Preen.ph
  • Home
  • Profiles
  • Fashion
  • Culture
  • Beauty
  • Food
  • Space
  • Events
Social Accounts
82K
14K
5K
4K
  • Home
  • Contact
  • About
82K Likes
14K Followers
5K Followers
4K Subscribers
Subscribe
Preen.ph
Preen.ph
  • Home
  • Profiles
  • Fashion
  • Culture
  • Beauty
  • Food
  • Space
  • Events
  • Culture
  • Work

It’s not right but it’s okay: Why some people wanted the reprieve from work

  • Posted on April 29, 2020
  • 3 minute read
  • Amrie Cruz
Total
13
Shares
Share 13
Tweet 0

preen-parents-covid-19-advantages

“Advantage nanaman ng COVID” (or Cobin as the man would often mispronounce) is my dad’s new catchphrase under the quarantine and it’s been driving me nuts for more than a month now. Despite the lack of a source of income, my parents consider this time to be a blessing. And no, they’re not rich like the gullible mom from “Parasite” so there’s no need to ask us if my sister needs a tutor because you’d be barking up the wrong tree. If the community quarantine ends up getting another extension, we’d probably start facing financial troubles. So, why would they think that?

I consider my family lower-middle-class, meaning we have enough to get by but sometimes we’re behind on bills and have to go penny-pinching after a nice meal out. Both my parents started working when they were just kids (before they even hit puberty) and they pretty much paid their own way through school. They’re pushing 50, so that’s a long time to be part of the workforce. Because of that, I understand where they’re coming from. I’m still in my early 20s and I’ve already felt burned-out more than once. The years ahead of me are intimidating and the expectations that I feel I have to meet are high. Life is like a marathon that I forgot to train for. 

When you need to run to catch up with the rest of the world, a personal hiatus is a luxury. There’s a touching scene in underdog K-drama “Fight for My Way“” where one of the characters was trying to patch things up with his longtime partner. Kim Joo-man tearfully said, “Even if I can’t give you luxury, I wanted to at least give you the average. It hurt my pride so much, to say something this pathetic. But I just wanted to have a small lease to start with. But, even though I worked for six years, that average, that average is too hard to reach.” Time is said to be expensive but the cost of it differs across the class divide. So the lower your wages, the more impact unemployment will have for you. Because my family is living from paycheck to paycheck, my parents wouldn’t willingly take more than a week-long break in normal circumstances. That takes its toll. 

I’ve asked my dad to stop using his frankly insensitive catchphrase multiple times but he’s become extra stubborn with age. He’s not blind to the casualties of COVID-19 and he’s not politically unaware. I bet he’s just a little overwhelmed with the limbo that he and my mom are in while my work-from-home salary is keeping us afloat. I’m happy that they’re both in a headspace that lets them cultivate peace of mind, but I guess we could work on being more connected to society at large as a family.

This quarantine is difficult for various reasons and we all want to win the fight against COVID-19 soon. Here’s to hoping that we’ll last long enough to see it.

 

 

Art by Tricia Guevara

Follow Preen on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Viber

Related Stories:
Pandemic productivity: Stop guilting yourself for working differently
The not-so-casual cruelty in ‘We are the virus’
I can’t sleep well during ECQ and I’m trying to fix that
Protect your mental health from the pandemic

Action Required!

We embed Facebook Comments plugin to allow you to leave comment at our website using your Facebook account. It may collects your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the commenting interface, including correlating your Facebook account with whatever action you take within the interface (such as “liking” someone’s comment, replying to other comments), if you are logged into Facebook. For more information about how this data may be used, please see Facebook’s data privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update.

Accept    Decline

Total
13
Shares
Share 13
Tweet 0
Share 0
Related Topics
  • class divide
  • covid-19
  • culture
  • employment
  • family
  • mental health
  • pandemic
  • quarantine
  • work
Previous Article
  • Culture
  • Culture News

Are Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid expecting a child soon?

  • Posted on April 29, 2020April 29, 2020
  • Lia delos Reyes
View Post
Next Article
  • Culture
  • Culture News

Who run the bar? GIRLS!

  • Posted on April 29, 2020April 29, 2020
  • Lia delos Reyes
View Post
You May Also Like
jojo siwa coming out tiktok
View Post
  • Celebrities
  • Culture
  • LGBT

Did Jojo Siwa really come out through a TikTok?

  • Posted on January 21, 2021January 21, 2021
  • Amrie Cruz
preen vaccine passport bills poe cayetano
View Post
  • Culture
  • Health
  • Politics

Everything we know about the vaccine passport bills so far

  • Posted on January 21, 2021
  • Amrie Cruz
preen greta thunberg trump
View Post
  • Culture
  • Politics

Greta Thunberg’s funny farewell to Trump is in a league of its own

  • Posted on January 21, 2021January 21, 2021
  • Amrie Cruz
View Post
  • Culture
  • Culture News

Why is Blackpink Jisoo being bullied for not speaking English well?

  • Posted on January 20, 2021January 20, 2021
  • Lia delos Reyes
Editors’ Picks
  • preen_losing-coworkers
    The 2020 office heartbreak? Losing coworkers
    • Posted on November 16, 2020November 23, 2020
    • 3 minute read
  • Here’s why we need to support student strikes
    • Posted on November 16, 2020November 23, 2020
    • 4 minute read
  • Why is a learning module fat-shaming Angel Locsin?
    • Posted on November 14, 2020November 23, 2020
    • 3 minute read
  • Check out this list of donation drives for Typhoons Rolly and Ulysses
    • Posted on November 13, 2020November 28, 2020
    • 3 minute read
  • preen typhoon ulysses victims insensitivity
    Don’t tell flood survivors that they should’ve moved houses
    • Posted on November 12, 2020November 23, 2020
    • 2 minute read
Social Accounts
82K
14K
5K
4K
Like us on facebook
Subscribe to our Newsletter
about
Preen.ph © 2020. Hinge Inquirer Publications, Inc.
Social Accounts

Input your search keywords and press Enter.