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Sunday, April 30, 2006
Luab: Performance led
By Evelyn R. Luab
Light Sunday
“Do your homework. Study first before supper.” Ever since we can remember, that has been the norm from which we were guided.
We are sure our parents meant well. They, too, were made to study, and a good study habit worked to our advantage. Our grades were better than average and peace reigned in the household. One could not talk while trying to figure out the area of a given rectangle.
Many of us who were so disciplined received medals of honor and everyone was happy.
As we grew older, we were exposed to computers, cellphones and let us not forget our calculators. We became highly competitive and well-versed in the manipulations and strategies found in the business world.
Our very young today are encouraged to enroll in Kumon. If he refuses to do his homework at an early age of three, he is motivated this way, “If you study, you will learn more. Once you learn many things, then you will earn plenty of money. When you have plenty of money you can buy many things like chocolates, toy trains, cars, airplanes etc.” The poor three-year-old will turn to study.
We grown-ups are motivated, oh! not so differently. If we are diligent enough and our efficiency rating is good, we get promoted with a corresponding increase in salary. If we are exceptionally efficient, we become vice-president of a firm.
Even in relationships, performance matters a great deal. Why do foreigners pick Filipina wives?
We serve our husbands well to the point of even getting him a glass of water or preparing his coffee, ready for him to enjoy. Wow! If that is not “performance led,” I don’t know what is!
Today as I look back, I feel the lack of a certain sense of joy in living. Children are no longer treated as such. I know of an eleven year old boy who thinks like an adult because of his training. Of course, everyone who knows him is very proud of him because he is more decisive and more responsible than some adults I know. However, I would like to see him splash gleefully in the rain, ran like a hooligan with abandoned care against the wind or shout at the top of his lungs “Retreat” while playing war games with fellow boys his age.
Another little girl I know is trained by her mother to follow in her footsteps. The mother bakes cakes and has found it to be a lucrative business. I met them through a blind masseur. The mother was so proud to point at her four-year-old daughter, saying, “ She prefers to help me in the kitchen than play outside.”
My eyebrows went up as I smiled. I asked the girl, “When do you play, child?”
Her mother answered for her, “Oh, she doesn’t like to play.” Excuse me, whom are we kidding? In the case of these children, “Where is the youth of these two kids going?”
Thousands of children are employed in child labor. It’s only when people investigate deep sea fishing as in the death of one or two boys, that we remember that children are not yet capable of doing an adult’s job. Sometimes it takes firecrackers to explode and kill children before we castigate employers who put children in danger. Otherwise, we just turn a blind eye.
Parents in the hills or in the barrios prod their fourteen-year- olds to go to the city to earn a living. Sometimes the performance that they are expected to give land them in the white slavery dragnet. Others learn to pretty themselves and land in the arms of pedophiles. Yet this over-all “performance” of children will persist while they also live in abject poverty.
The irony of life, however, is that we are not strict in demanding a standard of performance from our government officials. How many of them are not result-oriented?
For adults, a high degree of performance is expected. But for little ones, allow them to be able to feel their childhood. Remember we cannot turn back the hands of time. But how many of us wish we could?
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 30, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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