The Eternal War between Parents and Teens?

What is this hang-up of parents about handling teens?

Why should they always be at war? Why should there be divisiveness?

It's something I don't get, why parents and teens should always take a swing at each other.

I think so far, at the homefront, me and my teen are getting along fine. The war between parents and teens can be skipped, my opinion.

I can't really say it's about starting the relationship right from the very beginning. My teen has suffered the brunt of all my angry years when he was small. If there's any child who has the perfectly reasonable excuse to harbor some long-time anger at a parent, it's him.

But I have paid my dues, and I have assured him of my apologies and I have made up from all my wrong-doings.

So far, now, we are okay. Of course, there are times that I do my usual sermon, but nothing that bad that usually burdens the toxic teen-parent relationship.

How do I do it?

By just letting him be. And by clarifying I don't do it because I want him happy always and don't want him to get cross at me, but I do it because I respect him and his decisions.

Maybe most wars between teens and parents are from those that do not recognize the autonomy of the teen. I dunno. I don't want to find out what it is. I'm good where we are right now.

Sometimes I feel guilty and wonder if I'm spoiling him... but then, he is doing well in school and has a stable group of okay friends and continuously studies his passion, music. Maybe it's just the right thing to do.

Of course, I keep a watchful eye. There are some things he does that I don't agree with but still don't say anything if I estimate it's not major. Sometimes he gets surprised that i disagree with a decision, because I just let it be.

Eh... teens are thinking people. The most you can do is watch out, guide to prevent bad things from thinking, assure that you're there in the background for easy back-up when things go awry, and guide how to get out if there's trouble. Be there before, during and after in the periphery. It's mostly about them building their confidence, strengthening the bones of their wings while you are in the background. They fly a bit, come back, fly a bit, come back. And they tend to fly more when they know you are there to fly back to.

Hope my goodluck keeps up. *cross fingers*



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Kindling our Kid's Dreams

I'm a little concerned over my sons' lack of "I wanna be a sumpting when I grow up."

I just realized it when I was bugging Ice (my teen's new nick. kewl, eh.) what course he was going to take in college. He is now a high school junior and some universities are accepting applications from 3rd year students.

He is now thinking of ... surprise.... social science. Both his parents are social science double majors. Where do you suppose he got this interest? From the teacher, of course.

And so I've also been bugging the little one what he wanted to be when grew up. I have always thought there was only 1 career that I would REALLY mind if any of them wanted to (i won't say it)... the others are alright. but then leon wanted a noble career. noble and life-risking as well. he wanted to be a fireman in his hey day. I hosed down his dream by telling him all about the reality of the fireman's career in the PH. bad mommy award. (whutt? i want him alive you know.) Now he is more somber and has chosen to not choose at all.

Recently though we had a adopted a cute little bugger cat that likes to chew everyone out literally, except him.

So earlier today Leon announced he wanted to be a.. janan! veterinarian.

Kewl. Bites, etc. fine. Fires no.

Now how to sustain that interest....


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Happy Father's Day, Mang Napo

Yesterday was just so full of love, with people remembering their dads.

Cousins, aunts, uncles and nieces remembered my dad. I felt, even though he has been gone for some years now, he has touched their lives with his happy ways. I was particularly touched when I realized a niece of mine, who was a little kid when Mang Napo was around, was also very fond of him.

Funny how he taught me a lesson yesterday even if he's been gone for so long. Some people chase a lifetime of accomplishments to be remembered by. When really, you don't need to be anything other than be happy. And people will remember you anyways.

I really feel grateful I had him as my dad.



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A Long Overdue Post about Plurk

At first, I wasn't sold about microblogging. I felt it was invasive. I felt I didn't want to be updated of the first microblog posts that I kept seeing. These are ONLY : "Good morning." "I just ate (write in food here)." and "I'm going to sleep now." Fun.

Then I read an article about this being the next marketing thing (this was in 2008). It also pointed out that marketers should get used to the discipline of saying what you want in 140 characters or less. So then and there, I decided I wanted that skill of concise communication. I signed up for Twitter.

A few hours later, one of my bestfriends IM'ed me - "Hey, do you have Plurk yet?" No, but I just signed up for Twitter today. "Try Plurk. It's much better."

So I signed up. (I want to post a pic of 1st post but it's too deep down the timeline.)

I rarely tweeted after. It just wasn't my type.

For Plurk however, I have always marveled at how its layout enabled you to have friends. And these people grew on you in the day to day plurks. The horizontal timelines made it easier to backtrack what people said. Even if you haven't been in in a while, it's easy to see what people have been up to. The vertical responses in the threads, on the other hand, allowed you to catch up to the conversations.

And then the friends grew. There were batches of close groups in my Plurk life. I have kept most of them, I have been lucky. But then, I see that it is the usual case for most Plurkers (yay!). I am also still friends with the first people who were given to me randomly when I first signed up.

The last batch of friends I got in Plurk are ones who live nearby. We have fun online at Plurk. We have laughed together at the fun posts, disagreed a lot about serious issues (and did lots of ninja hides in the process). Yes, we're still friends regardless. We have changed our profile names a lot for a timely event. During Chinese New Year we had outrageous Chinese characters as profile names. We named ourselves annoying fruits (in honor of annoying orange), election candidates, Filipino superheroes, there are more but I forgot.

And Huzzah, we've also had lots of incredible fun offline. We've drank a lot (even went out of our way for a certain beer brand), ate and ate and ate a lot together, met up for yoghurt lots of times, watched performances, went on a craft shopping day, watched movies, SOS-ed for car tows, celebrated birthdays and we will have more fun together, I am sure.

So Plurk, belated happy birthday. You asked for a blog post and this is my little gift for you. Thank you so much for existing.

:-)
kat




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Birthday is Assessment Time

For me,the time to assess my life is new year and my birthday.

Conveniently, both are exactly 6 months apart.

By now, my main objectives in life are more laid back and zeroed in to the more valuable versus overcoming the toxic career path.

At 34, I have worked hard for things that are important to me. I have worked, thought, strategized hard. I have bled, cried blood and sometimes did not sleep in areas that are highly valuable to me but do not compensate for cash or accolades.

That is why, at 34, my greatest achievement really, is being told by totally unrelated young people that they wished I was their mom.

According to my objectives in life, and what is important to me, yes, that is my greatest achievement in 34 years.

Yes, I'm not the greatest mom since I suck at housekeeping. But then, they wanted a mom, not a housekeeper, so I guess I qualify. :-)

As for my sons, their assessment of me is very important to me, but these are things they won't really seriously appreciate until I've gone away, so let's give them a few more decades to think if they like me as their mom.

I'm no hypocrite, though. I want cash these days. hehe.


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