One Given Sunday

Sundays in a non-religious way mean fun and get-togethers, amongst families and friends. True to the Christian interpretation of the creation of mankind, the seventh day is meant for rest and satisfaction of one's conscience that the previous six days were well-spent in productive ways that helped improve society.

I don't have too many free Sundays and this is the problem (and supreme sacrifice) of caring for helpless and sickly people. Deep inside me, I secretly wish that I would have the same devotion to duty in my very old age. But at the rate the Swedish government is holding back on wages for the healthcare sector, chances are, there'll be more illiterates who cannot differentiate between dementia and diabetes.

But one given Sunday, I finally got hold of my teenage granddaughter - whose weekend calendar is fully booked in advance. So we headed off to her favorite childhood playground, Skansen. It is a microcosm of Swedish tradition, nature, animals and history. It is a good Sunday outing for families and an excellent hospitality gesture for visitors with limited days in Stockholm. So Ariana ( my granddaughter ) found in Skansen an international festival of which the Philippines was also a participant.

Bonding with grandchildren is a challenge these days, especially if the generation gap is wide and deep. But between me and Ariana, it cannot be that big a gap as I have caught up with the internet tech, familiarised myself with the pop culture and lingo, and I shed off my parents' authoritative grip over children. I can joke so that Ariana blushes when I said that, it would utterly impossible to make love to a gypsy without being entangled in her skirt.

Swedish children grow up to be adults, too fast and too soon. Since corporal punishment was outlawed many years ago, children now have become state properties. They can go direct to any state authority and complain about their parents or teachers. They have rights, since the UN ratified the Child Convention. Infact, too much rights, that they don't know how to exercise them in responsible manners. See all those buss stations with broken glass walls? Teenagers! Arson in schools? Gangs robbing elderly people. Youngsters who don't give a damn about giving their bus seats to old people. Drunks in the underground train. Loud and leud conversations. Just a few of the now-generation antics that would have been impossible in my own teenage days in the Philippines.

But Ariana was brought up to be a responsible person and to understand the burden of making one's own decision and taking the consequence. To be able to differentiate between right and wrong at an early age is a moral strength that elders can hand down to our children, and them to theirs. When most politicians (seeking a second term) join the global warming bandwagon and trigger-happy raise taxes on everything, we private persons can hold on to our sense of ethics and morality.