...Inevitable Truths...

Vino attends play school now, playing and interacting with like-aged kids for two hours a day, three times a week.

For a couple of sessions, I’ve been told by teachers that Vino has been a bit aggressive when the other kids play with toys he likes to play with.

Growing up with not much playmates apart from me and Ate Jen, Vino is still not used to playing with kids his age. He shares his toys when we ask him, but playing with the smaller kids who can’t express through words yet makes it seem like the kids are just taking the toys away from him – something he doesn’t really like.

When we do play at the playground, I observe Vino’s behavior with other kids. When a big kid insists on playing with some big kid toys (i.e. air blasters that shoot out soft balls), Vino takes a step back and lets the kid take it. Sometimes he cries, sometimes he just looks at me and moves on to another activity.

As a parent, I can just chalk this up to growing pains, but I can’t help but wonder how to introduce some inevitable truths that he will have to come to terms with.

People Take Advantage

We're never really in a fair fight in real life.
(source: https://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/unfair%20advantage_103529)

In the kids’ section of the Church we go to, we asked Vino to share his toy with a kid who shared his, then this older kid comes in (probably around 4 or 5) and takes a piece of plastic bottle cap or something, proceeds to let Vino believe that it’s a toy, and takes Vino’s toy away.

I’m supposed to teach my kid the value of sharing at an early age, but when people like that big kid comes around, how can I tell him that what that kid did is a totally different concept?

We encounter the big kid when we grow older – people still take advantage of those who are too nice 

to speak up.

I’ve had friends who worked harder than their bosses for a fraction of the salary. There are some who accepted compensation well below what they deserved based on output just so they could at least be paid. I even had a friend who wouldn’t have learned that the company wasn’t paying his taxes (even if it’s deducted from his pay and reflected on his payslip) if he didn’t decide to leave.

People in relationships also go through it as well, with one party doing what they want to do and the other just accepting it in an effort to “keep the peace”.

There’s a Filipino saying that goes “walang manloloko kung walang magpapaloko,” which translates to “there won’t be con men if there are no victims.”

The quote is a perfect example of how conning people is encouraged rather than frowned upon.

It makes me want to choose if my kid should be the one taking advantage of people or if he would be taken advantage of, when ideally, I would want him to trust that people would be just as nice to him as he is to them.

The World Is Not All Song and Play

Gotta teach the kid the art of not giving a f*ck.
(Source: https://www.pinterest.ph/supriya9/quotes-d/)

Vino enjoys watching nursery rhymes like other kids. His laughs are priceless as he sings along and dances to the tunes.

I’m almost afraid of him growing up to realize what else the world has to offer.

The Amazon burns, the Arctic is melting, Filipino kids are denouncing their parents in order to join extreme leftists, and people are debating about where transgenders are supposed to pee.

Vegetarians promote their lifestyle to a point that some shame meat eaters, some nationalities assert their superiority over others like they own the world, and there are just some people who think their opinions are the only ones that matter.  

We don’t live in a world where our only problem is “what shape can we use as a fin for our beach ball fish?”

Having met a lot of people with different experiences, I understand that there are people who will think they are better than others and will do whatever they can to pull others down instead of proving that they are.

There are people who will leave trash behind or throw their cigarette butts just about anywhere, but would support saving the world in their social media feeds.

I want my kid to grow up to care about people, but people are not giving me enough reasons to make him want to care.

I want him to grow up embracing his roots, but my countrymen are not helping themselves by voting in idiots in the government.

He will have to grow up in a world where every little thing is an issue and he’ll have his work cut out for him if he wants to do anything about the bigger issues.  

I'm afraid that he will grow up in a world where he has no voice, because every damn thing is bound to offend someone, but more importantly, at the rate the world is deteriorating, it's terrifying to accept the fact that there may not be a world to grow up in. 

Truth is Fabricated

What is the truth, then?
(Source: http://www.campbellexpress.com/download/view%20all%20campbell%20express%20archives%20/2018_campbell_express_archives/02_-_february_2018/20180228.pdf)

I saw a quote somewhere that said that “a lie told often enough becomes truth.”

I think that quote is the basis of troll factories, which have become powerful tools that make or break a person or issue through the internet.

It makes it difficult to filter out the actual truth that even some grown-ups are confused at which are legitimate news or not.

From news without basis that spread like wildfire to digital editing that could produce deepfakes or virtual reality, it has become easier to spread misinformation than truth.

As a Philosophy major in college, I’ve always valued the pursuit of truth. In my professional career, I make it a point to ground all my articles on reliable research even if it is an opinion piece, so what could be written in under an hour, I do for two hours just so I can have multiple sources for my story.

Inevitably, Vino will have his own social media account in the future, and will be able to surf the web without my guidance.

He’ll open himself up to a world of make-believe, with people spreading stories so often that it becomes the reality.

While there may have been manufactured truths when I was growing up, I didn’t have the wealth of information that Vino might have access to when he grows older.

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I understand that the world is not all bad.

There are still good people in the world, it's just a bit more difficult to find them.

I didn't grow up to be who I am because my parents guided me or because the school system I grew up in was perfect in preparing me for this world, but rather because I was shaped by my experiences and interactions with people I came to know.

I was blessed to be surrounded by nice enough people to learn from, and not too evil people to drive me out of my path.

I've always wanted to be that parent who was always available to my kid, but I know that he can't learn everything from me, as I didn't learn what I know from a single person.

Eventually, he'll have a life of his own, and all I can do is hope that I've guided him enough to be able to determine the right type of people to surround himself with.