Raising Kids in Ateneoville

When Ateneoville was being built, I was excited when Joel, my then-boyfriend, told me about it. We had been a couple for four years and with the prospect of getting a house, it now seemed a good time for us to get married. The houses were neatly built but more than that, when I saw the neighborhood and learned who were living there, I felt that my vision of my future family life could be fulfilled.

 

Some of my favorite books when I was growing up were Beverly Cleary’s books about the kids Henry, Beezus, and Ramona living on Klickitat Street. They ran back and forth between each other’s houses to play and have delightful domestic adventures with little adult supervision. It was quite a contrast to my own childhood in an old neighborhood close to a busy main road in Quezon City. We grew up within closed walls. Even if I had been allowed out, I would have had no friends to run to. Our neighbors were all old and had grown children.

 

So I was delighted to find when we reserved our lot that two families with young children lived on our street. We already knew them from the high school where Joel worked. We soon got to know our other neighbors. It wasn’t hard since Joel already knew many of them from his many years of studying and teaching in Ateneo--he had gone to Ateneo as a student from prep to master’s, and had been teaching in the high school for four years by the time we applied. His past, present, and future would all come together here. 

 

The kids of our neighbors felt safe running around in a pack around the village with the security of a community that was small, contained, shared the same values, and pretty much all knew each other. As soon as we moved in, they were running in to visit me, since I worked part-time as a lecturer and was often home in the day. When we had our firstborn, their visits grew more frequent since I was at home all the time. By then they were a large barkada ranging in ages from five to nine, most of them girls. When they came in, they first cooed over the baby then had a mock battle, throwing her many stuffed toys at each other.

 

They could be a bother sometimes, but I enjoyed their company during the long days of staying home with the baby. And when I got a job writing grade school art units for a textbook, I was able to have them test some potential activities such as bubble-painting. 

 

As the years passed, my children became the ones running in and out of friends’ houses. My eldest, our only daughter, learned to play the guitar from two neighbors, first from veteran guitarist Pao Paculan next door, though she was then in it more for the cookies he baked. It would take another two years before she was mature enough to be willing to practice. Since Pao was too busy that summer, we asked a senior-high neighbor (who was both Joel’s goddaughter and the daughter of his high school math teacher) to teach her the basics.

 

As for my second, once he started grade school, he ran around with a bunch of boys a couple of years older than himself, brandishing plastic weapons when they weren’t playing video games at each other’s houses. We charged his barkada with his care, since our son was the youngest among them. Despite their rowdiness, they did look after him, and wouldn’t let him play games that we thought he wasn’t yet ready for.

 

My youngest, shyer than the others, is fortunate to have two boys close to his age living on our street, especially since he often felt left out when his kuya was off with the older boys. On the playground, he met other kids and with gentle prodding grew at ease playing with them.

 

 Even during the quarantine, they have other company besides each other, calling over the neighboring wall or from the windows of their houses or passing them on the street when they’re out for exercise. Not even a pandemic can change the warm character of our neighborhood. My vision of a blissful childhood for them has been fulfilled here.

 

(Note: Ateneoville Subdivision in Nangka, Marikina City is a faculty housing project of Ateneo de Manila University.  It was in 2004 that the first batch of homeowners moved in.  The Ateneoville Homeowners Association, Inc. welcomed the latest batch in January 2021.)
 

Raissa is a Palanca award winning author of children's and young adult works. Her novel Woman in a Frame was nominated for the National Book Award and her most recent book is "Virtual Centre and Other Science Fiction Stories" published by Penguin SEA. Joel is an English teacher in the Ateneo JHS and a Psychology graduate student. He and Raissa have been married for 15 years and have lived in Ateneoville for 14 of those years. Their children are now twelve, eight, and five years old.