a good parent, what is?

Excuse the yoda-like title.

What does it mean to be a good parent? Are there set criteria? Is there an underground international parenting organization that keeps the rules of good parenting a secret so that only their children will survive gloriously in this ever changing world? Okay that's far-fetched.

A friend of mine recently gave birth and I didn't know what to tell her. It would seem like she was expecting some profound or maybe practical motherly advice from me, but all I could say was congratulations...it will be weird at first but eventually you'll get the hang of it...or something to that effect. My husband joked one time that it would have been nice if babies were born with instructional manuals. Like all other members of the animal kingdom, caring for our offspring is based on instinct.

The question is, how can you say if a parent is a good parent or a bad parent? If one is omnipresent in their children's lives, does that make him/her a good parent? Or is it being completely physically absent because one has to work somewhere far in order to provide for the needs of the children? Or somewhere in between? Are happily married parents better than single parents or separated/divorced parents? Are those who practice corporal punishment more effective than those who sit-down and talk to their kids....even though the kid is 1-yr. old?

And then I realized, the term good parent is probably abstract. It's akin to love, beauty, truth, courage...we cannot have an absolute definition of it. If you're a theological fanatic, you may think that in order to be perfect parents the father should be a carpenter and the mother a 14-year old virgin. If you're a materialist, then perfect parents should be able to provide for all the needs and wants of the children. All parents have an opinion. One parenting style is not effective universally.

Being a parent, I realized that one thing parents are awfully conscious-to-the-point-of-vanity about is whether they're good parents or not...second to that (in my humble opinion) is how successful their children are (whether in education or wealth). All of which are products of our pride. And then when another family's children seem to be better off than ours, we start looking for imperfections about them....at least we're not this or that or blah blah blah. Envy. And we know that pride and envy are deadly sins.

Of course, as parents, we want to know whether we are good or bad. I think it's simple. Ask the children. If they say yes (or act like they're saying yes...for children who can't talk yet), that's all that really matters don't you think?

it's in the air!

We're going to the northern hemisphere for the holidays and I can't can't can't wait to experience my first-ever white christmas...so from now on, I'll try my best to be merry and giddy and do all those pre-christmasy things we're supposed to do eventhough it's still October.

...and yeah, my drawing sucks a bit...took effort though, so I give myself a pat on the back.

Because I can't think right now

So let me once again legally plagiarize or ...simply cite/quote Pablo Neruda....today's poem is simply called Poetry.

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires,
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

Winning unexpectedly

We just came from the supermarket and we didn't pay for anything! Apparently, buying this particular brand of anti-dandruff shampoo got the attention of promo people and so representatives from the manufacturer of the shampoo brand paid for our groceries! But I think it was because my son is incredibly adorable....the sales people literally gave the shampoo to my son! My husband and I were actually having second thoughts about buying the shampoo because we were practically overflowing with shampoo at home! The guy at the cashier and two other supermarket staff were so insistent that we put the shampoo in our cart so I took one bottle plus a small tube of conditioner.

As I was about to pay for the stuff, this group of people interrupted the transaction and told us that we won all our groceries for free! In a split second, we were having our picture taken, signing papers and were shaking hands with stangers! It went by so fast that my husband and I were still dazed when we got home...it was definitely the first time we both won anything...and all because our son was cute....or maybe because my husband was cute? Hmmm...hmmm.....

my theory on womanhood

I think there's an invisible link between ovaries and the female psyche. Of course there's the presence of hormones to explain many things, not to mention physiological processes that lead to why we are physically and emotionally different during some days of the month.

My far-fetched, eureka-type hypothesis is that our ovaries are actually embryonically part of our brains (I don't care about the male gonads right now). That migrating ectodermal neural crest cells would find themselves going into the abdominal region as retroperitoneal structures...yadi-yadi-ya. What the freaking hell am I blabbering about? Anyway, the developmental biology of humans has been established so my theory is automatically moot.

So what was the impetus (as you may have observed, I just read Reader's Digest's word power....^_^...too many pretentious flowery words today) for this discussion?

...my damn uterus is contracting like the 10th circle of hell because it's the second day of my period!!! (okay, too much information) It's affecting my mood, I'm irritable, I think I'm about to get a splitting headache etc etc. That's why. Plus I'm short on cash.....

perimenstrual syndrome + broke = royal bitch. Enough said.

(i'm sure you're thinking, this girl is potentially bipolar...she can't seem to decide whether she wants to save the world or destroy it...pitiful)

on being compassionate

While walking along a sidewalk, you notice a beggar without legs or a mother and a baby asking for alms....what do you do? What do I do? What should we do? There were times when I had accessible spare change and I hastily gave it to a beggar (no eye contact). Oftentimes, I ignore them. Yeah, I know, how utterly uncompassionate of me huh? There have been many instances when I justified my momentary apathy towards the needy by saying that they are capable of earning money or are part of a syndicate blah blah blah. And then I realized that I'm becoming a cold-hearted biatch.

Compassion is any action that is a direct result of one's desire to truly help another without expecting anyting in return. I am so affected by the sight of a mother and a baby begging on the street probably because I'm a mother and I have a baby myself. I feel a sort of stinging pain in between my chest and abdomen that resembles, I dunno...kind of like seeing the person that you love with someone else or pure angst. I cannot even bear to imagine my son having to go through some days without eating anything.

It's terrible how poverty exists. How life is so unbalanced. How most of the impossibly rich spend their time doing uncompassionate things. Once in a while they probably feel some sort of compassion towards the less-fotunate...so they donate thousands or millions of their spare change to charities or institutions so that they could pat themselves at the back for being generous for a while. I used to love fashion and lifestyle magazines. Now, I cringe at the memory that I was once so shallow and unproductive.

Once again I feel impotent, inept and helpless. Yes, I may have spare change or extra food but sometimes these things just aren't enough. It's not about looking for who to blame. It's about doing something concrete. We have to be the change we want to see in the world, someone once said. But how? How?

back pain sucks

...it's irritating
...it's frustrating
...it's scaring the hell out of me (I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac...I may have something worse than just back pain...nerve problem? slipped disc? literally falling apart?) ayayay!
...it can't be helped....I will not spend money on an ergonomic chair
...so why don't we all help poor little aging me convince myself that the pain does not exist...


(bear with me) ahem ahem

Grouse mountain, B.C., Canada; it's 9 in the morning. Thick snow everywhere and we have ultra-fluffy parkas, mittens and ear muffs. We exhale and it's as if the carbon dioxide freezes. We lie on the snow-covered ground and let the ice numb the freaking lumbosacral pain (cos the parka's a midriff...hey this is MY sketch!). The end.


Hahahahahahahaha! My blog. Can't help it....nothing profound today.

rambling

My tolerable haiku for today:

One lazy sunday

My hazy overcast mind

wanders aimlessly

My moronic haiku for today:

When I eat brownies

Post-sugar rush slows me down

Like barbiturates

recalling neruda

I remember one english class in high school when I first heard about Pablo Neruda. I'm sure my classmates will remember that moment in the AV room where we listened to famous actors reciting Neruda's poems on Love (for the movie IL Postino- The Postman). As an early birthday present to myself, when I stumbled on the book version two weeks ago, I bought it. His poems are unstructured and free-flowing; the messages so raw it's just so very very human. The following is my current favorite entitled I like for you to be still:

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does
not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly
cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does
not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though your were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

.....all together now, SIGH
(Pablo Neruda, I know you're dead but please don't hate me for posting the entire poem online....hehehe)