The week that has been is payback time for school children's (and their parents' support -- time, energy and money ;-) efforts to cope with numerous academic and non-academic demands. And my girls are no way different from all other kids; especially Bea who already has that drive (and pride) to excel in class. While Gaby on the other hand just shrugged her shoulders and said: "Just numbers, Mom!"
As Bea is trying to join all other extra-curriculars (for the sake of both grades and enjoyment), juggling her out-of-acads activities with class work, I can see how determined she is to do good, even better than how she did in the past years. Grade 6 as she claims is her "defining moment". Bea is into Math, Journalism, Visual Arts, Drum and Lyre, Kumon and her "defining moment" (can't say what this is, just yet;-)
While Gaby in her full-blast energy is into playing -- Pinypon and reading books. She also has Kumon and joined too the Thought Master's Guild and Dream Club (performing arts), but unlike her Ate who has an everyday training that covers Saturdays, too, her extra workload (training) is just once a month.
Then her words came. I was truly caught off guard by her thoughts. And let me fully quote: "Ate, relax. You're so skinny na. Enjoy. Grades are just numbers."
As a Mom, sometimes a pushy Mom at that, where sometimes I can't avoid making my girls an extension of my own academic performance (pressure that they too excel like I did -- not to brag;-). I forget that they too have their own person. That my girls are not there to massage my ego as a parent but they are gifts and in actuality, like my brother said: They are even who I am not. Because reality check, they are way more talented than I am or their father is.
And so I declare, that even when sometimes, we parents (doting Moms) say we know better than our children, or we keep pushing them to do what we deem they should, stop right there... for a while and listen to what our children have to say of what they think, what they want, what they need and what makes them happy. It is only on these times that we do so, that we realize, our children has a lot to say, a lot to share and from these "a whole lot" that we learn much.
Grades are just numbers. They don't define our children. They don't define our parenting. What makes us and makes them is the smile reflected in their eyes. Their innocent laughter. Their witty comments. Their youthful energy to explore their own giftedness -- not dictated by us or other people's expectations.
Let our children be who they want them to be, as God planned them to be. They should not be limited by numbers. For the beauty and magic of this life is never quantified but qualified by colors and shapes, of happiness and love -- immeasurable... undefinable.