(Note: I am sharing this blog with the hope
of reaching young mothers who divide their time between work and family. I pray that their financial situation and
personal predisposition would allow them to be full-time mothers, or if not,
then for them to find ways to maximize time with their children).
I was having a conversation with one of our
younger photographers, when she apologized for troubling me with personal
concerns. Assuring her that it was alright, I told her that I could even
consider her as one of my daughters. After all, she has been with us seven
years, and we’ve probably seen more of each other than I have with my own grown
up daughters who now live abroad.
She agreed, and added that I have probably
seen her more than her own mother has.
Those were unplanned statements that
triggered some painful thinking. I was swiftly taken to the years when my
children were very young. Sadly I computed the hours that we spent with our
children and realized that we lost our biggest opportunity to be with them when
they started to go to the big schools. And with this realization came regret.
I remembered recently reading on Facebook the
agonized confession of an employed and commuting mother who has to leave the
house before her child woke up, and who returned home after her child had gone
to bed. And it wasn’t even that she worked far from home, but that heavy
traffic gets her (as it does many of us) stuck on the road for hours.
In a way, we were lucky that we enjoyed our
children’s young years with us. My husband and I had decided that to see more
of our children, we should live where we worked. We did not have to waste time
on long commutes, and our children could walk in and out of his studios (he’s a
photographer) and of my office (I managed our photography business).
Not that working from the home gave me the full
privilege of time with our children. Our business was also young and demanded
much of our time. Although I pleaded for Saturday off, advertising work was
practically 24/7, without regard for Sundays or holidays.
It also meant that even mealtimes were not
sacred, and our photographers were known to gobble up lunch or dinner in two
minutes flat – so they could go back to finish their shoots. Their busy
schedules did not allow for leisurely family dinners. To claim time for the
family, we had to conjure a new family tradition – to eat out on weekends when
there were no shoots or no urgent paper work to be finished. Eating out meant walking together to look for
a restaurant, sitting down to order, to wait for food to be served, to wait for
everyone to finish partaking of lunch or dinner, to wait for the bill and to
wait for either change or the return of a credit card. That’s a lot more time to
be with family than our two-minute lunch or dinner sprints.
We also had to find ways to combine work
and family time. I am grateful that our business of photography allowed that.
Sometimes, our children would skip school to join a location photo shoot. It
was good that St. Scholastica’s College, where all our daughters went for grade
school, shared our belief that they could learn a lot outside of school. (If
they were absent from school to go out with their photographer-dad, they were
excused if they would do a presentation on the place that they visited).
Looking back, I realize that of all my
children, the youngest spent the least time with us. Like her eldest sister,
she went to a high school in Quezon City – and even then, EDSA was clogged. At
age 15, she entered Ateneo de Manila University in Loyola. After a year of carpooling to get there from
our Makati home, she asked to be allowed to stay at a dorm on campus. After
graduation from college, she stayed on at the same university to take up her masters
and to teach. During that year, she stayed in a private, off-campus dorm. While at her university, she could only come
home on weekends, but sometimes, not even, as some school activities were
scheduled on Saturdays, or even Sundays.
Even those precious weekends were lost when
she spent six months in Japan, and soon after, when she got accepted into the
University of Toronto. She has been living in Canada ever since, having found
employment there, and subsequently marrying a Canadian. Since her husband’s
family and clan have settled in Canada, it does not seem likely that they would
consider resettling here, especially now that Sacha herself has recently
acquired Canadian citizenship.
Ching (eldest daughter) went to the
University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and while she continued
to live with us while she was in school, she did spend an inordinate amount of
time going to school and back, either with a carpool, or when she was old
enough, to drive to and from school.
(Her high school – like Sacha’s - was also in Quezon City, and that required
long hours on the road. I am not sure if that was the time when the MRT was
being built, and traffic on EDSA was horrible). I am also grateful that she
stayed with us even when she started to work, and her office was in Makati. She got married in 2003, and she and her
husband moved to Singapore shortly after. Presently, they live in California.
Thankfully, Kathy’s high school and
university were close by. A few months’
stay in South Africa after college graduation, and now that she is married, a
few weeks each year to visit her in-laws in the Netherlands, or when I myself
leave for vacations abroad, are our longest separation times. I am grateful
that my son-in-law’s job allows him to stay in the country – at least for now.
She made a brave decision to quit her job
with our company to be a full-time wife and mother, and I admire her for this.
She is a very hands-on mother, and I expect that her relationship with her two
daughters, and with her husband, will be richer and more fulfilling than my own
time and business responsibilities afforded me.
Computing time when we spent our lives
being together, it is obvious that our best and only opportunity for maximum
time with our children was when they were babies and toddlers.
The children grow up. They leave home all
too soon. If it were possible to turn back the clock, I would most certainly
fight to be a full-time mother. I am now 69, and I get lonely for my children - my little children then, or my grown up children now. In the twilight of my years, I
can no longer insist on time with them. They have their spouses, their
jobs, their homes and other activities to attend to. My chance – when they were
children - had passed. I do appreciate the time that they spend trying to stay
connected – through Skype or overseas calls, and personal visits, whenever
possible - but typing "kisses" and "hugs" is not the same as physically giving or receiving them. :(
(Note: I thank Kathy for asking us to
continue to take an active role in her life, and in our granddaughters’ lives.
Having grandchildren gives me another chance at spending time and creating
bonds with the children in my life).
