First half of 2020

“What is the most useless material that was bought in 2019?

...

A 2020 Planner”

This... is partly true.

The ash fall from the eruption of Taal volcano at the first month of the year, shutdown establishments, highways and airports. Limiting most of our movements due to the air being unsafe.

We thought this was just a little bump at the start of the year. Everything seemed to have been back to normal after a few weeks - or so we thought.

Come March, everyone was forced to a lockdown/ community quarantine due to the pandemic. Half of the year has passed and some areas are still in community quarantine, though some business have been reopened, most areas still feel like ghost towns as there are only limited number of people allowed in establishments.

Wheeeeeww!!!! That was depressing.

To make things a little lighter, I would like to share what I am grateful for despite the first half of the year being unpleasant.

At the first two months of the year, my daughter was able to visit to at least one province from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Let me elaborate on that. We moved from Abra to Manila last October 2019. So our home base is now Manila.

So for the first day of January, my daughter and I were in the Province of Abra in Luzon.

A few weeks later, late January, we went to the Province of Zamboanga del Norte in Mindanao, with my husband who was on vacation. This is my husband’s province. We were there for about a week.

Mid- February, we went to the Province of Cebu in Visayas, to accompany my aunt who was visiting from Australia.

Despite the months after the being shitty, I look back and still feel grateful that my daughter and I were able to travel. Though, truthfully the only reason we were able to travel is because we had family matters to attend to.

What I am trying to say is, at least my daughter was able to see different places before she was home-locked due to the pandemic. 

It is within this first half of the year that I started to return to blogging and tried to revisit some of my forgotten hobbies. This is a work in progress.

That is all for now I guess.

I wonder what the other half of the year will be.

Till next time.

—- 

PS. There are other things that happened within the first half of the year, but these are family matter that I cannot share in my blog.

PSS. To those saying “ang yabang naman” or “check your privileges girl”...

I want to make it clear that the travel to different provinces were opportunities that I decided to take for my daughter to be able to see places. We don’t usually travel, it just happened that we had to go to these places and it happened that we had/ we were offered the resources for it.

I acknowledge the fact that we are one of the “lucky ones” who, despite the pandemic is still able to live comfortably. Though that does not mean that we don’t go out of our way to help in our small ways - we simply don’t post in public the kind of help we provide.

No judging

Nowadays, parents are being shamed for what they feed their children, but as a parent myself, I know there is more to it than what we always see.

Every parents wants their child to eat healthy. Unfortunately, there are more “unhealthy” food in the market that are enticing to kids. Some would say, “you should have started when she was still 6 or 7 months old.” What if they did, but you see, as the kids grow up, they develop the sense of self. They try to assert their independence, specially in the food they want to eat. They get influenced by their peers who eat junk food and the media isn’t exactly helping - have you seen the adverts on the television?

Eating healthy in this current situation is easily said than done.

Location and resources are some of the factors in the kind of food a parent can offer their child. In the province, it is sometimes easier to train the kinds to eat healthy because the vegetables and fruits are generally more accessible. As compared to the metro, you have to buy everything, so if you have a limited budget, you have no choice but to buy cheap food even though you know it is unhealthy.

Convenience and social influence are other factors. In this fast-paced world, convenience in everything. Easy-to-cook meals are a thing now. Everyone knows it is full of harmful chemicals for the body, but it is very convenient specially if you are trying to balance work and food preparations for the family. It doesn’t help that commercials nowadays are aimed at kids (drinks, candies, chocolates, food chains, etc), so when they ask their parents for it, the parents have a difficult time saying no. This becomes a dilemma for the parents, “saying no and disciplining them” vs “let them have their way just so the kids won’t cry”. Either way, both decisions are stressful.

Of course there are more factors, but at the end of the day, parents are shamed for their decisions. We don’t know what every parent is going through, and it does not help if we judge them with their decisions. I bet most parents are racking their brains just thinking what to feed their kids.

If you ask me, what’s important is they eat, there is variation in what they eat and find a way to compromise - “you can eat the sweet, as long as you also eat what I want you to eat” sort of way.

This is was my daughter’s breakfast a few days ago. I posted it on my Twitter and Instagram with the caption “please don’t judge me,”

It’s a somewhat compromise. She likes cereals, I want her to eat the eggs and we both want the tocino.

My daughter prefers bread and pasta over rice, and that is fine with me, but apparently it’s not fine for some people. I was told I am not feeding my daughter well, that she is growing up spoiled since she doesn’t eat rice. That’s it, just because she doesn’t eat much rice.

At some point I questioned myself, heck, I always question myself on how I am raising my daughter.

Despite my self-doubt, my daughter always made me proud. She is independent, when she is hungry, she knows what she wants and if she knows where it is, she just gets it. She is not picky with her food, unless of course she is not comfortable with the taste or texture, but in general, she eats anything and everything.

My daughter is healthy, normal weight, normal height, rarely gets sick.

I as a parent, am happy.

That is why, everyday, I ask,

Is there really a need for parent-shaming?