What a question.

Kenzo just a few hours ago complained about his asthma and his itchy body and  asked us “why are these things happenning to me?”

I knew Kenzo is kinda like me and I am scared of it. I am suffering from PDD or Dysthmia or three decades now and the way Kenzo forward his question ,silently I knew, he is capable of deep thought, critical thinking, introspection, self analysis etc. Which are good things but also all of those can be a good push towards depression.

At an early age, he is already being hard on himself, maybe starting to dislike his situation, perhaps starting to realized that he is not getting a fair deal from life and these scared me. I knew how painful depression is and how it can ruin anyone and now I am faced with the possibility that I might have passed this gene to my kid.

Kenzo just broke his arm and was just healed a week ago, but now he has asthma and some rashes all over his body. He is in a bad state and the month of March and April has not been good to him.

When I was asked that question. I dont know the answer and I just gave the best BS i can think of. I just said, “he gotta do good things as good things will happen to those who do nice things” I asked his mum to massage him, I put on Vicks on his foot and covered it with socks, we  put Calmoseptine on his rashes and sang him a lullaby.

Kenzo is one brillant kid but I think his pre-disposition to sadness can be a hurdle to get what he wants in life… I just hope he will snap out of it and not fall the way I did.

Foreigner?

The Nana of Liam had been asked a countless of times, if Liam is a foreigner’s son or at least one of the parents are.  Liam has a different face and not very filipino, more Far eastern asian than south eastern. He can pass as a Chinese, Japanese or Korean and not very believable as a pinoy.

Some of the good points of Liam is his being pleasant and friendly, it seems he likes all people and would say “hi”, “bye”, “hello” to strangers automatically.

When he is dressed in real nice clothes I still always marveled how he look good, really, not because I am biased, but because really he is damn nice.

I ain’t religious

I am not religious. I had read more of R. Dawkins, C. Hitchens than bible verses. The only time I will watch a religious program is to be amused on how hard they try, how they make it dramatic, how they scare people with guilt and the ultimate punishment of eternal fire and that part they ask for donation always amuses me.

Now I am remiss in teaching my kids about God, Jesus etc. I really struggle because I myself is not 100 or even 10% into it. Good thing the school is squeezing a few bits and pieces about it otherwise they will be the only kids in this uber religious part of the world that cannot understand that if you pray Jesus can win you basketball games, make you pass exams, keep storm, floods, earthquake away from you. I will also struggle to explain how there are very poor people and very rich ones and why God don’t bother to assist the poor once in a while  to balance it all out.

But really how can I explain that Jesus is actually the son of God, but he is also a son of Joesph and Mary but Joseph is not his real dad.. yes, Mary is the real mom but God is not the husband. Jesus was sent here to wash our sins.. which was committed by Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God. yes, it is the sin of Adam and Eve but since we are human decendants of them we also get to be part of that original sin.  God sent Jesus , his son, to earth from heaven to show us the way, he was crucified, and die violently on the cross. after being dead for 3 days, he will resurrect and fly back to heaven.. yes, he flew like being transported up, similar to how aliens kidnap earthlings to their spaceship. It is like an invisible vacumn tube that just pull him up to the sky. Now by accepting Jesus that will wash away all that sin we inherited from the first humans. Now we need to accept Jesus with all our heart, it can not be half-hearted otherwise that will not count… and other blah-blahs.

Come what may, I just hope school will do its job because I cannot do that religious part.

We. Bad. Parents.

We are the worst parents, but mostly it is just mum whose voice showered the neighborhood with loud curses, nags, commands etc.. to a strangers who would pass by and hear her would think that our kids (mostly it is Kenzo) was being tortured, but really I think he is already, traumatized and scarred for life from all the nagging, emotional and psychological punishment he got from his mum.

Now since I stopped taking my Zolodin, I get to be easily upset with his noise and his mum.  When Kenzo will act stubborn,  whine, fakes his cry his mum will shout loudly, curse and say really bad things to the kid.  She will shout, get mad to scare Kenzo to stop it.. but Kenzo will be more scared and end up crying more. It would be a cycle everytime, in the morning before going to work and at night after work. I used to be just passive (as much as I can)  and would just go and hide in my room and let all the noise settle but since I am off Zolodin, I think I can easily lose my patience as well.

