Every so often, she would ask her mother a question, her voice a soft interruption to the hum of the journey. “Ma, may baon na ba ako?” “Ma, nagbayad na tayo?” “Ma, bakit nagjeep lang tayo?” Simple, practical questions. And each time, the mother would respond with a brief nod or a shake of her head, her attention never fully leaving that small compact mirror she kept pulling out to pat her face with powder.
It’s funny, isn’t it? the things we notice when we let our minds wander?
There she was, clutching a designer bag, scrolling through her up-to-date smartphone—tools of modern life, sure, but also symbols of a certain self-absorption. She seemed more engrossed in her digital world, in the tiny screen that mirrors her back at herself, than in the world right beside her. Meanwhile, her daughter—clean, but dressed in clothes whose colors had long since begun to fade—sat waiting, asking, noticing.
That little girl’s shoes, worn down and stretched beyond their capacity, caught my eye. They were tired shoes, struggling to hold onto feet that were growing faster than her mother’s attention could keep up with. It struck me then—how children, in their innocence, accept the world as it is presented to them.
To her, maybe colors are supposed to fade, to lose their vibrancy with time, just like those old shoes. It’s a sadness that gnaws at me, the thought that she might already be learning to say goodbye to the bright optimism that should light up her world.
I’m not here to judge the woman, to declare her a bad parent—nor am I putting myself on any pedestal of fatherhood. God knows I’m far from perfect. But as I sat there, I couldn’t help but wonder why, if she could afford these tokens of vanity, she couldn’t afford to bring some color back into her child’s life. Maybe it’s not about the clothes or the shoes at all. Maybe it’s about the attention, the care—the choice to see and respond to the needs of the ones we love.
I know, I pay too much attention to small things. People tell me that all the time. But I can’t help it. How do we decide what’s significant and what’s not? How do we draw that line between what deserves our focus and what should be dismissed? These questions spiral in my mind, questions I can’t seem to let go of.
Maybe it’s because that little kid in me refuses to grow up, refuses to lose that sense of wonder that makes every detail matter. Grown-ups like to think they’ve figured it all out, that they can distinguish between the important and the trivial. They dismiss children’s questions, thinking they’re silly, irrelevant. But maybe, in doing so, they’re really just shutting out that part of themselves they’d rather forget. The part that once saw the world in vibrant color.
We adults hide our own faded lives behind layers of fashion, makeup, and vanity. We convince ourselves that wisdom comes with age, but perhaps real wisdom is in holding onto that hunger for knowledge, that desire to understand, to see the world through a child’s eyes. It’s our responsibility to keep those colors bright for them, to nurture their curiosity, their sense of wonder, instead of losing ourselves in superficial self-indulgence. Yes, pamper yourself if you must, but not at the cost of the attention your child needs, the colors they deserve to see.
In the end, that’s all there is to this rambling reflection. Just a thought—maybe we had our share of colors; now it’s their turn.
And then, as if the universe was keen on punctuating my thoughts with irony, the little girl’s voice cut through again: “Ma, bakit lumampas tayo?”
Her mother snapped out of her preoccupation, startled. “Ay! Manong, PARA!”
And in the frustration of the moment, she turned to her daughter, her voice sharp with irritation. “Bakit di mo sinabi agad?!”
Funny, I thought. She didn’t even notice.
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