|
WHEW! I AM terribly exhausted, both physically and emotionally. And
I will tell you why. I have been the family driver for my one and
only daughter—Rachel. This continues to be my wrinkle in this
wonderful field of parenting.
When I was studying and working at the same
time, during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, I used to ride JD
or MD plywood-covered buses to bring me to Ayala Avenue and back to
the University Belt in Sampaloc and vice-versa.
We had our own share of pickpockets, muggers,
and snatchers who were after our wristwatches. That was pretty much
of it. No terrorist’s bombings, no Peninsula or Oakwood siege, and
no human rights too.
So back then, parenting was easy for my Nanay
and Tatay back in Santa Cruz, Laguna, when I became an independent
lot at the age of 17 when I started working my way up to college.
Today, it’s totally different. Protecting my
modern baby Rachel, now at 20, is also known in the Friendster world
as a cross between Angel Locsin and Heart Evangelista is a whole
different kettle for me.
If you don’t know what I mean, imagine a
battle-tested battalion of Philippine marines with hundreds of Huey
helicopters hovering across Manila’s blue sky and as far as the
eye can see.
That will give you an idea of the minimum amount
of security detail that you need to adequately guard the way of
Rachel when she reports to her student-nurse duty at Tondo Medical
Center.
So now, when I hear the new duty schedule of
Rachel at Manila Doctors College, I pray and hope that she will not
be assigned to Jolo General Hospital. But look, that’s not the
hard part.
The most stressful part is hearing her stories
about one or two persons who died while in her medical care. You
hear things like this which is normally punctuated by Rachel’s
vivid description of her cleaning the patient’s poop in those
dilapidated beds.
I still agonize that I allowed her to choose
nursing over broadcast journalism. I mean, nursing may be a
lucrative field. It is a place where your favorite daughter will
spend much of her critical years in some Western countries. That’s
why she cannot afford to make a mistake.
The only good part of this parenting-driving
process for me is that I have two guns. I don’t mean those
bullet-shooting guns: I mean I rely also to the help given by my two
sons—RB and Rupert who doubles as my alternate drivers when I
can’t make it to guard Rachel.
We work as X-Teams very much like they’re
described by Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman in their book with
the same title of Harvard Business School Press (2007). We think
outside of the team-family. We shift our activities with the demands
and intricacies of each family member.
In short, we are adaptive and flexible to
orchestrate superior performance of helping each and every member of
our family in this increasingly complex, changing, but still
dangerous world.
Unfortunately, at the end of each month, when we
add up our gasoline and toll expenses, it came out to more than the
legitimate monthly salary of our Barangay chairman in Parañaque.
And I don’t even want to think about it.
But what if I allow my Rachel to go on riding
the dirty jeepney and foul-smelling FX transport? Probably, she
would be slower to distinguish between a public transport and a
public hospital that studies have shown ultimately determines who
get into what medical school.
So anyway, we have our own version of X-Teams
which I guess means that once Rachel gets to graduate and pass her
licensure exam, and that once she gets to work in what else but
another local hospital, all that we’ll be eagerly doing again is
the joy of her company at the back of the car—a sleeping beauty
with her kikay (cosmetic make-up) kit and all.
Rey Elbo is a business consultant
specializing in human resources and total quality management as a
fused specialty. Readers’ feedback may be sent to kairoshq@info.com.ph.
|
