I wanted to take a break. And that I did. I left my job at the fastfood.
The Loop that Never Ends
Where I'm from, kids are treated like investments - a retirement plan if you will. People view this as a terrible idea and so they don't really use the terms I just used : investment and retirement plan. But whether they are feeling guilty about it or not, it is what's been happening, and what's still going on. Parents will work hard- sacrifice everything as they say- because they say they love their children with all their hearts and will do everything for them. All the while, behind their minds, this is so that their children will have a stable job in the future and then soon provide for their parents during old age.
I feel they deny it amongst themselves. I heard a mother one time saying "I'm really not expecting my son to give me money, but he does anyway." which makes it look like they're not requiring their kid to provide for them but in reality, they have programmed the poor child for that very purpose since the very beginning.
I don't blame them. They - the parents - have been programmed the same way too by their parents and their parents by theirs. At a certain point in their life, I am certain they have felt the need to break out of that cycle that their parents and their parents parents have guilted them in.
Children are guilted into the obligation
Our words are powerful. The words we choose, no matter how seemingly harmless they are, have effects on the people we talk to. People like to say your parents sacrificed everything so that you can have the life you have right now. While that may be true, it is still not right to use that term to make their children obey them.
I am a parent myself and I have used that same term as well before. I used to say "I sacrificed my career so that I could take care of my daughter." Up to now, that statement seems noble and selfless. But being a daughter myself, it doesn't feel good to think that someone put aside their own interests so that I could live. On the other hand, I also think it's unfair to hear such a thing because, like it or not, I did not ask to be born into the world. Likewise, my daughter did not ask for that too. And yet, here we both are.
So I have stopped using the statement about sacrificing everything for her. Right now, I view it as a duty that I need to fulfill for her and for the society of the future. This cycle of guilting children into the responsibility ends with me.
Breaking the Cycle
It is apparent that I am not in agreement with the normalized practice of having children shoulder the burden all the while making them think that it is an obligation to pay back their parents for everything that they sacrificed for their offspring.
I was guilted into the obligation as a young adult. And the stubborn part of me fought that off as hard as I could. I established boundaries early on. But then life happened. When my father suffered his first stroke, life gave me no choice but to take on the mantle of breadwinner-hood. My parents did not prepare for their retirement. First because of the circumstances in their life, and second because of the mentality they acquired from their ancestors that children are supposed to take care of their parents during old age as an obligation.
I am not heartless. I know I ought to take care of my parents when they get old. But I was not exactly jubilant that I was initially guilted into this, and then subsequently pushed into this because nobody else would. I had no choice. My father got sick, I had 3 siblings who hasn't finished schooling yet, my mom does not have enough money to support everything.
I was sucked into the rat race. I did not have a head start, I was in negative balance, but I was expected to pull everyone up. That was what it was like being a breadwinner to a poor family. I remember all those overtime work I had to do just so I could pay off all the debts, pay the hospital, buy the medicines, send my siblings to school, and feed the entire family. That was such a heavy weight that I did not have the choice but to put on my shoulder. I blamed my parents for not having their retirement plan. I blamed them for not using birth control. I blamed their parents for such a life that they gave my parents. It was like a wormhole of blames.
But as J.K. Rowling said, there is an expiration date on blaming your parents for the life that they gave you. At a certain point, you're going to have to take responsibility of your own life. And that I did when I decided to break the cycle.
I still am helping out my mom - she's the only parent I have now. Only this time, the boundaries are much clearer. I have taught my siblings to take responsibility of their own lives as well. Helping out is now just that - helping out. Meaning 80-90% of the effort should still come from the person needing help, the remaining from those that wants to and can help.
I blabbed on during this entire article because like I said, this topic hits me real hard. I experienced being the breadwinner, I experienced shouldering a burden that I was taught should be mine - that I felt shouldn't. At the back of my head, there was a voice that said I should do it because I need to pay my parents back for their sacrifices. It felt awful to think that.
And so, for my child and her children in the future, I am ending this cycle of dependence. Children should never feel like it is their obligation to take care of their parents just because they were the ones who brought them in to the world. Taking care of them should come from a place of love, not of guilt. Parents are expected to take care of their little persons all the while looking into the future, preparing for their retirement. My parents weren't able to do this. I have stopped blaming them. I wouldn't want my kid to go through the same things I went through. I know better. I should do better.
This is my entry to LOH Community Contest #148. Thanks to @jane1289 for the prompts.
