(Am I right or am I wrong?)

Before I proceed to my topic, I want to introduce myself. I have been a single dad since my only son was only two years old. I have had a mini-store and a computer shop before, and that is my source of income. The income was not as good as you expected because we are in a remote area. My wife and I had separated for a long time. As I was scrolling through Facebook, I saw a video post about parenting, and I watched it. I became very emotional and affected. I never thought that the way I raised my child was right. Some regrets have been storing in my mind since my son has grown up. A lot of guilt flashed back in my brain that I regret a lot. I thought I abused my son when he was young. I hit him on his butt because sometimes he made mistakes. But despite the beating, I still told him that what he did was wrong.

Photo credit to the owner.

There are so many things that I can't afford to give him because I don't have enough money. Every time we go to the mall, I immediately told him not to ask me to buy a toy because we don't have money and I can't afford to pay if he wants to buy something. We only go to the mall when we have important things to buy. I see my son just staring at the toys. His hands were behind his back and not even touching the displays. I felt sorry for him.

Owned photo. This is my son when he was a kid.

My son grew up learning how to save money. So every time there was money left in his pocket when he was still in elementary school, he gives it back to me. And when he was in high school, he was still used to it but, I changed his habit of giving back the money left from his allowance. I made him a piggy bank to put all the change in there and save it so that in case he needed to buy something, then he would have money to buy what he wanted.

Photo credit to Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/markus-s-15365254/?utm_source=link-

He sees me when I calculate how much to spend each time we eat out and how we can save. Even in college, I still can't give him what he needed. I can't even buy him new shoes. He applied for a scholarship, and at the same time, he was also a working student to help me pay for his tuition fee. Until now, I still remember all the hardships my son went through because of me. When he finished college, our life became comfortable, especially since my son got a job because we no longer had school expenses.

This is my son when graduated from college.

One night, I invited him to eat out for dinner, and I would pay for our order. We lined up at fast food restaurant and chose what to eat. My son pulled me out of the fast-food restaurant and told me not to eat there. Instead, he told me to buy a whole grilled chicken and go home and cook rice, and we can save even more. Because at home we can eat unlimited rice. A whole lechon(grilled) chicken is our dish and, we can't afford to consume everything and still can have some leftovers to eat for the next day. I just laughed because I seemed to see myself in him. He also knows how to compute to save money.

After watching the video about parenting, I just told myself that I shouldn't be guilty because I raised him to be a kind and good person. He is also happy and content with what he has, even though life is simple. He also doesn't like to spend on unimportant things even if he already has his own money. Now, I am also happy and should not regret my way to disciplined my son because I did not make a mistake in raising him. –end-.