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SOMETHING happened over the past weeks that totally
floored and disturbed me. After the last long holiday
break, our nanny brought home her three-year-old
grandson. Bringing him home to our house was a last
resort, she reasoned out. The boy’s parents have
separated. When he was living with his mother and
siblings in the province, his alcoholic grandmother
threw him out of the window while his mother beat him up
with a hanger once, leaving him with a scar on his upper
lip. Because of the dire conditions in the province, the
boy wasn’t eating well, too.
Our
son’s nanny “rescued” him and brought him to the boy’s
father who, at the time, had knocked up another girl
(and who’s now pregnant). The father just got a job as a
janitor and would leave the three-year-old boy all alone
in their house with a pitcher of water and a bowl of
rice mixed with toyo. Of course, the boy would cry very
loudly. It was up to the neighbors to take pity on the
child and offer him company or more nutritious food.
We
thought it would be inhuman on my husband’s and I if we
turned the boy away, so we let him stay. Consider it a
vacation treat for him. We bought him vitamins and milk
to supplement his meals. But here’s the thing. At three
years old, he’s the angriest boy alive. The first days
in our house, we would make the effort to cheer him up
and greet him. He would, in turn, put up his hand as if
he wanted to box or slap us. We realized it was part of
the bad treatment he got from his own family. His
grandmother described him as the most makulit
among his siblings and cousins.
One day,
I overheard the nanny tell him not to touch things in
our house. The nanny said, “Huwag kang makulit.”
And this appalled me when I heard the toddler answer
back, “P---ng ina mo! Makulit ka din!”
Another
time, my baby and I were playing toy blocks. The boy
went up to us and grabbed the toy block my baby was
holding. I gently told the boy not to get it. He looked
me straight in the eye said, in crisp Tagalog: “If I had
a gun….”
“What
would you do?” I asked curiously.
The boy
pretended to point a gun to my head and said, “Bang!
Bang!” My brains could have been blown off. Then, he
turned toward my baby and he did the same thing, “Bang!
Bang!”
I told
him it was wrong to do that; guns hurt people. When his
grandmother heard what had happened, she spanked him.
The boy cried, of course.
Two days
later, I heard the boy answer back his grandmother
again. I tried to intervene and gently explained to him
not to answer back his lola, especially since she
cared a lot for him. This time, the boy—who was no
taller than our dinner table—got a small pillow,
pretended to pull out a gun and, behind the pillow,
pretended to shoot me. Then, he turned again toward my
baby, and with his make-believe gun behind the pillow,
shot my smiling baby. Now, how many three-year-olds know
how to “shoot” with a silencer?
A friend
who was amused with my domestic story had to drop by the
house. The boy gave him a cold Hannibal Lecter-like
stare all throughout the time. Our friend anointed him
as Hellboy.
‘Bad
’yon’ isn’t enough
NOT
surprisingly, I discovered a dozen more Hellboys and
Hellgirls on YouTube. Interestingly, the site featured
swearing three-year-old Americans videotaped by their
parents because the latter found it cute. There were
toddlers of all kinds, smiling ones saying “F—k you!”
angry ones saying “Dammit!” and laughing ones shouting
“Dang!” and “Shit!”
At
three-years-old, a child is already formed, a
sociologist friend told me. At three, a child has
practically been shaped already by the people
surrounding him and has picked up words, habits and
mannerisms from his environment.
“The
toddler is beginning to understand that he, too, can
influence his surroundings—he can make his parents do
what he wants, for instance, with his loud cries or with
persistence, such as by repeating his request over and
over again.
“He is
beginning to realize the power of words—without exactly
knowing its definition—and what is triggered by those
who hear it. Thus, it’s ‘normal’ to have toddlers who
swear, because either they’ve heard their parents or any
adult in their home saying it or they’ve picked up from
a TV show, or something like that.” He also added that
it’s up to the parents to correct the child. My friend
added that it’s not enough to say that favorite phrase
“bad ’yon,”it’s important to follow it through
with an explanation. The next time your child swears,
for instance, this could be your script: “That’s not
right, those words hurt feelings.” Or, he translated in
Pilipino, “Hindi ’yan tama. Nakakasakit ’yang mga
salitang ’yan.”
But
always say it in a firm way, with hands gesturing that
it’s a no-no. It should be a voice that the child can
clearly understand as your tone for disliking something.
“The boy is only three years old. There’s still hope.”
Nanny
dilemma
IN the
next few days, his advice seemed to work for the boy. We
never heard him swear and he was slowly injecting the
words “po” and “opo” into his vocabulary.
We encouraged him to say “thank you” as well and to
greet everyone “good morning” or “good evening.” It was
tough on my husband’s part and I because we were very
conscious about being polite and even-tempered in front
of him.
Hellboy
was hyperactive, he was into smashing and throwing. He
liked to jump on the couch. He was still prone to temper
tantrums, like most kids we reasoned out. He was also a
picky eater and was used to processed convenience foods
and didn’t take particularly very well to our organic
foods. Of course, we realized it was just a product of
him getting used to eating nothing but rice with soy
sauce or the occasional treat of instant noodles. We
told his grandmother, our nanny, to cut back on the
sugar (even if we were using raw sugar) and salt that
she like to put into his food.
At one
point, I was still a little surprised when he would say,
“Papatayin kita [I’ll kill you]!” whenever he
would play with my husband or with his assistant (who
regularly reports to our home office). As it turns out,
the boy got it from the TV show Lastikman. The
villain would always blurt that out whenever she would
have an encounter with the action hero. Again, and as
gently but seriously as possible, we told the child not
to say that because it meant hurting people.
Friends
encouraged us by saying we’re doing a good thing. The
boy needed someone to take care of him after being
neglected for a long time. We were starting to get
attached to him as well. On the other hand, however, I
also noticed some changes in yaya’s work. Our baby had
developed rashes because nanny had become forgetful
about checking if his diapers were soiled or not. He
wasn’t napping on time as well and seemed to be getting
restless, especially when grandma and the three-year-old
would go into their routine of arguing every morning and
just before sleeping time.
In the
course of my Catholic guilt and trying to help my nanny
help her grandson, I realized that there were both good
and not-so-good sides to our situation. Having the boy
around demanded a lot of our energy and attention that I
started to feel guilty about having my focus divided
between my son and the boy.
One
weekend, however, just when I thought that the
three-year-old was starting to take in the good
practices we were hoping he would learn, I saw him turn
his head to check if anybody was looking. He didn’t
notice I was looking at him. Hellboy approached my
baby’s crib and, whoa, he gave my son a hard push so
that he could fall on his crib. But my son, all 10
months old, held strongly to his crib. I saw the
struggle between the two. What else could have been
happening when I wasn’t around? I asked the boy to stop
and he started to give me his old Hannibal Lecter sneer.
Was he trying to test me. As in, “Son or me?”
I knew
it was time to make that choice. Inasmuch as I wanted to
help my nanny and the boy, I also realized that, like
Hellboy, my son is also prone to picking up things from
his environment.
The next
few minutes were like the slow motion of a movie. It was
time for nanny to go, I’m sorry. I gently explained to
her that the best person to take care of the boy is
still his mother. Nanny had lost several pounds because
of her interaction—the daily domestic face-offs—with the
boy. And like her, who thought of “rescuing the child,”
I know I can’t save the world, too. But at that instant,
at least I know I have the great opportunity of
nurturing my own child into a gentle and caring person.
Nanny understood and left with Hellboy. |
