I found this lone piggybank in a toy store and embraced it right away, looking suspiciously to my left and to my right to check if someone will get it from me.

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No other takers. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Kidding.

But to tell you the truth, when I got it, I initially thought of giving it as a gift to one of my nephews or nieces but then as the countdown to Christmas lost digit after digit, I started wanting it for myself (it would be perfect too for my daughter…).

Because it was not just your regular piggybank – it was a piggybank that makes a provision for savings, spending, donation and investment.

I always knew that I will be having 2 children. But child number 2 took a long time in coming. Nine years in fact.

I do not know why we waited but economics figured prominently in our decision to postpone having a second child. How much does a child cost? More than ten million pesos or some USD$266,698. That figure is daunting. Add to this the fact that our financial planner is saying that we have to have an obscene amount for the college funds of child number 1. Consider too that Filipino children stay in the coop for much much longer (say, forever). Thus, for a long while, child number 2 seemed a distant possibility.

But then, every time I looked at babies, I looked at them wistfully and felt the pang of wistful.

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I could not believe it.
We were at a store. I knew she needed shoes. I knew she has been needing them every now and then because her feet are getting big at least every two days. I led her to a store, with prices ranging from $30 to $40. I told her, “Choose whatever you want, hon.” She looked around, tried some on, looked at the prices and then sat down by me. “I don’t want to, mom. They’re too expensive.” I looked at her aghast and wondered what I would have said if my own mother offered me a buffet of shoes. I would probably have 5 in hand in 5 minutes. It’s just that it never happened. And now I have here my own daughter who can have every shoes she wanted, at any price, and then she tells me no.

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the power to dream of riches and making it come true lies at the core of one’s life – in one’s childhood. His views about poverty, about money, his poverty mindset (money does not grow on trees) and his wealth mindset (money grows on trees) start at that time which is at the root of all his memories.

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I had 30 or so cousins. We were quite a gang. We were fearless – we rode on the back of a truck together at top speed without any form of protection, and would even howl in enjoyment when the tires would meet a speed bump, wind on our faces and on our countenances, pure joy. We would go cavorting to the fair together and overwhelm the ferris wheel operator with our sheer number, or go swimming, or see a procession, candles dripping, and heckle whomever we wanted to. We went to vacations riding a jeepney that had a wooden plank in the middle so all of us will fit because it is unthinkable for us to be apart. We told stories as we ate, any and all stories, and slept side by side on makeshift beds.

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Parents, more often than not, are, really, well-meaning. But sometimes, their good intentions do more harm than good. That dole-out would only teach my brother that mommy is there if he gets into straits, that it is okay to spend because mom is there, always there, and she will pay…? No need to stand on his own two feet.

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9:50 p.m. We were going up the escalator of a popular mall when C suddenly felt her Crocs being pulled by the escalator grills. She tried to pull it but it would not budge. Looking up, she saw that she was nearing the top, the end of the escalator. She had the sense to pull out her feet and hop to safety. Horrified, she saw her Crocs go deeper into the grills, which kept going and going and going.

Without paid classes, I remember summers being woken by the Cascades and the rhythm of their falling rain, afternoons trying to draw stick figures in elegant dresses, writing about the tree tapping on my window, playing tumbang preso and taguan, singing Eternal Flame (via karaoke, full blast) to my crush next door, and laughter. Lots of it.

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