By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Where I live, many parents and lolos and lolas have resigned to the notion that children today no longer listen to what they say and they cannot do anything about it. “Mid angnen, adi na mamatpati. No kanan tako en id kasin et wiiwi-it mabangon kami, men-uto….. Kanan nan ongong-a en “Id kasin man di.” So these adults keep quiet. They have surrendered their parenting role. Are we saying that we do away with parenting? Let the kids be? Wouldn’t that be pitiful? That would be like as if the children are orphans.
What are parents for in this world? It is not enough that parents beget children to populate the world. Parents have the responsibility to provide food, clothing and shelter to their children, not until forever, but until such time that they are able to work for these. Parents are also responsible of providing love and education to their offspring so that they will be able to live on their own, survive in the world and be happy and as all parents dream, have a “better” life than their parents. As Janet Lehman, a child behavioral therapist, said “Our role as parents is really to teach, coach and give our kids consequences when they misbehave.” Parents are the first teachers. Teachers teach important things needed to live happily – these include knowledge, values and attitude and skills. As teachers, we also know that love is not giving everything a child wants. That is spoiling the child. In the dictionary, “spoiling” also means “destroying.” And if parents give in everytime to the kids’ demand of bad food, for example, then literally, the child’s health is destroyed. We should be able to teach children that they could not and should not get everything they want. And we have to teach them the difference between want and need.
But why does a child want or demand bad food like sugar or hotdog? Taste or food preferences are not inborn. Taste is developed over time depending on what the baby is exposed to. And who prepares food for the baby? Who has the money to buy food or the ability to plant food? The child? Or the parent? Education also means instilling discipline in the child. Discipline includes discipline of the taste buds and eating patterns. Nature provided the standard for healthy taste – breastmilk. Compare your present food preferences with the taste of breastmilk. You would be amazed how the discipline of eating alone, something we take for granted, will impact on the child’s personhood and therefore, his future. But how can a parent discipline the child when he or she mismo doesn’t have discipline regarding food and eating?
How come parents have lost control of parenting? Who has taken over the parenting role?
Before school buildings came into existence, kids stayed with their parents whole day whole night until adolescence when the boys would sleep in the “ato” or “dap-ay” and the girls in the “ulog” or “ebgan”. They watched their parents and other adults in the community do things and followed suit. It was mostly education by apprenticeship, tutorial and mentoring. Parents educated their children one at a time – of course, because kids came one at a time (seldom were there twins). So then, it was an educational system of intensive mentoring. In traditional Igorot society, there were no books, no pen and paper and no oratorical debates between teacher and pupil. Education was more of “follow what I do”. Igorots are not prone to talking (except me, I guess), but we are heavy in deeds. So there was not much disconnect between what kids saw and what their parents (teachers) said. Aside from the biological parents, the other adults in the community affirmed and exhibited the same behavior. The child grew up, not only in a stable household, but in a stable community. Result? Stable kids who would grow up into stable adults. Thus there was peace and harmony in the family and society because everybody, more or less, behaved in a similar, predictable way. And one by-product of this was good health.
When our colonizers came, they built school buildings, brought teachers and rounded up kids to sit in these buildings to listen to the teacher. Whole day, except for lunch break, they are with these strange teachers. It must have been really strange and suspicious at first- especially when the kids later on couldn’t help in the house or farm anymore and they were scribbling things the adults couldn’t understand. A parent once said “Tumungngak nan eskuwelaan.”
In the Cordilleras, where we have to toil the soil for it to produce food, adults are usually out in the farm or forest from dawn to dusk. So when the kids were put to school, the time with parents were drastically reduced, as it is at present. Perhaps only during suppertime will they be with their parents because after that they have to do their homework and because school lessons are not usually grounded on what is happening at home or “ili”, the child wouldn’t even discuss with the parent. Some parents, however, do the homework of their children and that is not supposed to be.
“Teacher said so and that is that.” Parents complain that their children are more obedient to their teacher than them. Are we surprised? Are we surprised with this when the kids spend most of their waking time with the teacher and not with Mom or Dad? The teacher is there everyday for 10 straight months. Can you imagine how strong a relationship will develop over that period especially with young impressionable vulnerable children and youth? Naturally, they will listen more to the teacher- the teacher has become the parent. Kids (or people in general) need visibility. And yet teachers protest that they are not the parents. But by virtue of their time with the kids, they are parents. The dilemma is, how can one person parent 20 or more kids at a time? And can kids learn just from books? Books that are patterned after a foreign people? There’s so much disconnect now with what children see in books and what they see at home or the community they live in. Itsura pa lang ng tao sa libro iba na. Ohh, the problems we create.
Now, we have introduced TV and internet to our homes and even schools. Through TV, we have opened our doors to strangers and/or foreigners exhibiting totally different behaviors and are seemingly happier. Drinking liquor, smoking, always partying- what a life! Very tempting. Our kids may even be spending more time with these strangers than with the parents. The parents may have token time with the kids on Sundays but that’s about it. Soon these strangers in TV will no longer be strangers but part of family and soon the kids will be behaving like them. Like ML or whatever robot or character they watch.
Where else do our children get lessons and guidance? Barkada. Okay, okay, the barkada or peer group is part of life. Even adults have barkada. Just make sure your kids’ barkada and your own bakada provide wholesome behavior models. But wait, in the first place, we, ourselves should be a wholesome model to our barkada.
A child will learn from those around him or her- whether they are real persons or just images on the screen or in print. It still takes a community to raise a child and that community now includes screen beings. Now that it is Children’s Month, let us, adults, reflect and be conscious of the community where our children grow up in. ***
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“Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 11:19
