I've thought long about the kind of parent that produces a child like the one in this picture. I imagine the difficulties they face just to survive on a day to day basis. And yet, there is a certain quality of spirit that makes a parent look at an empty can of paint and see its potential this way. It's rare but still recognizable: This spirit causes one to pick up a discarded can, wash it multiple times, then decide - decide just lke that - that it is now a lunchbox. It is now a suitable container for lunch for the son who goes to school, lunch that he too sometimes lacks.
It is a spirit of confidence. Not pride, but confidence. Well, it has to be. If a parent can convince a child to bring to school this invention, and for that child not to cower in fear and intimidation from the sure bullying that it invites (children can be very mean), and for that child to sit among his peers with his rice and fish, and for that child to recognize the sheer cruelty of life, and for him to roll with it, and make something of it, and maybe laugh at the silliness of it... that parent has clear influence on that child. Influence lies at the very core of parenting.
I do not make light of this poverty. This is horrible. We who have more cannot glorify the plight of those who have much less. I only say that this quality of parenting can only be forged from extreme need. It is a quality of parenting that produces a certain quality of children. Like the ones many of us were.
A core memory of mine is to have walked with my mother under the hot sun along Pagsabungan. I was maybe 10 years old. Back then we had much less. My mother had just stumbled upon a beauty product which she sold door to door to wealthy madams eager to turn back the hands of time. It was hot, so my mother had an umbrella in one hand, a bag of her products in the other, and me trying to catch the umbrella's shadow as we quickly navigated the roads full of traysikols. She just closed a sale, so she was in a good mood. I remember being happy too.
Every parent makes sacrifices. You lose much of yourself to raise new lives. No parent is perfect of course. No matter what you do, your good intentions can only go so far. But intentions are powerful. It is what transforms paint cans into various other things. It makes a child see things for what they can be, not for what it just is. It changes futures.
Psalm 90:17
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.
