Why Filipino Parents should become the Hope of our Nation

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in what our national hero Jose Rizal said that “the youth are the hope of our nation”. In fact, this article was inspired by him.

So why did I say that Filipino parents should become the hope of our country? Without further ado, here are my reasons why.

The youth Rizal was saying in the past were us.
When was the last time Rizal uttered those words? Wasn’t it many years ago? Our brave hero was talking about the next generation during his time, and that generation is us.

Rizal and all our heroes sacrificed their lives for us. They did that because they hoped for us. They wanted us to have freedom so that we can concentrate in developing our nation today. They wished that their hope will become reality in this generation. But what’s happening now? Unfortunately, we are still hoping.

Many Filipino parents today put all their hopes to their children. Of course I’m not saying let’s not hope for our children. We must be hopeful to our children, but we should also be hopeful to ourselves and work hard so that we can give reality to our children rather than just mere hope.

Parents should leave a great legacy to their children.
Education is a good legacy to our children. But parents should not just be contented in seeing their children getting a diploma in college or getting hired as an employee in a certain company. Truth be told, a diploma in college isn’t a guarantee of a better life here in the Philippines. Employment doesn’t also guarantee a salary that can provide us financial security.

What Filipino parents must do is to work harder to be rich in their own so that they can leave a greater legacy to their children – a legacy which is better than a college diploma. Perhaps it is difficult, but if we can observe the Filipino-Chinese parents, that is what they do. They see to it that they can pass on riches to their children. On the contrary, some Filipino parents expect their children to pass on riches to them instead.

With that kind of Filipino mindset, our wealth doesn’t run forward but it runs backward. This is also the reason why there are many Filipinos who are getting sandwiched between their financial obligation to their parents and their obligation to their children.

We should focus on the present to expect a brighter future.
Our great heroes gave their everything during their time so that we can have a great present. Now it’s our turn to give our everything to this present to build a better future. We should not live by hoping for the future alone. We should not rely everything to our children… to our youth. As parents today, we must first look unto ourselves, rely on ourselves, and do everything we can to cement the better future of children.

Successful parents make successful children.
There’s a famous saying that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, which means that children are likely to grow just like their parents. In the Philippines, we translate it as “kung ano ang puno sya rin ang bunga.” If we want to see our children becoming successful, we should see that success first in ourselves.

Parents should be great teachers to their children. And to be great and effective, they should serve as role models, not only as models of financial success, but also as models of discipline and other qualities of a righteous person. In other words, we should practice what we teach.

We should not wait for the next generation to succeed.
Too much hope can kill our nation. If we hope too much without doing our best, our dreams for our children and for our country can hardly be achieved. That is why we need to put our hope in the right time and in the right place. That time is now. That place is us. We should do our best now. We should develop ourselves to become great parents to our children. We should avoid passing all the burden and troubles to our children, the next generation.

It’s not yet too late to fix our current generation.
Perhaps many of the people who will read this article are parents. Maybe this article is too demanding and might also be offensive. But the truth often hurts. Success also requires pain.

Our generation has a problem, and we can’t deny it. However, we can still fix this. No matter how old or how young we are as parents, we can still do something to become better parents to our children. We can still do something to reduce or eliminate the burden we are about to pass on to our children.

No matter how old we are, we can still do something extraordinary. Even at age 60, there are still people who can do something great. You can check this “list which proves you’re never too old to do something amazing“.

We can still build a great legacy to our children. As long as we are alive, there’s still hope for ourselves… for our generation. As long as we’re breathing, we don’t need to give all our hope to the next generation. We can still hope and believe in ourselves, work ourselves to create our own success, and bestow that success to our children instead of just leaving them with mere hope.