Love isn’t enough, really

By Herman M. Lagon 

Come graduation season, social media floods with proud posts—caps mid-air, Latin honors gleaming, heartfelt thanks to parents and professors. Then one post stops you. “Sana hindi n’yo na lang ako ipinanganak (I wish you had never given birth to me.).” It does not cheer. It does not thank. It stares you down. At first, you wonder if it is just poetry or angst. But as you read on, you realize it is neither. It is a mirror, asking the question most people avoid behind pancit and tarpaulins: should we really have children if we are not ready to raise them?

That line came from Jaynard Ronquillo, a fresh chemical engineering graduate from UP Los Baños. The first in his family to graduate, raised by parents who stitched, drove, fixed fans, and took on whatever work came their way. His viral post was not a cry for sympathy. It was a flare—warning those who plan to start families without enough reflection or readiness. “Do not let your child be like me,” he wrote. Not bitter. Just honest.

We Filipinos are used to hardship stories turned into halos. Kids swimming rivers to reach school. Teens studying by candlelight after selling banana cue. Scholars who ace exams after carrying sacks of rice. We eat these stories up because we are taught that suffering molds strength. But what if it breaks before it builds? What if not everyone survives the mold?

Jaynard’s post pierces through that thinking. It challenges the belief that success always justifies pain. Why must a child first taste hunger, shame, or exhaustion before being admired? The kid with nothing for breakfast, the teen borrowing load to join class, the toddler raised amid fights and unpaid bills—these are not character arcs. They are people. And when one of them says, “I wish I was never born,” maybe our job is not to call them ungrateful, but to ask why.

In my years as a guidance counselor, adviser, and principal, I have met many students like Jaynard—quiet achievers carrying invisible weights. You spot them in the way they hold back when asking for help, in the way they apologize for simply needing. The 2022 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study confirms it: too many Filipino youth grow up amid financial strain, absent fathers, family burdens, or outdated ideas about parenting as a default milestone, not a decision.

Yes, no one is ever fully ready to become a parent. But there is a difference between imperfect and unprepared. Between loving your child, and expecting them to survive on that love alone. When kids grow up forced to help pay bills, delay dreams, or feel like a burden, we are not just stretching them—we are bruising them. And wrapping that up in “Filipino resilience” does not heal the hurt. It hides it.

To be clear, Jaynard never blamed his parents. He knew their love, saw their sacrifices—his mom scrubbing clothes late at night, his dad doing side repairs between shifts. But he also asked what might have been, had they waited. Had they been given the tools, the choices, the freedom to pursue their own lives first. Had they not rushed into raising a family because it was expected of them. And really, that is what his post is about: asking that we treat parenting as intention, not obligation.

In our culture, we repeat sayings like “anak ay kayamanan” or “ang anak, regalo ng Diyos.” But what if, out of habit, we are romanticizing lives we cannot properly support? What if we are having children not because we are ready, but because we are afraid of being left behind, judged, or alone?

The latest PSA data says 18.1% of Filipinos still live below the poverty line. Many are already parents, or on their way to becoming ones. And when sex education is scarce, reproductive health taboo, and family planning demonized, we do not just fail to prepare people for parenthood—we set them up for pain.

Still, this is not just about policy. It is about mindset. We must stop seeing children as retirement plans or bandaids for broken dreams. Parenthood is not redemption. It is responsibility. Yes, love matters. But it cannot fill an empty fridge, heal the weight of loneliness, or fix a world where the odds are already against you. It may light the way—but it cannot carry the load alone.

I learned that early. I became a dad when I was still too young, raising two daughters while still trying to grow into myself. I made tough mistakes. But I was lucky. Grace stepped in, and a few good people never let go. If not for them, things could have gone sideways real fast. That is why I can say this with conviction: love must walk hand in hand with readiness. Without it, even the purest love can turn into quiet guilt.

There is no perfect formula for being a parent. But there is power in pausing. In asking, “Can I provide? Am I emotionally and mentally prepared?” In picturing the life a child might actually live—not the fantasy, but the truth. That is not cold or unloving. That is mature, grounded love—the kind that puts the child first before our own hopes and needs.

Jaynard’s words hit home because they come from someone who made it, but who still carries scars. He used his platform not to celebrate himself, but to warn others. He reminds us that kids should not have to be tough to be seen. That while it is moving to hear stories of triumph, it is far more important to prevent the pain that comes before it.

Before we celebrate stories like Jaynard’s, we need to ask: why did it have to be so hard? Why did he have to wonder if his life should have even happened? And more importantly, what must we change so no child feels that way again?

Because the real measure of progress is not how many students graduate. It is how many never have to say, “Sana hindi niyo na lang ako ipinanganak.”

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a ”student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.