by Luningning Sugbu

Created on: April 02, 2010   Last Updated: April 03, 2010

   Generally, my parent's parenting style was overprotective and ultraconservative to the point where I found myself lacking in the subtle dynamics of social interaction with other people, specially regarding personal boundaries and character discernment. The realization came when I was in my early thirties and was a thousand miles away from home, working here in the US.

    I was twenty-seven when I embarked on a faraway journey as a foreign worker, the first time I was separated from my parents, having never left home during my days in college and when I took my first job. I felt like the world was at my feet and never realized how naive I was in the ways of the world.

   Being the eldest of two girls, I was resentful at times when I wasn't allowed to participate in any kind of sport even in school, almost never allowed to go out with my friends to see a movie or go to the beach and never allowed to participate in any extra curricular activity like joining the Girl Scouts. I found my mom jealous with my close friends to the point where she always had something negative to say about most of them and warned me not to seek their company all the time. Several times I was invited to attend a wedding or take a vacation on another island by my classmates and was denied all the time. I was already an adult and was working, but why I didn't insist on doing what should have been my choice was probably because of how we were trained to perceive parental authority. God punishes those who don't respect their parents. I was ignorant of the fact that I would get punished if my parents are the ones who were wrong.

  When guys started asking me for a date, my mom needed to meddle in my affairs, insisting on her idea of how I should approach my suitors. I found it even totally disgusting that she insisted on being the one who has to meet them at the door. I would be questioned the whole night on where we went and what we ate for dinner, disregarding the fact that I have to work the next morning while she gets to sleep the whole day since she resigned from her job a year before.

   I almost never had a sense of my boundaries and was willing to share details of my personal life to the point where I felt friends to whom I'm not even close seem to feel they have a right to meddle in my affairs, especially in my relationships. My ex-boyfriend at the time also worked in the same department and when we have a fight, everybody would

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>