The Day of Reckoning
December 1, 2008
(Notes from YLB : sincerest condolences to feli tan-co and her family... more & more I think like QueenHedy, instead of incurring foot-in-mouth disease and regretting what I say/type, I just try to say the right thing which, as you know, is what everyone else sez...thanks loads for the forwarded emails rlynA, TeaCakesEunice, NetSy, & miss every1 who usually posts on the e-group...was thinking of posting an email about Cartoons of Our Lives and related items but thought this might be more timely...)
"Homo sapiens is the only creature of God that engages in sexual activity for non-reproductive purposes. However, Im getting more and more suspicious of the chimpanzee, orangutan, rabbits, and certain doggie species - YLB"
THE TEENS OF OUR FAMILIES, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES AND IN THE LARGER COMMUNITY and their premarital sexual activity are to a certain extent, a given in society today. We can only advise them to exercise prudence and caution, implore them to use "protection" (the way we DIDN'T) and cross our fingers and pray to God that things turn out right.
This politically correct sound bite sounded fairly OK to me only until it affected me in a very personal way. After that, it sounded like a gob of bird doo-doo, pardon the French.
Paraphrasing Chris Rock ( who said that when it comes to crime, he's conservative, and when it comes to prostitution, he's liberal ), when it comes to sexual attitudes OUTSIDE the immediate family, I'm quite liberal. Two steps inside, though, and I become ULTRA conservative. Howz that for self-serving hypocrisy ?
As background: Our deep-cover operative in Cainta (
Nigel, who else? Like I had a choice
) confirmed what the national security adviser briefed us (the mother, who else?) :
Nicole was conducting a liaison with her very first boyfriend. I could not but break down (more and more I find myself in tears these days)... my baby, my oh-so-beautiful baby who was the apple of my eye and who grew up right in front of my eyes, who i learned to wash with cotton balls (always downward, i never had sisters) and dressed with hard-earned disposable diapers, who unlike the eldest i never spanked, slapped or pinched till she was a smart-ass pre-teener.. . just the unimaginable sight of her being touched by a male stranger chilled my blood and curdled all the bodily fluids in me...
I could not but relate it to what the mother had been pinging me about: on more than one occasion Nicole had failed to log in Friday night, something she had done unfailingly since she was in HS. The younger son also reported that against his better judgment, he let slide the fact that his ate stayed overnite at a friend's house near school.
No sight was more confirming than the picture of a swarthy, beady eyed chinito punk (well, that's how he looked to me) on whom Nicole was leaning rather cozily that Nigel non-chalantly YMed to me:
Pa, yan ang BF ni Nicole.
huhuhuhu, pls tell me its not true pogi...
ganyan na talaga Papa... masanay ka na.
Ang wish ko lang anak, wag sana sya lokohin nitong hunghang na to. Mukhang masasaktan kapatid mo.
Well, maghanap sya ng mukha sa aso kapag niloko nya si Nicole, Pa.
Nigel's bravado aside, I began to realize why they had suddenly become chummy, Nigel and Nicole, after years of being hostile to each other, and had suddenly alienated the youngest Brent, with whom they had alternately built alliances against each other. You tell no secrets of mine, I tell none of yours. Till now.
All too easily, I wanted to blame the mother for her "permissive" attitude, her liberal stance toward sex. But it's something you can't hold back, like the boy with his finger in the dike, it's something as inevitable as rain and the sunrise next day. Of course, I'm talking about our kidz engaging in sex long before they get out of college. If not much earlier.
I had a golden record of oh-for-ten (or thereabouts) in high school. Getting rejected no longer hurt or mattered, cuz it had happened so often. (Once, i courted someone via letters and cards, and she gave me her sweet "yes" via mail... i was so flabbergasted I never showed up to her again... so I guess that doesn't count). I had become the self-fulfilling frustrated romantic... i lived to pursue, to chase, and the rejection was the inevitable part of the process. That's why I was content on just building block upon block of my top ten crushes list. Pathetic, no?
In my mind, the prettiest of the batch (and in other batches) competed for my attention and affection. No one was too pretty or good for me. Indeed, my radiance was such that I had to divide my time with a different girl each day. Grabe ba?
The reality is much more believable. Probably 75% of 4-B shared my fantasy, proven more than a few times every time we traded stories and tall tales. Some of us actually believed it could happen, being fought over by the opposite sex. Not gonna happen, bro.
For some of us who were lucky enough to be favored with attention by the batch 82 girls, we were too unsophisticated to respond in like manner, or respond in a way that would do justice to the attention originally given. Romances that blossomed among batchmates were just those made in heaven, fated probably, swerte nyo lang mga kabatch.
But this situation with the daughter is something totally left field for me. For one, i never had a sis, and the kapraningan and jadedness in a Pinoy dad like me has prepared me to think of all kinds of dirty scenarios that my evil mind can dream of. Sins of the father are visited on the son (daughter), as they say.
Of course, there's a small chance all my paranoia is for naught, that they are conducting a healthy non-sexual relationship (he's 2 to 3 years older, ha... extra warning signs), that they are dating with other pairs (unlikely) and she is holding out and "evaluating" him further before proceeding with anything more serious than kissing and necking (ugh...). My gosh, this is torture.
You and i know, batchmate, that this is all naive wishful thinking. The next time I chat with the daughter I will be very circumspect, diplomatic and wordwise. Before I mention anything about that guy.
By the way, the first time I saw his pic, i alternately felt like Bill Walton when he first donned the Celtic uniform against the Lakers ("I hated them immediately" ), John Ritter in Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter ( I wanted to send him to Camp Abubakr) and King Leonidas / Gerard Butler in 300 when he met Xerxes's emissary (he pushed him over a deep, dark hole) ... then I remembered that my daughter was in love with this person... swerte lang nya.
Thanks for being our sounding board, batchmates. Hope you'll all be more understanding than I am. Especially those with teenage daughters.
COMMENTS Mel Asiddao-Chiong December 2, 2008 One cannot get more raw (rawer?) than this. Noel, I believe this is by far your most personal of posts. Halos walang edit, it looks like. It strangely sounds like a future dialogue between Erwin and Miles (the equivalent of Nigel). In fact, both of them have hinted to Mariel (Nicole but much, much younger; still quite innocent at 10, thank you) that any boy would have to pass through a rigorous screening before anything is even said. Of course, she does not have the faintest clue what they are talking about. I hope it stays that way long enough but I would want her to be well informed to make the right choices when time comes.
I couldn't say that I fully understand what you are going through. Let me just say for now, thanks for the trust in confiding your intimate thoughts. I hope and pray that both father and daughter (yours; I have a few more years of peace) find the strength to trust and grow deeper in their love for one another. Lastly, though at your expense, thanks for the lesson that I shall carry with me when I get my turn.
Mel
Noel Bautista December 2, 2008 Dear Ate Mel, Thanks very much for your very empathic reply, yes the post was blurted out of these arthritic fingers after a very emotional chat with Kuya Nigel, he is a very lonely son, kuya and head of the family now that both of his parents are far, far away. If Mariel is anywhere as pretty as you, then you will have at least the same situation (I would rather not call them problems, inviting jinx lang yan) as I have encountered now, but with your motherly instinct, intuition, and spider-sense for "danger" (you know what I mean) you will be better equipped than I have been to handle these scenarios. Hands down, I admit mothers will always be abler reactors to the hormonally-challeng ed (and i mean that in the kindest sense possible) youths of today. By any stretch of the imagination, did we EVER have these problems in good ol' S-J-C-S ? YLB NOel PS Regards and good luck ( ! ) to Erwin and Kuya Miles :)
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