Who's Johnny?

Shortly after lunch my phone rang. It was my former officemate. “My son has come home and I’m giving him a little welcome party tonight, please join us,” she said. I was a bit surprised; her son had left to work as a construction-site nurse in Dubai just about a month earlier.

“Dubai was just too difficult for me,” the young man casually told the small gathering of us friends of his mother and several of his own friends. “Being away from Mama was killing me. Besides, the climate there is crazy.” There’s no place like home, especially one like theirs where there’s always Mama to make things easy for her eternal “little boy.”

Aside from me, nobody seemed surprised about his homecoming; although no one expected him to be back so soon, either. He had a history of early surrenders. Before Dubai, he worked at a call center in the city for only two months. His earlier stint at a local hotel was much shorter, just a little over a week.

Previously, his schooling took quite a circuitous route before he finished anything. It took him almost eight years to earn a college degree.

Out of high school, he enrolled in Marine Engineering, the course many of his buddies were taking. Halfway through the first semester, he complained of ill health and had to quit. He stayed home for the rest of that school year.

When he was ready for school again, he told his mother that becoming a sailor was not really what he wanted. He shifted to Nursing, and spent the next two years in the course.

Then a dentist relative suggested that he pursue Dentistry. It was not as difficult as Medicine itself, and he’d still end up being addressed “Doctor.” The young man was convinced; so he took up Dentistry for a year, until something else – again – caught his interest.

The media looked like a nice industry to work in. Several universities were offering Mass Communications, and Mama agreed that a media job was a way to becoming famous. The young man decided to try it, for a semester maybe. If he didn’t like it, he could always go back to Dentistry.

After a year, he gave up Mass Communications. It was not as fun as he thought. And it could be risky, he reasoned, if you’re a starting news reporter assigned to cover crime and violence. Mama concurred.

He did not go back to Dentistry, as was the plan. He con-tinued his Nursing, instead. Many subjects from his other courses counted in the Nursing curriculum. In less than three years more, he got his diploma. Within the same year of his graduation, he took the board exams and luckily passed.

Even in his romantic life the young man tends to be rather flippant. He never has had a girlfriend long enough, and is on the verge of losing the one he is now dating. Commitment scares him. He is aware of his own unpredictability.

This story is quite familiar. To a large extent, it’s the story of each of us, too. The young man may only be so lucky to have a parent who’s fully supportive of him, no matter what. Yet, on the contrary, it may actually be his disadvantage to have a loving Mama who doesn’t seem to know what’s ultimately good for her son.

The mother is a single parent who thought she did her son wrong by not marrying the boy’s father. To compensate for her perceived fault, she worked so hard to provide the boy with whatever he wanted. She has made it her parental motto never to refuse his requests or dissent his decisions.  

But, in my view, young people must be taught to eventually outgrow their need for parental pampering, and begin to be independent, to take on some direction in life. Perhaps the most important thing a parent can give her child – better than education or material comforts – is a good set of moral values. Then the child will have an internal guide for making right choices in life on his own. 

That child will know what to do in any circumstance. He will develop a healthy sense of self-concept. His decisions and actions will be sound, because these are based on a deep understanding of what’s truly important to him. With his values in place, he can face anything with confidence, willing – if need be – for the world to hate him for his principles.

We seldom give ourselves the time for serious soul-searching. We feel uncomfortable seeking the deepest truths about us. Many times we want something so much and work so hard to attain it, only to feel disappointed in the end, to realize that our prize is not really what we wanted. Yet if we are to be asked what we really wanted, we can’t say categorically, either.

It’s sad – yet so commonly the case – that when we’re asked to say who we are, we couldn’t say more than give our names. If the name is Johnny, who’s Johnny? Who’s the person bearing the name? Often we can’t say. Because we really don’t know. 

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