PinayWorkingMom

Holden: Hey Mom, Dad said he’s going to give me a phone… [His dad once gave him an old, battered mobile phone (please don't ask me why) and he lost it in school within a day.]

Hazel: Why?

Holden: *shrugs*

Hazel: You might lose it again. I think you’re too young for another phone, honey. You don’t really need a phone. I didn’t get a phone until I was 18.

Holden: So what were you, in 3rd year?

Hazel: Yeah..

Holden: You started working when you were 20?

Hazel: No, 23.

Holden: What were you doing when you were 20?

Hazel: I was taking care of you.

Holden: Oh.

[pause]

Hazel: You know, you should not have babies until you’re 30.

Holden: 30? Why does it have to be when I’m 30?

Hazel: Because then you’d have worked 10 years and you’ll surely have something to feed your baby.

Holden: How old were you when you had a baby?

Hazel: 19. [I make a face]

Holden: [makes a face, too, and shakes his head] Not too good..

Hazel: Yeah, not too good.

Holden: How long does it take before a baby goes out? One year?

Hazel: No. Nine months.

Holden: So that means, you were already pregnant when you were 18?!?

Hazel: Yeah… [cringing now]

Holden: So you were in school and you were pregnant?

Hazel: Yeah..

Holden: Did people look at you and say you’re pregnant? [From the look on his face, he meant to ask me if people made fun of me.]

Hazel: Hmmm, I had to stop going to school. I was taking Uncle Titan to his classes instead because he didn’t have a yaya then.

Holden: Oh..

[by this time he seemed to have lost interest in our profound conversation and so I turned to my computer.]

Holden: Okay, I’ll let you work now!

[and he hops away as though our little exchange was nothing more than just a normal conversation.]

❉ ❉ ❉

Holden is my eight-year-old boy who goes to Catholic school. I’d vowed to talk to my kids about having families early, but didn’t expect this very first conversation to have been this ‘easy’. We’d probably have thought eight is too young, but I could not have hoped for better responses from him. Maybe it’s the relatively conservative environment, maybe it’s his common sense, I don’t know. I’ll have to wait and see how he’d deal with raging hormones. Another eight years. Maybe then, the conversation will be different, but better, I hope.