by PinayWriter

Created on: August 05, 2008

I wonder how people are able to live with themselves by living off other people. I never thought that I would have the same fate as my mother. She has a family with four children but it always seem that she has more mouths to feed.

I am already working but I have no savings to my name. My brothers are in college and my little sister is in first grade. For the first sixteen years of my life I have thought that once my brothers are done studying, I would be home free. My parents can just travel or save up for their retirement. But having a seven year old in a time where two incomes in a family is not enough, I wonder how long my parents would have to work to pay for my sister's education.

I am not good at saving money and I hope that I learn to within this year. Responsibility is something that my mother wants me to learn. I am inching my way to it. Earning money is one part of the occasion but saving it is harder than I thought.

I am not the kind to think of getting married so that I don't have to face my bills alone. So I have to work harder, I think. My future would be paved with obstacles that I plan to overcome on my own.

I always lament that I would probably never have a family since I would have to take my mother's place as the milking cow of our otherwise lazy relatives. It's a Filipino thing to help one another. But in some families, like mine, there are just some parasites you can't get rid off.

I just hope I don't become like them. That would be a poor way to repay my parents for getting me into the best schools they could afford. I always think that some people are just plain ungrateful towards their parents.

In my country having a parent who is in another country, working menial jobs to send money to their starving family is typical. It is also unfortunate that there are daughters who go astray and sons who go bad.

I never thought how extremely lucky I was having my parents around while I was growing up. Having one parents missing for most of the years of one's youth can leave them tensed or empty. My cousins are not able to handle pressure and they seem to be detached to their concept of family.

I told my mother that she doesn't need to worry about me and my siblings. I keep reminding her that we will be able to make them proud someday.

But every time I say this my mother says, "But we already are."

And I realize if I would grow wise as my mother and marry a responsible and loving man like my dad, then I would be all set.

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