The curse of the eldest daughter

As the eldest daughter, you can never run away from the wounds that have been carved into your skin decades deep by the very people that welcomed you into this world. It’s nothing new in this society that being a Filipino kid, especially an eldest daughter, easily makes you become an emotional punching bag no matter how good of a person you think you are.

My earliest memories weren’t always ones where I was jumping for joy, blowing bubbles with pigtail braids swinging around. But I do have a vague memory of being used by my mother as a human shield against my anger-stricken father—a fight that involved him manhandling our electric fan, smashing the base until it could stand no more.

I have always been fond of that electric fan—oh yes, it did survive the great havoc that became a core memory. Sometime after that fight, they must have had the base repaired because I can vividly recall it standing again but with a cemented bottom this time. When I turned seven, I was always met with its pale green color, soft red buttons aligned vertically, and a blinking yellow light as I closed my eyes to sleep every night.

I never romanticized it for anything else then, but looking back, it did greatly symbolize the kind of resilience my little family has gone through over the years.

Don’t get me wrong; I do have happy memories. I remember my father helping me make a toy bee out of two Yakult bottles, scotch tape I bought for P2, cut-up lines of a yellow pad to be pasted as the bee’s stripes, pieces of chicken wire to serve as the legs, and two small paper circles I drew two dots on so I could put them as eyes. I remember being gifted CDs of Disney movies, Barbie dolls, new dresses, and hair accessories that my mother would put on my hair to make me look well-groomed and presentable. She made sure that I always looked pretty, and looking back at my pictures, let me take this opportunity to say, Ma, you did a great job.

In my young mind, we were already rich back then. I looked and felt rich—what with my pale complexion, straight jet-black hair, brand-new shoes and sandals, and a smile that always reached my eyes. I wasn’t lousy in school either; I was one of those kids who would enthusiastically raise their hand to answer a question and wouldn’t hesitate to annihilate you in a round of spelling bees. With my seemingly sound mind and appearance, it was no surprise that a lot of people outside our home assumed that I belonged to a well-off family.

But we were far from being one.

It was only when I reached 18 that it dawned on me how devastatingly poor we were. When I started earning money for myself, that’s when I realized how we were actually living off a measly income when I was a child. My brother, who I have a 15-year age gap with, is quite lucky at the present time, and I am indescribably thankful that he does not have to go through what I did.

When I was in second grade, my parents found me silently crying under the sheets because my father was going to leave for abroad the next day. To this date, I still cannot fathom how my eight-year-old mind digested that things were taking a wild turn in my life at that time. But it was the first time that it truly dawned on me how life isn’t as magical as I thought.

I remember hearing my mother cry in the middle of the night, and I would have to pretend to be asleep because I did not know how to comfort her. I remember going to the nearest tiangge to buy load for a broadband stick just so we could see my father, who was working roughly 5,000 miles away, on a secondhand laptop screen. I remember having to help my mother cook yema and pastillas when I came home from school just so 10-year-old me could sell them in the classroom the next day—because that was the only way I was able to have some pocket money to buy snacks during recess.

My parents married and had me young. I am about to turn the age of my mother when she brought me into this world. I cannot imagine being a parent at this age. I cannot imagine being handed such responsibility when I am still just a child myself. I understand the pain and loss of their dreams at the expense of keeping me alive … as a kid, as a teenager, and now, as an adult.

I have come to realize that the pain of my childhood isn’t just mine. The heart I’m trying to heal isn’t just the one inside my body—but that of the young kids who are also roaming the souls of my mother and father, trapped in their own cycle of heartbreak and grief.

It’s true that you will eventually figure your parents out—the good, the bad, and everything in between. As a 20-something, you would figure out that these wounds aren’t just two decades old because you are also holding the burden of your mother and father’s pain that goes even years back. Wounds that they weren’t able to heal. Wounds that you know that, at this point, only you are capable of healing.

And as the eldest daughter, you are expected just to be okay with it.

I’ll be okay with it.

Eventually.

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Sophia Feona Cantiller, 21, is a freelance writer and a computer science student at the University of the Philippines Visayas.