Boredom Means Cruelty for Kids

First of all, I'm not going to argue for absolutes because I'm quite sure many consider ourselves quite normal even without the so-called progressive parenting that we rarely enjoyed as children. Point I want to make is that we should not rest until we can give the best for our kids - not in terms of material wealth but of course, little things that we could tweak to make better caring, creative and fearless human beings.

Zaki looks forward to spending weekends at my parent's house. She looks forward to seeing her uncles and even takes snacks from her own loot to bring as gifts. But most of all, she gets to see and play with her younger cousin, Gabby - precocious, naughty kid if ever there was one. Still, Zaki loves being with him and is patient enough not to beat the crap out of the little guy when he is being too hard-headed.

And the past weekend is no exception. In fact, more than ever, it further highlighted the fact that kids need to be social and playing with others seems to be the most valuable expression of this. We know Zaki can be such a glutton at home often raiding the fridge for food or downing an average of a liter of milk on a daily basis. But this weekend, she hasn't even finished a 250ml bottle and barely slept through the night, waking up before dawn already scouting if someones awake to begin the day. Obviously, my mom was up and the two headed off to buy pandesal before sunrise. You should see her face light up despite the lack of sleep. If that's not passion, I wonder what is.

But then all good things come to an end. Making the usual goodbye gestures, I get the sense that Zaki was thankful for the opportunity and was living in the moment, not worried about the boredom about to face her once again being alone at home with yaya.

Try as we can, I don't think wifey and I staying at home can really make up for it. Having another kid is entirely out of the question, too. It's a dilemma we will have to wrestle with given our limited resources. Hope Zaki accepts our apologies.