“Higit na matimbang ang tubo kaysa sa puhunan.” We often hear this saying from grandparents. Many parents of children complain that their offsprings are being spoiled by their “lolo and lola”.
The relationship of grandparents and grandchildren is very different to that of parents and children. Young couples get their children at a time when they have many responsibilities. They are just starting to build a life together. They may not be secure in their jobs or in their business. There is the house to care for. There are friends they often need to entertain. The upbringing of the children is their responsibility.
They have to worry about their health as well as their behaviour. Sometimes the husband amd the wife do not even see eye to eye on financial matters family responsibilities and many others issues that tend to break the union. The love that they have for their children is often not demonstrated. The little ones are irritants when they demand for their needs and resort to whining and tantrums.
On the other hand, grandparents are more relaxed. They have gone over that period of worrying in their lives. Grandchildren become the focus of their interest and their love. Upbringing them is not really their responsibility; they are with them for short periods of time when these children entertain them. The grandparents now shower the affection that they were not able to show to their own children.
In the Filipino extended family system, parents and grandparents of children often live in the same house. In the Philippines, family authority often rests on the older ones. the grandparents, and this set-up often creates misunderstandings and enmity in the family,. The grandchildren often listen more to the grandparents. Their father diminishes his self-image.
In many cases the children’s parents take the situation for granted especially if the house they live in belong to the first generation (and probably even the farm wherein they get their living in rural areas.)
Here in Canada, we still find some Filipino homes with grandparents as part of the family, but they are not as many as in the middle seventies when parents were sponsored by young couples to take care of their children,.
That was a chaotic period in many Filipino homes when the parents of the children argued with their own parents on how to bring up their children.
They were already influenced by North American views in child-rearing. They were the wage earners and not dependent on their parents for subsistence.
The kids were brought up with more freedom than children were in the Philippines during that period. The first generation were at that time mostly dependant on their children.
Eventually those grandparents got used to the ways children are reared in North America and accepted the ways their own children wanted them to deal with their offsprings.
These children of the seventies and eighties are now all grown up and have families of their own; their parents are now the grandparents who are quite familiar with the concept of the nuclear family. They are in a better position to understand the behaviours of their grandchildren than their fathers and mothers did.
My sister who was one of the immigrants to Canada in the middle sixties now has two grandchildren of her own. They come to our place once a week. They bring us great joy but I find the differences in their upbringing as compared to what I remember of my own childhood.
I do not think I asked the questions these three year old and one and a half year old do now. “Why can’t I go to the street?” I would answer, “It is dangerous, there are many cars, and you might get hit.”
“Why can you go?” “Well, I am older: I am more careful.”
“If I am careful, can I go?”
When I was a child, my mother would leave me at a certain place and told to stay put. She would be gone for probably half an hour and I would be there exactly where she left me when she returned.
Can you imagine leaving a child here alone for that long? You would be charged of reckless abandonment when the child is found by a stranger or the police, wandering in the street or elsewhere.
I do not remember ever refusing to eat anything my mother cooked for our meals. Children here have a mind of their own. “I do not eat white cheese; I only eat the yellow one.”
“I want pure fresh orange juice.”
“Do you have olives and pickles?”
My niece tells my sister and me that we spoil her kids. Probably we do, but we find great pleasure in being with them. Little things please them. A tiny chocolate candy is a treat. A bag of cherries will make them jump for joy.
We have the time to play with them and answer their never ending questions and in their innocence they give unreserved love.
At this age when our usefulness to the adult world has greatly been diminished, people who were formerly attentive to us have lessened. The love and affection of these little ones are now treasures we hold on to.****
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