Scared to become like my mother
I love my mom, but I can’t be a mother like her.
My mother is not like others. She never pressured me to get high grades, never punished me for coming home late, never made it difficult to ask for permission to attend a friend’s birthday party. She was the “cool mom”—the mom my friends admired and wished they had.
Every summer, she made sure we felt its magic. Vacations were a certainty, an event we anticipated all year. No summer passed without the sea washing over our feet.
One memory I will cherish forever is the day before Christmas when I was nine. Going to the mall was a rare treat, something we could only do when a little extra money came our way. That day, we watched a movie—I can’t recall the title now, but what stayed with me was the warmth of my mother beside me. As we made our way home, the city’s lights flickering past the bus windows, exhaustion settled into my small body. Then, I felt her hand—gentle, steady—guiding my head onto her shoulder. She pulled me close, her arms a quiet fortress against the restless world.
At that moment, amid the blur of strangers and the hum of traffic, I wasn’t just a sleepy child on a crowded commute—I was her child, safe in the only embrace that ever truly felt like love … her love.
And like any other mother who receives letters every 11th of May, mine was brave and strong. She gave her all to pull our family out of poverty, worked tirelessly, and despite our economic struggles, ensured I studied in prestigious schools that promised quality education. She fought battles I could never imagine, yet still found kindness for others—always ready to give, to help, to sacrifice.
That’s who my mother is … in the eyes of others.
But as I grew up and saw more of the world, I started to see her differently.
Raised in a family that knows no family tree, I grew up alien to what others considered normal. I became the studious child—not out of ambition but out of fear. Education wasn’t my key to success; it was my key to escape a house that never felt like home. I studied hard not to excel but to avoid failure. I feared proving that I wasn’t as smart as people assumed—as she assumed. She reminded me of it constantly, whether I dropped a glass out of carelessness or reached for the wrong pan she ordered to get.
She was brave and strong, indeed—so much so that she gambled my tuition money on a business that did not even last a year. She worked hard to support my education, only to wield it as a debt I could never repay. She fought battles, but not for me. She showed kindness, but not to those who needed it most. Not to her family. Not to her daughter. Not to me.
Soon I graduated from senior high school and found myself staring at an uncertain future—a two-year academic gap stretching before me like a void. My purpose, once tied to the structure of school, slipped through my fingers. Trapped within the four walls of my room with nothing to do but stare at my black ceiling, counting to a hundred, then repeating.
As food on our table grew scarce and debt collectors knocked relentlessly at our door, I sought work to help our family survive. Nights blurred into days as I worked in a call center, a world where metrics, cigarettes, and infidelity were the norm. An environment that looked down on introverts, rejected those without their version of “pakikisama,” and despised the very work it depended on. A place that had no heart, one that only recognized the strong—both mentally and physically.
Eight months in, she called.
“Alis ka na sa trabaho mo. Magkakapag-aral ka na ulit.”
I knew I should have felt relieved. I should have been happy. But I remained adrift as if still clinging to a piece of wood in an unforgiving sea. Her words were no lifeline, no solid ground. They never had been.
Now, in my second year of college, the buzz of conversations about pregnancy and starting a family surrounds me. These discussions affect me indirectly, yet deeply. The thought of having a child terrifies me—not because of societal judgment, not because of dreams that might slip away, not because of adding to my family’s burdens.
It scares me because I fear becoming a mother like my own.
As I try to recall the last time we said “I love you” or even shared a hug, I realize that the freedom I once thought she gave me was nothing more than a facade—one that masked indifference.
Still bound by the love I hold for my mother, I see, at last, the thin, almost imperceptible line between her sacrifices and her responsibilities as a parent. I no longer mistake obligation for devotion.
Looking back on her story, on the weight of all she’s endured, I wonder if it became too much—so much that she knew nothing else. Perhaps pain was her only language, and I was merely an unwilling listener.
For now, I will let myself drift back to that December evening, sitting on a bus, sleep settling over me as I melted into her warm embrace—so I never forget that, despite everything, she still loved me as her daughter.
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Zabrina Hong, 20, is a second-year journalism student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran-Manila.
