What I wanted from my parents at 16 is exactly what I’m grateful they never gave me.

At ten, I watched my friends play Pogs, jackstone, and Nintendo whenever they wanted.

We couldn’t. Not on school nights. The rule was simple and it never moved: finish your assignments, study, then you play. Every night, same order, no exceptions, no negotiations.

I thought it was unfair. I thought my parents were just stricter than everyone else’s.

What I couldn’t see then was that they were already teaching me something I wouldn’t understand for twenty more years, that the things worth having come after the work, not instead of it.

But at ten, you don’t think in decades. You just want to play.

What I also didn’t see at ten, what I took completely for granted was my dad  pulling up every morning in his tricycle. The kind of ride where you sing two songs, fall asleep, have a full dream, wake up, look around and you’re still on the same road. The trees hadn’t even changed. Haha

But he was always there. Every morning, same tricycle, same father, steady and unhurried, like he had nowhere more important to be. And maybe that was the point. For those slow, half-asleep minutes between home and school, he was completely ours. That slow, unhurried tricycle ride was me and my brother’s favorite part of the school day. Nothing else came close.

They put all three of us through school without making it feel like a weight we had to carry, they just made sure it was handled.

That was the kind of love they had. Practical. Steady. Present before you even knew to ask.

I didn’t have a word for it then.

I just thought that was life.

What I also didn’t see, because you never see what happens before you wake up is that my mom was already awake at four in the morning.

Every day. Before the sun. Before any of us opened our eyes.

She ran our store. She raised her children. She checked our assignments. On typhoon mornings and in Bicol, there were many — she was already calling the nuns at school before we even stirred, just to find out if classes were suspended.

She made sure the water heater was on so we never had to start the day with a cold shower.

She fed us before she fed herself and she did it all without once asking to be thanked for it.

That was just Tuesday.

That was just her life.

I didn’t understand what that cost until I was far away, trying to feed just myself.

By sixteen, the resentment had found language.

I remember sitting in a friend’s living room, watching their mom laugh at a story I knew would have earned me a lecture at home. No correction. No think about what you’re saying. Just warmth, easy and uncomplicated.

I went home that night quietly irritated.

Why couldn’t mine be like that? Why did everything have to pass through a filter of is this wise, have you thought this through?

I didn’t want guidance. I wanted agreement. I didn’t want parents who were thinking about who I was becoming. I wanted parents who were happy with who I already was.

There were nights I called them rigid in my head. Nights I convinced myself they cared more about rules than about me.

I mistook steadiness for coldness.
I mistook consistency for control.

And I was completely certain I was right.

That’s the thing about being young, you don’t think your parents are shaping you. You think they’re blocking you.

Then I moved abroad.

And for the first time, there was no structure that wasn’t mine to build. No warmth that existed before I arrived. No one to absorb the weight of my choices or soften what came after them.

I was trying to build a life and struggling to finance the one I thought I wanted.

Everything I had always wanted suddenly had a cost I wasn’t ready for.

I started cooking on my own. Simple things, badly at first. And somewhere in that small, quiet kitchen alone, far from home, I missed something I couldn’t immediately name.

Not just the food.

The warmth underneath it. A mother who was already awake before you were. Who called the school before you even knew there was a typhoon. Who made sure the water was warm before you stepped into the shower. Who thought about you before you even knew the day had started.

I missed that more than I knew how to say.

And then one night, it landed differently.

My parents worked hard, really hard, to send all three of us to college. While I was abroad struggling to take care of just myself, they had spent years quietly carrying all of us. Showing up every single day without asking to be noticed for it.

At my age, they were raising three children.

Not finding themselves. Not figuring out who they were. Raising human beings — every day, no days off, no guarantee they were getting it right.

I was struggling to manage my own life.

They were carrying an entire family.

I sat with that for a long time.

I had spent years evaluating them from the safest position possible.

The protected one.

I wanted them to bend the rules when I pushed. To rescue me from consequences. To choose closeness over discipline. To meet me where I was instead of asking me to rise to something higher.

What I know now is that they were never trying to be liked.

They were trying to raise someone who wouldn’t collapse when life got hard.

Friendship seeks harmony. Parenting seeks formation. One makes you feel good now. The other makes you strong enough for later.

They absorbed my frustration. They let me misunderstand them for years. They carried the weight of being unfair so I could learn how to stand upright.

And they never once made their sacrifice feel like my debt.

I want to be careful here, because I know this isn’t everyone’s story.

Some people are healing from parents who were hard without being loving. Who were strict without being safe. I don’t write past that lightly.

What I had was structure held together by love. And I didn’t know how rare that was until I was far from home, cooking alone, missing a warmth I had spent years taking for granted.

If I can sit with difficulty now without running from it…

If I can take responsibility instead of looking for someone to blame…

If I can be far from home and still feel held by something…

That didn’t start with me.

It started with a father who drove his tricycle every morning without complaint. A mother who was awake at four so we never had to feel the cold. Two people who worked long enough, quietly enough, steadily enough — that I never had to wonder if I was going to be okay.

Even when I was too young to know that’s what they were doing.

I used to wish my parents were my friends.
Now I understand they gave me something friendship never could.

I used to think you were holding me back.
Now I see you were holding me up.
You didn’t bend when I pushed.
You didn’t panic when I resented you.
You didn’t trade long-term strength for short-term closeness.
And you never once made me feel like your sacrifice was something I owed you for.
You just kept showing up.

Even when I rolled my eyes.
Even when I compared you.
Even when I wished you were easier.
I still cry every time I leave.

Sitting in that cabin, watching the airport disappear beneath the clouds, knowing you’re still standing there. I cry because I know what it cost you to raise someone brave enough to go. And what it costs you every time she does.

You never tried to be my friends.

You tried to make sure I would survive without you.

And because of that — I can.

Love you, Ma and Da. Always.

— Niskiekay