In a rehashed film during the mid-1950’s by the great British movie-thriller pioneer Sir Alfred Hitchcock entitled “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, an original song sung by one of its actor, Doris Day, asks a mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Another question posed to a teacher, “What will I try? Should I paint pictures? Should I sing songs?” As the singer became a mother herself, her children wondered, “What will I be? Will I be handsome? Will I be rich?”

In the modern times of the 21st century, these concerns have become irrelevant. These days, answers are forced into kids as early as 1 1/2 years of age of what they must become through day-care centers and preschools which have dreadfully proliferated within the last decade. A book by Stevenson and Stigler, The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We can Learn from Chinese and Japanese Education, explains that many Americans and upper-and middle-class Filipino parents have different expectations than that of some Asian parents. “They look to early education programs to provide cognitive and academic stimulation for their children. In addition to social-personal development, school readiness is expected to include a good grounding in the fundamentals of reading and mathematics, and efforts are made to develop curiosity, thinking skills, vocabulary and general knowledge.”

Though not necessarily a bad expectation, psychological and educational findings will prove these systems and expectations inappropriate. After all, psychologist Erik Erikson believes that the sense of academic mastery and competence begins during the late elementary years of the child.

Why do our kids cry a lot when left alone with other confused toddlers in a structured learning environment? Isn’t it that we force them to experience abandonment early on? Their time for exploration and play within the first to five years are disturbed. When they should develop confidence and trust alongside their parents, they are left alone to strangers. Enrolling our kids into excellent preschools so that they will be equipped to pass the test given by big schools does more harm than good. As Queena N. Lee, Ph.D. and Ma. Isabel Sison-Dionisio, M.A., say in their book, Helping Our Children Do Well in School, “Parental presence is irreplaceable and that lots of hugs, kisses and games (with appropriate stimulation) work more wonders than the most expensive preschool in the country”.

Highlighting academic excellence to a child rather than putting emphasis on the effort of learning and discovering through natural curiosity, I strongly believe, does not create the healthy attitude of being competent. After all, if we have the confidence enrolling our toddlers to learning centers means we believe that they have the capacity to acquire knowledge early on. I am bothered by the thought that a lone stranger, left with 10 or more innocent toddlers, are expected to imbibe to them tools of how to become successful in life. We need to trust Life more. It is a sure thing that as our kids, and we, go on with our lives, we will confront a curve called failure, a loop called confusion and so, as parents, because we fully know about these things, must put more energy in seeing our children develop determination, perseverance, and faith in God. There is no short-cut to success when the kind of success we want for our children means they will be respected with honest reverence.

Being an absentee parent myself, I am tormented by the reality that I cannot be part of my now more than one year old daughter’s developing years but I am more disturbed thinking she’ll be left alone, within her developing years, with other toddlers and a teacher. I have left her behind already, I will not allow structured-learning environment to put emphasis on that. She must develop trust and confidence via the people she will call family until the time we can be together. She will go to school not because her parents have already laid out the blueprint of what she will be but because she is emotionally ready.

It is not so much of what my status in life is that I am privileged to dream of a better future for my daughter rather it is my responsibility to leave this world with a much better citizen than I am.

The great Lebanese poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran, laid out the guidelines for me in adopting a mindset on child-rearing, he declares, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself… You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”

Allow me to share some lines that I wrote for my beloved Santi Marie when she was only a few months old.

Papa thinks he already knows what you’re going to be, honey;
And you will make us all proud;
I believe I already know what to teach you;
You should not be bashful, selfish, and loud;

Whatever fate will bestow on you; you shall get by.

Your prince could be a farmer’s son or with a castle;
No matter, you will still be loved, my doll.
Though you’ve a captivating smile; you will still get hurt;
Pain, joy, sorrow and glee; that’s what life is all about.

Cry, laugh, smile and mope; but I know you’ll not lose hope.

Papa really knows for sure what to do, honey;
You will be loved, that’s how it’s gonna be!

That soundtrack of the 1956 film by Alfred Hitchcok won the golden statue of the American Academy Awards, it may have lost its significance amongst the ever eager parents of the modern times who wish to develop their golden child, still, the lyrics, especially to someone like me who strongly believes that in God’s intricate plans we all have our own place and duties, my Faith leans closely on the song’s ready answer of the mother, teacher and the singer to the innocent questions, it explains, “Que Sera, Sera,whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours, to see. Que Sera, Sera”.

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