Little Sacrifices

I woke up at 3:30am today because I had to accompany my wife to the airport. She will attend an interoffice meeting in Davao and be back tomorrow evening. Little sacrifice on my part if compared to the sacrifices of my wife who sleeps late at night because she helps our children in their assignments and wakes up very early in the morning to cook our food and prepare our baon.


I promised her that I would help her in the kitchen every morning but I could not wake up at 4:00am because that would give me only five hours of sleep on the average since I usually sleep at past 11:30 after the late night news on TV. As a way of alleviating her burden, I took the initiative of attending to the needs of our youngest child who has to be roused from sleep once I get up in the morning for her "wee-wee" time to avoid bedwetting. Then I'm also the one who prepares Charm's milk who goes back to bed after the morning routine of bringing her to the comfort room to urinate. I started training her on this before she reached her third birthday and so far she had only wet the bed twice when I forgot to ask her to do her thing before she slept.

I know my wife appreciates these little sacrifices as I do the same for the big ones she does for the family. I realize that this give and take relationship is essential in keeping the marriage and the family intact. Husbands and wives have specific roles in the family but what's more important is that they share the responsibilities of caring for their children and helping in the house chores.

I know a lot of husbands who do the laundry and iron the clothes (These used to be my chores when my wife and I were just starting to live together). I also know some wives who, aside from taking care of their children,  are also expert at fixing things at home. No matter what one does to contribute to shared parenting and symbiotic relationship, the important thing is that doing these things will contribute siginificantly in making the union strong and the family life happy.