Play With Your Food and Other Filipino-American Lessons From Mom
There are some lessons I learned from my mother’s repetitious phrases, some I learned by her living example, and still some I learned as a result of being her daughter. Here is a list of a few that were simply top of mind, by all means not all-encompassing, and most certainly not the only important lessons I have learned from her. This is both for laughs and for light-hearted recognition of my stellar mother on Mother’s Day.
If you don’t have an allowance for candy. Sell concessions to your friends and eat your profit.
Watch the crabs play before you cook them. It never gets old.
Always be generous with your food to others
Learn skincare before you learn makeup
You can never learn anything by doing all the talking
My hair looks like a real bird’s nest
Always bring your rice-cooker (I said what I said.)
If it were a snake it would have bit me by now
Incredible 5-ingredient dishes are possible because garlic, onions, soy sauce, ginger, salt, white pepper, annatto, kalamansi, kalamay and vinegar don’t count as ingredients
There is no such thing as “being ahead” because you are still alive and there is more to learn
Burning bread in the oven is something some people never grow out of
Find ways to not spend money
If your family eats like kings, you soften the sting of poverty
Learning new skills to put food on the table is what a savvy mom does
Laugh from happiness, not just jokes
Embrace the culture of others till you are celebrating it with them
Learn at least a little bit of someone’s language to show them they are important to you
There is more than one way to boil an egg
There is more than one way to slice a mango
Owning a designer purse, but washing to reuse plastic zip bags is called “balance”
Words have power, so be careful with them
On mom guilt: Even if you play on the ground with your children from the moment they wake up, you will always find a thought that will tell you that you could have done better. Go where you are most needed in each moment and that will be doing the best for your children.
Difficult people are like the catfish to the cod, they are not a nuisance, they keep us alert and alive
Nurturing friendships and connections is food for the soul
Confidence isn’t fearless, it is being familiar with sensations of nerves
The world will always ask more from you, but you are also enough just as you are
There is no place like home and “home” can exist in two countries
Here’s to my mom and the many others who mother the world in their own way. There are a great many women I know who raise the future whether or not those children are their own offspring. I see you. Happy “mother’s” day to all of you who make the world go round through the skillful work of mothering.
