I do an average of six to seven kilometers daily, depending on my pace—from very brisk to too-brisk-people-think-I-am-running. So if I roughly compute those distances, multiplying them with the number of days (say, an average of 320 days a year), I would have walked, as of today, over 13,000 kilometers!
Kids whimper and yawn, reluctant to leave their beds. If I listened closely enough, I’d hear what I smell, tocino, eggs, and sinangag sizzling or frying. I’d also hear bed sheets folding, faucets running, and lunch boxes, doors, gates opening and closing.
I call these “mother noise.” The kind of sounds mothers with growing-up children hear every day of their lives. These real-life audio at dawn I don’t hear in my home anymore. But once upon a time I did, part of the time. Most times I was busy minding my own needs, hearing my own thoughts—about what to do with my clients and what to expect from my staff in the office—that those sounds were heard by my kids’ yayas instead.
In my pile of writings, I have a piece on this important phase of my mothering, which I’d like to share with those parents today who are so busy briskly walking the same treadmill—building a career or making a living—I walked on, up until six years ago when I decided I’ve earned my dues and stayed home to do what I love doing best, writing. This essay I tagged:
Part-time Mother
It is an ordinary weekday morning. After a leisurely breakfast with my husband, who drives off to his office in Makati, I glide into my own office a few steps away. In faded tee and frayed shorts, I am all set to string my words. I log on to my computer and play a Broadway musicale CD to keep my feet tapping. All my senses begin to key in. But just when I think I am in utopia, I hear the un-ordinary.
Noise. A fusion of disparate sounds all around. Wispy voices of the Lotus Eaters (80s hit band); heavy clanks of barbell plates accompanied by grunts and groans; and loud organ music with unabashed singing—all at the same time.
Well, eldest son JC, a software designer, holds office in the music room so I am used to his music played at hysterical level. But middle son JB (who came by to rest after passing the Medical Exam Board)doing noisy weights, youngest son JR (who is awaiting his final trimester in Legal Management)practicing organ pieces this hour are both something new. Suddenly it hits me. All my three boys are home.
I try, and try hard, to visualize the last time they were home with me on an ordinary weekday. No images come. I slither to the living room, where their noises clash in a crazy cacophony, and I sit up straight on the couch.
“Mom, why are your eyes closed?’ JR asks, chuckling.
“Shhh, I am trying to remember...”
All my Mommy Years were spent mostly at the workplace.
The only images of weekday togetherness I now see in my mind are: Hurried mornings—hustling sleepy Sons One and Two into a honking school bus, then kissing crying Son Three goodbye; and tired evenings—reviewing Son One's homework, then whispering a prayer over sleeping Sons Two and Three.
On sacred weekends, I'd cram into two precious days all the missed five days. And mouthed my defensive buzzword, quality time.
What that made me was plain and simple, part-time mother. A moonlighter who knew deep down that she couldn’t excel in both jobs equally. It also meant that nothing could ever make up for a lost chance to answer a question, or straighten a knitted brow, or kiss a little ache away.
But today, at ages when they turn all red if hugged or bussed in public, and would rather have a pretty girl's company instead of their mother's, I am here for them. On call night and day!
More than ever, with years of management practice and client service, I can now answer their questions—any question; straighten their knitted brows, even conjure smiles; kiss away their little aches—physical or emotional. Finally, I am equipped to do topnotch mothering.
Unfortunately, they don't know that. Worse, they don't need it anymore.
It's like a joke about life's ironies. As adolescents short on cash, we could then only gawk at pricey clothes on mannequins. Now in our golden years, we can buy them but can't fit into them. My husband rues about his lot, as well. In his youth, he couldn't afford lechon in a menu. Now he can, but his cardiologist and oncologist and surgeon have ordered him to shun it, or else.
Often, when I talk to my friends who are full-time mothers, I verbalize my envy (okay, guilt). "I wish I had also stayed home when my children were growing up."
"Hey, go easy on yourself," they say as friends should. "You did very well."
No, my children (whose mommy was there only part of the time) did very well. From what I see, they each have a good heart.
No, not because of me. But because of—and only by—God's grace. He promised in 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness . . ."
Awesome, His grace never failed when I did. Amazing, it was always there when I wasn't.
copyright © 2002 by Grace D. Chong
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