— A Frequently Asked Question about me.
I find myself the accidental nonconformist, though the events that have led to that were not quite an accident. It all started with just plain intentional rebellion as a young child. I wanted to break free from a father’s strict grip on my life and my being. My mother just stood by and watched, not ever saying a single word, clearly implying I was on my own to fight this battle.
It wasn’t that they didn’t care about me. It may have been the opposite. My dad may have cared too much so he had to control and protect me from his own demons that he thought were out there for me, too.
My dad grew up in rather poor circumstances in the Philippines. Not dirt poor or impoverished, just a very simple, meager life in the very rural parts of the province of Batangas in the 1940s.
His uncle (mother’s brother) decided to adopt him when he was four years old. It wasn’t really a formal adoption. The uncle and his wife could not have kids so they took my dad in, along with a niece on his wife’s side. My dad once shared the story that it all started with his parents leaving him there with them for a few days, at his uncle’s urging, when his parents and he would come over to visit. The “visits” became more frequent, the stays longer. My dad recounted how he painfully missed his family, especially his younger brother, whom he called his very best friend until his death a few years ago. Soon after, the living situation became permanent. I asked my dad how his parents let that happen. I could never do that with my own children! My father simply said it was just done. His uncle wanted him and his uncle got what he wanted. His uncle was older than his mother, and being both a man and the eldest, he got his way, as men usually do in patriarchal Philippine society.
He has described short, poignant stories of his growing up, on how strict his aunt and uncle were, how he had to wake up at five in the morning to feed the pigs and the chickens, physically pump water out of a well into jugs and carry them up into the house which was on stilts, about 10 feet off the ground. Then he’d have to get ready for school and walk for about 2-3 miles to get there, come home in the afternoon and do a slew of more chores around the house and their land. On weekends, besides the usual housework, he would do the laundry, literally wash clothes with his bare hands then hang them up outside to dry on a wire strung between two coconut trees.
It wasn’t an easy life for a child. Didn’t seem like he had a lot of fun either. I mean, he never even learned how to swim although the beach was just a mile away from his house. My dad was told to never go to the ocean, saying it wasn’t safe but also, I think, because they thought it was a waste of his time, better spent doing more work at home or studying and doing homework. My dad recalled how he longed to join his schoolmates when they’d head down to the water.
From that harsh upbringing, my dad got into college, the first in his family and his seven siblings, possibly the first in his whole barrio (town), to ever do so. A few years ago, he told me a fond memory from his college days when he and a few of his friends snuck off campus to go up to Baguio, a tourist town north of Manila, had gotten drunk and spent the night out, like it was the most daring and absurd thing he’d ever done in his life. I was in my 20s then, living in San Francisco, and I remember thinking I do that every Friday night, possibly Saturday night, too, if I’m lucky.
It must have been really different back then, I’m sure, especially in the Philippines. But my dad continued to feel that way towards my upbringing. When I was in college in the Philippines, still living at home (both my parents worked at the university), I was never allowed to go out and hang out with my friends at night. I did it anyway, but my dad seriously looked at it as a waste of time. Gallivanting, was the word he always used, like having a good time friends was distasteful and frivolous. This was a major bone of contention between us that led to my leaving home, and the Philippines, for good.
To me, it seemed like my dad felt believed there was no room for any fun in his life while he was bent on success. For him that meant finishing college and getting a good, steady job that paid well and presented more opportunities than where he grew up. He instilled that same mentality towards us kids, forcing us to get degrees he thought would pay well and provide a good career.
After graduating from college, he won a full scholarship to attend the University of Hawaii to get his Master’s degree where he met and married my mom, who was also on a full scholarship for her Master’s degree as well. Imagine that – a fully-paid stint to go to school in Hawaii for three years to get a Master’s degree! It was the highest of accolades neither one of them expected to achieve, especially given their backgrounds. To think just four years prior to winning the scholarship, my dad was living in a rural town with no indoor plumbing and no electricity!
My father didn’t stop there after his post-graduate. He applied for a PhD assistantship at Texas A&M and got in! My parents had been married for about a year (and pregnant with me) when they made the big move to Texas.
My father was a serious man who had gotten used to getting things done a certain way since he left home. To this day, he thinks he knows what’s best for everyone and expects them all to follow. He had been on this successful rigid path to being an accepted, competent member of society and when I came along as a headstrong child, I don’t think I fit well into his realm of control.
My mother was the youngest of twelve children and was raised by her siblings after her mother died when she was just a baby. Her father was mostly absent so her siblings made a lot of life decisions for her and so when my dad came along, she welcomed him picking up where her siblings left off.
I came in and monkey-wrenched the whole thing.
I was their first child, born with a stubborn streak, and became a huge thorn in my dad’s side as a toddler.
I can recall a memory of me begging to just have a bottle of milk. Not in a cup, I wanted it in a baby bottle. Just one. My usual thing. I begged and begged, and kept begging, saying “one more please, just one only” but I guess they were trying to wean me off the bottle and I could not comprehend this. I don’t remember the rest of the story but my mom, years later, told me that my dad wanted me to quit the bottle cold-turkey, not gradually. So I guess they just decided one day to take the bottle away from me completely, and that didn’t go over very well with me. My mother said I kept bugging them for days, how I wouldn’t quit nor back down until I ended up in tears and my dad in a rage.
Growing up in grade school, I have more memories of being yelled at and spanked with either a slipper or a belt. I can’t even remember why or anything specific that I did but I can relive the panic I felt trying to get away from him, scrambling up the stairs to my bedroom with him chasing after me, jumping onto my bed, back against the wall to get as far away from him as possible. But I don’t think it was just what I did that made my dad furious at me. Besides not listening to him, I think I started to talk back. A lot. I remember being defiant, staring him down as a young child, clenched fists at my sides.
And that has been, more or less, the dynamic of our relationship from as far back as I can remember – always butting heads. I wasn’t afraid of him. I did not retreat from conflict. I always felt I had to speak my mind if I disagreed with what he said. One time, after a heated argument that I wouldn’t back down from (because I knew I was right!), he told me I should’ve been a lawyer because of the way I argued and he did not mean that as a compliment. It was said with disdain. I didn’t care. I cared more that he knew he couldn’t control and subdue me like he did everyone else.
For some spectacular reason I don’t quite know nor fully understand, he is infinitely more careful and kind with my younger sister, almost coddling her to a point. My sister is just two-and-a-half years younger than me so the difference in the way he treats us is stark and obvious. Maybe because she stays silent. Never talks back, never contradicts him to his face. Just like my mom. And what drives me more nuts is when my relatives try to console me by saying that my dad is only harsher to me because he has higher expectations of me and knows that I can handle it. But do you know what I’d really like to handle? I’d like to handle a little love. Some soft, forgiving love. Even just a quiet hand over mine letting me know that I am okay, I am loved, I am accepted.
Even though I can be quite the butthead sometimes.