The day i hurt my daughter

The last week of this semester was a very busy day for me. Aside from the preparation for the final examination, editing of my thesis, editing of the student publication, wrapping up of the campus student commission on election work, the dance practice (I will write about this dancing thing later), I was also busy organizing the moving up ceremony for the pioneering day care laboratory conducted by our class (see earlier post “sem break”). My time is really, as we say in Filipino, in pursuit (naghahabol). I’m stressed, and when I’m stressed I’m irritable. I’m busy that the care of my daughter was left to my sister in law who has her own four children to take care of herself.


I recall the day my daughter was born. It was April 4, 1999 Easter Sunday. The night before, my wife already felt something, so, what she did was to pack her bag ready to go to the doctor anytime. She was packing while I was out there drinking with my buddies. That morning of April 4 my wife went to the lying in clinic with her sister and not with me. Why? I was out there, somewhere, playing bass guitar for someone’s birthday celebration.


I don’t know how many times my brother in law went where we were performing (if you can call it that) to tell me that Myra, my wife, was already in labor. But the problem with me during those days was that once I tasted alcohol, I cannot be removed from the bottle and the guitar. So, my brother in law was there waving his hands, calling me, but the amplifier blast and the ear shattering voice of the singer made even more atonal by the fact that we are using an old “Karaoke” machine as an amplifier drowned my brother in law’s calling. I was tipsy too and had no care in the world but my playing (which is no good at all). Of course when my brother in law could not make me come; they called in the marines. This time it was my mother who did the extraction operation. She stood there in front of me holding an umbrella and pleading with me. “Geeeeooorrrrggeee”, she softly told me, “have pity on your wife she’s already in labor.” With that kind of performance, I had no choice but to lay down my weapon (bass guitar) and immediately went to the lying-in clinic where my wife was already writhing in pain. In retrospect, I don’t know how much psychological pain my wife suffered during those times. She was in birth pain while her husband was out there having fun with his drinking buddies when he should be at her side comforting her, encouraging her, helping her. When I walked in through the clinic’s door, I was reeking with the smell of gin, beer, tofu, soy sauce and onion, garlic, cigarette, sweat… And the funny thing was, when I looked at my wife I laughed at her. I couldn’t help it. She looked funny especially when she was grimacing in pain. It was so comical that I laughed my heart out. I don’t know, it was very cruel of me but, anyway, I have a very strange sense of humor.



My daughter is now on her second grade. She’s at the top of her class. I don’t know if it matters that there are only eight pupils in her class.
My daughter is now starting to assert herself. Everyday is becoming a daily exercise on logic, legalities, and negotiations. She’s starting to become analytical and critical of her parents’ talks and actions. If there are inconsistencies with what we are saying with what we are doing, her comments usually make me and my wife stop and think. No, she’s not that smart and she’s just like any ordinary child. The difference between her and other children her age is that my wife and I listen to her and the listening made her more open to say whatever she likes. My daughter is expressive and sensitive albeit a little spoiled--a natural consequence of being an only child. I remembered when she got mad at me because I suspended her TV for a week because of a “major infraction”. This is my usual punishment. The morning after, I woke up to find a graffiti on our room’s wall calling me a….I will not tell and I will not print it here because she already apologized and its already forgotten.

There is something about having a child. It does something to people. It softens them. It also hurt them. I don’t know but having a child can hurt. Having a child can make parents suffer because becoming a parent is becoming sensitive to the plight of other children. Becoming a parent means becoming the parent of all the children because seeing a child suffering is seeing one’s own child or at least an image of one’s own child suffering. Seeing deprived children is seeing one’s child deprived too, and there are a lot of deprived children in the Philippines. This feeling is always, it is innate.

Last Thursday October 19, I walked my daughter to school. We were holding hands both sleepy and just walking and talking. She kept asking what time I will be back, and I told her that I will be home for lunch. After walking her to school, I took a bath and went to school myself. I came home for lunch and found her bag, shoes, and uniforms scattered on the floor. I went to my sister in law’s house and asked if my daughter’s already home and she told me that she was, that she had eaten her lunch, and that she was with a classmate playing. I assumed that she was just around the neighborhood.

When I came home that afternoon her bag, shoes and uniforms was still lying there. I picked them up and put them in the laundry. I sat on my favorite spot, the steel window with the view of our roses, and read. After reading, I went on to writing my reports, when I noticed that it was already getting dark. My daughter was not yet home. I began asking around. I went house to house. I went to her classmates near our neighborhood but she’s not there. I was getting worried because our neighborhood was not the way it used to be. It is now a dangerous place because of the invasion of the squatters. What was once a rural and beautiful place is now a slum area full of good people as well as bad people. I don’t know most of them and they don’t know my daughter. I was getting desperate that I almost went to the police. My daughter never leaves our area. Where could she be now? My mind is already on panic mode. What if her classmate brought her someplace and she got lost? What if she was hit by a passing vehicle? What if she was drowned in the river?


I went to the nooks and crannies of the area we call the coconut village (it was called coconut village because most of the houses was made from coconut lumber). The place depresses me. I have not been to that place for a long time although it was just a few meters away from our house. Three hours of walking and worrying and still I can’t find my daughter. I told my sister in law to tell my wife to go home early from work because I’m getting desperate. Her classmate that was with her was already home but she still was not.

My sister in law found my daughter. She was at her other classmate’s house. When I found my daughter in my sister in law’s house, the first thing I did was to hit her on the buttocks. I lost control of my emotion. I was so worried and relieved at the same time but I must show to her the gravity of the worrying she had given me. In short I punished her. Hurt her in fact.

It’s been two weeks now and I still think about what happened. Can’t sleep and can’t talk about it. I must ask for an apology not from her because she already forgiven me.
“Child do you know what happened?” I asked her later. “Yes, Tatay (father) I was bad and I will not do it again...” “Are you angry at me”, I asked her. “No, (hindi po)”. She smiled.


Parenting is not about being an adult but, based on what happened to me, on how I hurt my daughter, parenting is all about becoming a child again, trying to see everything from a child’s point of view. My daughter lost track of time because she’s engrossed with playing. The way I used to be engrossed with drinking. I held her accountable for something that she cannot be held accountable for-- my worrying, my suffering, my threes hours search for her, my panic, the torture of all those thoughts…what are these to a child having fun. I punished a child for having fun. I hurt my daughter for having fun.



She had forgiven me but I haven’t forgiven myself.