Parental angst 2.0
I recently helped our young household helper obtain compensation from the Board of Claims of the DOJ (based on R.A. No. 7309) arising from a complaint for rape she filed against her uncle. While the criminal case is still pending, she has at least already been compensated: a whopping P10,000.
Ten thousand pesos. That is the worth of her virtue and innocence. A BTS concert ticket costs much more.
Still, it is not nothing.
For a young woman who had to stop schooling to help support her family, P10,000 can mean groceries, transportation, perhaps even a small step toward reclaiming a future stolen from her.
I could not help thinking about my own children, and all the other children I know. I’m working with some of them.
Back then, parental worries were straightforward. Today, the list resembles a Netflix menu.
More than 30 years ago, as a young father, I wrote about the fears of parents while raising kids. I have gone from worrying about fevers and report cards to wondering whether I have enough property to leave them someday. I don’t.
I have learned that the passage of time does not reduce parental anxiety but merely upgrades it. Back then, parental worries were straightforward: illnesses, scraped knees, bad influences, vices and teenage rebellion. Today, the list resembles a Netflix menu.
Deadlier viruses have been discovered. Injuries can come from mentally disturbed individuals as much as from natural disasters. Bad people are still around, but they wear different labels: perverts and predators, cybercriminals and identity thieves, politicians and con artists whose exact business model remains unclear except that they somehow end up with ill-gotten wealth.
Bullying has also evolved. It used to end when the school bell rang. Now, it follows children home through phones, tablets and social media. At least in our day, if someone insulted you, he had the courtesy of doing it face-to-face. Today’s bully can ruin your day—or your life—without leaving his bedroom.
Then there is technology itself. As a card-carrying geek raised on comic books, science fiction, fantasy novels, vinyl records, cassette tapes and Saturday morning superheroes, I welcomed the digital age. I belong to the generation that watched Captain Kirk flip open a communicator and thought, “One day we’ll have those.”
Well, we already do. Unfortunately, someone also invented TikTok.
Parents today are warned about screen addiction, social media addiction, gaming addiction, AI addiction, and whatever new dependency Silicon Valley is currently beta-testing.
To be fair, technology also lets us communicate instantly, transfer money in seconds, navigate unfamiliar cities and access more information than the Library of Alexandria ever contained. It is both a superhero and a supervillain—a bit like Darth Vader before the redemption arc.
Oddly enough, success has become another source of anxiety. Parents once worried about scarce resources: scrimping on the allowance to save up for college. Today’s parents occasionally worry that their children may have too much: too much comfort, too much entertainment, too many distractions, and too many opportunities to mistake experiences for accomplishments.
For example, eating out used to be a celebratory ritual—a birthday, an anniversary, a promotion, a date. For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, fine dining is not an aspiration but merely a casual experience that may not even make it to their social media feeds.
Travel used to require months of saving, perhaps even part-time work. Now, FOMO makes everyone feel they should be in Korea this week, Japan next week, then the US and Mexico for a two-week vacation, and back to Korea before jetting off to Europe. And that’s just for the BTS Arirang World Tour.
In preparation for this culture of commercialism, some parents respond by becoming characters straight out of the Netflix hit series Teach You a Lesson—treating every exam as a military campaign, every test as a national emergency, and every extracurricular activity as a strategic asset.
Parental ambition can become dangerous when it crosses into real-life obsession. American actress Felicity Huffman served 14 days in prison for her role in Operation Varsity Blues, a college admissions scandal in which she paid $15,000 to have her daughter’s SAT answers secretly corrected to improve her chances of entering a prestigious university.
As Ron Weasley might say, that’s bloody mental.
Beyond Hogwarts, however, education remains one of the great parental stressors. Tuition rises faster than Bulacan floodwaters. Parents agonize over schools, courses and careers. In our day, children aspired to become doctors or lawyers. Today, they want to be influencers. Just pursue STEM, kids!
In the arena of relationships, not much has changed. Parents continue to wonder whether their children are dating the right people—if they are dating at all—and making wise decisions anchored in reason and emotion instead of hormones. Smart parents should not rely on social media posts alone.
One might think the worrying stops. It does not. The hoping does not stop either, the most universal wish of all being that their children will turn out okay and become independent adults.
As I inch closer to senior citizenship, I have realized that the deepest parental fears are not really about kidnappers, diseases, scammers, bullies, stalkers, bad grades, bad relationships or bad decisions. These are merely seasonal monsters. The real fear is knowing we cannot always protect the people we love most.
All we can do is prepare them, guide them, pray for them, and hope that the values we tried to teach them remain stronger than whatever dangers the world invents next.
Still, if 30 years of parenting have taught me anything, it is this: children are often far more resilient than we imagine. They stumble, but they recover. They disappoint, but they surprise. They get lost, but they find their way. And with that thought, we parents can sleep soundly at night.
