PERSPECTIVE

By Ron R. Lacson

When my son was 10, he came to me one night and asked – “Dad, what does ‘HAVING SEX’ mean?” I panicked like a fish just out of water. I was stunned. I was shocked to the bones.

Why the heck would a boy – not even a teenager – raise a stumper like that? Who taught him that? Where did he learn it? How did he even manage to have the courage to ask me that?

I immediately tried to blame television or perhaps the unpleasant side of the school’s influence. Or maybe the internet. Yes, the internet. The internet these days and even those days could offer unexpected details, sometimes pictures with compromising positions…err, I mean information.

As a father, I must say something… or do something… or ask something. “Ok, son, where did you learn that phrase?” I asked mildly. I looked so calm, although, inside me, I was erupting like the Taal Volcano. “From Miss X (I will conceal her name here), our teacher, Dad,” my son replied. What?!!! Oh, No. Oh, my goodness. What in the world was happening?

The lava from the Taal Volcano that was lurking inside me would come out soon. I was agonizing while wondering how his teacher revealed that phrase it to him. Did she show that… that… sensual activity to him? Did she teach it? How? Why? The phrase ‘HAVING SEX’ kept thumping my heart and my brain. And my creativity…, ok, my imagination was uncontrollable. It was becoming graphics at one point. I usually don’t entertain graphic and sensual thoughts (they entertain me).

My sweats… my perspirations… were all gathering on my forehead like they were having a gathering to make a protest. And my mouth became so dry like the plains of the Sahara Desert. I don’t even know what to say anymore. Until my son clarified his baffler.

“You know Dad when we are kind of noisy in the class, our teacher would often say to us, ‘Will you all behave, for ‘HEAVEN’s SAKE’.” Nganga!! (open mouth). And Nganga again! (open mouth again).

I heard wrong. My ears probably had a problem at that particular time. Or my ears had only listened to my brain. I learned that I must not interpret someone’s statement (particularly from a child) anchored on my own perspective. I learned that I must have an open mind. I learned not to jump (and hop) to a conclusion without finding the basics first.

I had a mind that was colored by the world that I had lived. My son has a different world. Everyone has. We must understand each one from his/her own stance, and not from our own point of view. ‘For HEAVEN’S SAKE, I must change,’ I said to myself at that time. And I did.