I used to take the “good cop” role but now mum and I are both the bad cops. Kenzo is on the receiving end of all these and the saddest part he is only 6 years old.

Honestly, I am now without patience to deal with Kenzo. I am very close in hurting him physically. I will not be surprised that one day he will get welts and bumps. I just cannot control all the noise. I am struggling to control my anger.

I think we are stuck in a deep shit that we (but mostly his mum) created. She spoiled Kenzo and no matter how I try to correct her ways before, she is too stubborn to even listen and just like in many things in our household that my thoughts dont carry any weight, I am just an added noise in the house.

I used to offer suggestion on how we should do our parenting and maybe ( if I am heard) we had not created Kenzo to be bratty, defiant kid. But all my thoughts to his mum are just nothing bookish theories.

We created all these troubles that kenzo is in and now we are punishing kenzo for all the issues we dug for him. WE are indeed stupid and bad at the same time. Sorry Kenzo but life gave you us, the worst parents on the planet.

Spoiled B.

After their US trip, mostly mum mentioned to me was how Kenzo threw tantrums and became very uncontrollable. He cried over a little disagreement, showed disdain when things did not go his way, quite aggressive to other kids etc..

His mum showed all the fatigue and the effects of what I had been trying to warn to her about many times before,  that she was doing her parenting wrong, but like many of what I said it fell on deaf ears.

One thing that I hammered to her before was from Tiger Mom Amy Chua who said something like ” Our Job as parents is not to be liked by our children… but to teach them…”  As parents we wanted our kids to have all things they want, do all the things they enjoy etc.. not knowing that we are already hurting them by making them weak, entitled, lazy. Our instinct is to pamper them rather than teach them, we choose short term gains than long term results. We wanted them to be happy now and not knowing that as adults they will turn out to be lazy, entitled, depressed, unadjusted etc.

Now Kenzo turned into a bit of monster, created by being spoiled by his mum’s way and now she was giving up and showing her frustration on Kenzo, which in fact a problem she created.

I remember when we started our house construction, she wanted just her  plan and then it went over the budget and after losing  P60,000 then she came to me and  asked me for a way out, while when I offered help prior to spending the money (which just like in many things) was dismissed as a nuisance.  Now after burning the money I am all of a sudden a bright spot to offer help. By the way, our house project is about to start and she was back in planning it and I try to warn her about things, but I am again waived off. I think she is building our house like most that goes over the budget. She is starting the build from the top, she is building starting from the expensive fixtures, locks, lighting, bathroom, finishes etc while not concentrating on the basic first before moving up. Ex: she is shopping for the best toilets but not making sure that we will get strong and consistent water first.  Our water supply here is close to African desert level pressure is weak and that is if we are lucky, sometimes we don’t get any.

Now I am asked (again) for help, “when the shit hits the fan”, I am now asked to look for a fix. It is frustrating  to be set aside, dismissed and when things go bad I am now all of the sudden important and pulled in to clean up.   I hated it and I honestly hated doing it but sadly I am in the same sinking boat and hardly got no choice.

Tutoring Liam

Kenzo is back in the USA for his annual vacation and I am told that he is having a blast, but who would n’t? He is enjoying a cold weather, at Tahoe they were  able to catch snow, when I was there 3 months ago I got snowstorm and it was borderline scary.

Now since Kenzo is away I thought to corner Liam and tutor him step by step, but it is not as easy as teaching Kenzo. In fact, Kenzo just learned mostly on his own via his Ipad.. that was in fact any lazy parent wet dream, almost no effort was needed.

I tried to crawl (figuratively) to hold Liam;s attention and to make him know that learning is important. I have to be creative and work my way slowly to get him to start learning but I am not as successful as I wanted to be. I lose interest and easily give up. I really have to snap out of this slump or else Liam’s future is at stake.

I know it is never a child’s fault for not learning, it is my belief that it is always the parents fault for not trying hard to teach. But really it is hard, or maybe I am just spoiled on how easy it was with Ken, to teach a toddler… but we got no choice but to succeed