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The last post was written in real-time as random thoughts came pouring into the Insomniac’s mind hence, the incoherent sentences and redundancy. But I hope it sent the message.


The topic of how a parent can affect a child’s decision-making in life led me to realize that parenthood is an unfair gig.


The way I see it, we can be any of the three types of parents: the strict, the lax and the balanced. Let’s see the pros and cons.There are the strict parents who seem to have figured it all out for their children – the school, the course, the company to work for. They also implement strict house rules and will push their children to their limits to maintain that honor list status. However, as popularized on TV, this breeds rebelliousness on the children’s part. Young ladies are known to get themselves pregnant out of spite for their parents. Men get simply abusive and / or psychotic.


There are also the lax parents. Parents who don’t set curfew hours and let their children make their own decisions and mistakes. They know that the more mistakes, the more they learn. This however opens up the growing child to bad company, trying out alternative recreation such as weed, too much booze and such vices. If the channel of communication between children and parent isn’t that open, there’s a possibility the parents will be clueless about their kids’ R and R.


The “balanced” parent is somewhat an urban legend in society. They are the “ulirang” ama at ina. But what exactly are they like? Most of the time, we only label parents as “uliran” or ideal if their children grow up being responsible and honest individuals because if the kid is pretty fucked up, there must be something wrong with the parenting.


Not necessarily. Nasa tao yan (can anybody directly translate that into English?). Because in reality, there are individuals who turn out to be good persons irregardless of what parents they have. I think it’s mostly influenced by company - The Good and Bad influences that eventually define a person.


That’s how it’s unfair. It seems like no matter what type of parent you try to be, your child can end up in prison or in congress (which in this country, is worse than theft or murder even). We can only pray that our children-to-be will not come across bad company as they grow up.


Here’s something to think about: When we become parents, will we bring up our kid the way our parents did? Or will we go on a completely different direction?

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