Today as I was putting Lia to sleep, I was thinking, ‘Am I where I should be right now?’ Honestly, I felt unproductive having to spend so much time and effort dancing my baby to sleep. I love what I was doing but I thought maybe I should instead be doing some online work at that very moment or even be dressed in a corporate attire doing office work.

And then my mother’s words came to me like an answer to all the questions that’s been bothering me. She said, ‘There’s a big difference with you running the house instead of housemaids doing it.’

Since I was a child, I’ve convinced myself not to be a full-time housewife. Not because I thought of it as a menial job, but because I was afraid that I couldn’t match, more so surpass, the sacrifice that my mother did to bring up her 4 children.

Yet now I see myself doing exactly what she was doing decades ago. And it scares me.

It scares me because what if with all the effort that I am exerting just to meet my children’s different needs, I would still end up a failure in bringing out the best in them.

And even if they all grew up the persons they are destined to be, I’m scared to find myself searching for an identity because my children are all grown up and doesn’t need me the way they do now.

Above all, it scares me because for the first time I am not in control of my future.