- Chapter 1: When Past and Present Collide
The late afternoon heat pressed against Mariel’s condo like a clingy ex—unwelcome, persistent, and impossible to ignore. Her blazer was still stuck to her back after a full day of sales calls across Quezon City. She dropped her heels near the couch and collapsed onto the cushion, her fingers already navigating her trackpad.
Dinner was in the microwave, barely warm. Her laptop chimed—their family video call was connecting. Mama’s idea. It had become a weekly thing, and while Mariel often played along with a smile, she rarely looked forward to it. It felt less like a bonding ritual and more like a live performance of old wounds.
The screen lit up.
Mama appeared first, framed by a cluttered background of ring lights, folded plastic mailers, and a stack of Shopee parcels. She always looked lively, the kind of woman who could run an empire from her dining table. Then came her father, leaning back under an oscillating fan in a sagging sleeveless shirt, his image blurry but unmistakable.
“Mariel, there you are,” Mama beamed. “How was your client meeting?”
“Okay, Ma. I hit my quota, but nearly lost my voice doing it.”
She smiled thinly. Fatigue disguised itself as politeness.
Her father grunted. “I saw the news earlier. The traffic there is insane. The country’s falling apart. Do you feel safe walking around there? The government—”
“Maybe focus on fixing your own life first,” Mariel replied, her voice even but pointed. “You can’t fix the country from a sofa.”
Her mother shifted, clearly uneasy.
“Let it go, anak,” Mama said softly. “Your Papa just gets emotional when he hears the news.”
That was the narrative: he was sensitive, thoughtful, concerned. Never lazy. Never wrong.
“So, what have you been doing lately, Pa?” she asked, already bracing herself.
“Oh, still here at Lina’s place. Helping with the kids. Cooking sometimes. Doing what I can.”
Helping. Right. Mariel had visited once. “Helping” meant watching TV while her cousin did the chores and his sister managed the kids. He’d claimed to be “teaching” the children values while sharing conspiracy videos on Facebook.
“I’m still thankful, though,” he added. “As long as I eat three meals a day, I’m okay.”
There it was. His life goal: basic survival, on someone else’s dime.
“Isn’t there more to life than that?” Mariel asked. “Shouldn’t you want to build something for yourself? Or at least support others?”
Her father’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lecture me. I’m still your father.”
That line. It always came when he had no answers left.
Mariel felt her stomach tighten. She remembered a day when she was fifteen. It had rained hard. Her school shoes were soaked, and her umbrella had flipped inside out from the wind. Everyone else had been picked up. Her father had promised he’d come. He didn’t.
She walked home alone. Two kilometers in the rain.
When she got there—drenched, shivering—he was sitting at the table, playing cards with two drinking buddies.
“Oh, you’re home,” he’d said casually. “Did you walk? Hope you don’t catch a cold.”
He never stood up. Never paused the game.
She made herself rice and eggs that night while he joked with his friends.
That was her childhood. Doing the chores, memorizing his coffee preferences, folding his laundry. Not because he asked her gently—but because he expected it. She’d been trained, without words, to be the caretaker.
Only years later would she learn the word for it: parentification.
The child becomes the adult. The nurturer. The responsible one. While the adult behaves like the dependent. It’s not always cruel. Sometimes it’s just constant. Quiet. Inescapable.
Her father didn’t realize how much of her childhood was sacrificed for the illusion of peace.
After the call, Mariel stood by her small kitchen sink, staring out the window. The city lights shimmered through the haze. Her dinner sat cold on the table.
She reached for her laptop and typed into Google: “MigrantCare Philippines – Healthcare Sales Work Abroad.”
The agency’s website listed jobs in Canada, Australia, and the UAE. Visa sponsorships. Paid training. Clean break, fresh start.
She bookmarked it.
Then she closed the laptop and looked around her condo—the silence, the stillness. It was the kind of quiet she had always craved growing up. No blaring TV, no passive-aggressive remarks, no one calling her just to ask for things.
Tomorrow, she might apply. But tonight, she just let herself feel. Feel the weight she had carried since childhood, disguised as responsibility. Feel the ache of never being just a daughter—always the one who had to hold everything together.
And above all, feel the conviction that she would never become like her father.
Author’s Note:
This chapter explores the psychological pattern of parentification, where a child is prematurely placed in a caregiving role due to a parent’s emotional or practical absence. For Mariel, this was her normal—caring for a man who never quite became one. The scars show up in subtle ways: exhaustion, guilt, and a fierce commitment to never repeat the same pattern.
Psychology Fact:
Parentification is defined by the APA Dictionary of Psychology as the process where a child assumes adult responsibilities, often due to a parent’s inability or refusal to fulfill their role. This can lead to burnout, difficulty setting boundaries, and suppressed emotional needs well into adulthood.
