The Fear Factor

By Rolo B. Cena
Arabian Diaries
Dumaguete Star Informer
10 January 2010

Nope, this is not regarding the reality show broadcasted globally by one of the international terrestrial giants. This is about the fears almost all fathers feel for their children. And this can be your story.

Instead of making busy in the kitchen preparing for the traditional “New Year’s Eve dinner”, we busied ourselves with playing badminton early in the afternoon of the 31st and still managed to play table tennis when we got home.

In this land where almost everything a normal Christian does is restricted, celebrating the New Year’s Eve (and Christmas’) become as simple as eating and talking with families (if they are here) and select friends. But if you are brave enough to defy the absolute law of the Kingdom, you can drink home-made wine called “sadiqi” or indulge in some activities that are contrary to their morals and laws at your own risk.

Anyway, after two other members of the team left for their respective activities, the four of us were left staring at the ceiling. To break the silence, I asked Ian, my buddy and partner in the match (both badminton and lawn tennis) to go with me to buy food for our dinner and something to welcome for the coming of the year 2010. We left and after practically two hours, we went back home with dinner and something for the “Noche Buena”.

Sans the fireworks and the presence of our loved ones, we feasted on the food we bought but were never merry even just for this one traditionally-memorable day for us Christians. We talked a lot of things and allowed our minds to scribble for our lips what to discuss until we reached one topic of common interest: fear.

Joy, a father of two and Eastern Province’s one-time Level 2 badminton champion threw the simply-constructed-but-hard-to-answer question to both Ian and I: “Hindi ba kayo natatakot na baka lukuhin ang anak n’yong babae ng kung sino-sinong lalaki?” “Are you not afraid that your daughter maybe fooled by just any man out there?”

I raised my voice and shouted my answer to this twenty-four-million-dollar question: “of course I do. And I don’t want that to happen.”

Then there was silence in the room. The only thing I noticed was we were all staring at each other’s eyes eagerly waiting for further reactions and comprehensible comments. We advanced on the same topic; we talked more of our emotions. Despite the wisdom spontaneously coming out of this conversation, still fear blocks our weary minds and stimulates our do-or-die position on the matter.

The morally-deteriorating society calls it “over-protectionism”, the natural instinct attributable to responsible parents of all species, homo sapiens included. Yes, all three of us (three because one of us is still a bachelor) shared the same sentiments and fears. The “weaker” persona of a father in us overseas workers obviously was spontaneously disclosed that moment; helpless yet forcing the issue of a lifetime.

Joy is a very good provider. Despite the fact that he was earning satisfactorily good as an accountant in the Philippines with a small grocery store in Bulacan, yet he was lured by the earnings of working abroad. He has a ten-year old daughter, an eight-year old son, and a newly born daughter. Listening to and looking at him, one could easily assess that he is a very loving and understanding husband and father to his kids; an extremely over-protective young father, a strict disciplinarian, and street-smart guy.

Ian is a good provider, too. Despite the earning bookkeeping business he and his wife established in Bulacan, he was attracted to work for Saudi Arabia to earn more for his family. He has a fourteen-year old daughter, a ten-year old son and a seven-year old daughter. Working through the net for his bookkeeping services and working overseas made him a hard-to-beat provider for his family, a record extraordinarily unbelievable. Ian is liberal in terms of disciplining his kids; his approach is laxer than Joy’s and mine.

Over a cup of coffee, Joy was boisterously stressing his point of providing a seemingly perfect economic condition for his family and he cannot allow any single man to pick her daughter up from his own abode. Further he stressed that should any untoward incident happen to her daughter, he would be willing to take her back and take care of her until she would be able to take off again.

I shared the same sentiments, thoughts, and plans with him. Ian on the other hand was quite hesitant in agreeing with us. He has his own views: he will allow his daughter to commit into relationship, learn from mistakes and experiences and is willing to take her back.

If push comes to shove, the three of us are willing to take our “daughters” back despite what might happen. The three of us agree that our fears are adversely affected somehow by these three social evils: peer pressure, commercialism and immorality that are contributory to the gradual deterioration of familial foundation parents established.

As social being, people rationally and naturally strive to belong to a group. The age brackets of our children dictate what kind of group they should be in. The older they are the stronger is the “peer pressure”. Peer pressure is simply dictating them to “take this and you will be in” the group. Conversely, peer pressure dictates our children to take drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and other vices and they will be admitted into the group. Then troubles begin.

Commercialism simply means “buy me and you will be okay.” It dictates us what to possess, use or avail and everything is going to be fine. It pressures our kids more than us parents.

Immorality in the society abounds. It becomes the staple in the daily tabloids: crime, grime, and slime. Immorality is the resultant extent of entertained peer pressure and commercialism. And our kids are not spared from this.

The conjunction of these three social evils in the tender mentality and fragile physical ability of our children (not just daughters) could easily result to their unwanted condition in the society in general.

While experts would advise that as stewards of our children we need to yield to the powers of The Master Creator, fathers couldn’t discount the possibility of being taken aback especially when rough waters run under the bridge.

Fathers’ worst fear, indeed!