Growing Pains
by Data Tolentino (a.k.a. Artoo-Data)

How do you describe breathing? I mean, off the top of your head, can you say what it's like? Can you detail it the way you would, say, baking a chocolate-chip muffin? I can't. It's ironic because we do it everyday. It's essential to our survival (funny though that the air we're breathing is killing us slowly). And because it's such a natural reflex, we take it for granted that it's there. We don't just live with it. We live it.

That's the way my job is, working for a children's show. The particular children's show I work for anyway. It's so difficult to explain the emotion and recount every detail that makes working for 5 and Up such a unique experience. But still I attempt to do it, as a tribute to the extraordinary bonds that continue to bind the kids to us, the producers of the show.

Presently we work with twelve bright, energetic and independent kids. We see them every week, for shoots, event hostings, voice-overs. Sounds like standard broadcast production work, doesn't it? But when you factor in the out-of-town and out-of-the-country shoots you have together--or just any shoot for that matter--just you and your reporter, no parents in tow, the whole picture shifts. We are on our own together. For days or even weeks at a time, it's just us, taking care of each other, sharing the scenery and the experience, perhaps for the first and the last time together. And you know only you and your reporter are bound by those memories.

Each kid is different. They have their own quirks and mood swings. They have their own opinions and beliefs. One may like anime and another may despise it. One might like listening to boy bands while others chide her for it. One loves to eat vegetables and forces her co-reporter to eat it too. And sometimes, our vegetable-hater does give adobong kangkong a try! The bottom line is, they all give each other a chance.

Our kids hail from different schools, different backgrounds, and different upbringings. Although many might argue they are all basically from the middle class, and actually share little common experiences with the less fortunate they sometimes come in contact with while doing the show, they aren't different from other kids. Krianne, Eliza and Giggles love to read. Joseton, Oly, and Frances are very sports-minded. RJ, Ray, and Ian love to dance. Jessica, Chiyomi and Kai love to talk. Atom and Patrick are fearless adventurers. Jolly and Peter are whiz kids in their own right. Joshua is a computer genius. Melvin is the perennial laugh-master. Enzo shines on stage. Chynna is an ambitious go-getter in anything she does. Zak will be the country's president someday.

And those are just a few of the kids I got to work with. 5 and Up has been around for eight years and many kids have come and gone on the show. Great kids destined for great things!

Nothing beats working with kids! There is a magic that captivates and invigorates us all when we travel on shoots with our reporters. Because you write for a children's show, you have to switch off your prejudices and see the world the way a child sees it: the way it is. Children are blessed with the power to see the truth and articulate it without fear-and accept it. Whereas we see the truth and try to color it so we can interpret it the way we'd like to, to soften the blows. Then maybe we'll learn to accept it.

On a recent trip to Palawan, one of my reporters asked me what the IPs (indigenous people) did to provide food for their families. I told him they had age-old practices that helped them survive for generations. However, it was quite obvious that these practices were almost obsolete, in a time when forests no longer provided everything. My reporter knew their lives were difficult, and so did I. But he accepted that explanation. On our way back to our hotel after shooting with the cultural community the whole morning, he says to me, "Sayang Ate, sana di nalang binuksan yung mga ibang de lata. Binigay na lang natin." "Bakit?" I asked. "Kasi hindi pa raw sila kumakain simula pa nung umaga. Wala silang makuhang pagkain." At our next shoot, he made sure to invite his interviewee to lunch with us.

When you're with your reporters, it's like seeing and experiencing things for the first time all over again. All of us producers have at one time or another confessed to being in awe at discovering the magic of dirty ice cream, or rediscovering the fun of tumbang preso, or the enchantment of playing in the rain. We're all twentysomethings experiencing our childhood again. Not a second childhood, mind you. It's like a return to Pooh corner. And these kids take us there. I never pictured myself as an adventurous individual before working with them-ready to jump into anything for the sheer joy of discovery. It's probably because we take it upon ourselves to try things out first, before we ask the kids to do it. Go kayaking in the middle of the sea? Eat snakes and lizards for lunch? Yeah, we've been through all that and much more.

With these kids we constantly play a number of roles. Sometimes we are their peers, pillow-fighting and rough-housing though we are almost 10 years their junior. We are their surrogate moms when we are on out-of-town shoots: making sure they eat right and take their prescribed vitamins, they sleep comfortably, their scrapes were disinfected, and quarreling co-reporters have made up. We are their ates, the voice of authority when we are in the middle of a shoot, the person in-charge, and the ones who are obeyed during these particular moments.

Then we are their friends. Sometimes we get to find out secrets they don't tell their classmates: we are the first to learn about their crushes. We are their confidantes when it comes to their problems. We see a side of them that sometimes their families say they don't. We talk about the places we've been to and the people we've met and recount the things we've done---and recall our inside jokes. In a sense, we grow up together. Our relationships are built on a unique trust and respect that stems from our "work."

Of course, not all experiences are pleasant. Beings kids, there are days when they just don't feel like doing anything at all, and you have to adjust. You have to switch instantly from kabarkada mode to ate mode. You have to muster all the patience you have and multiply it ten-fold. If you are used to swearing under your breath, you learn to curb the habit until you wean yourself from it. If you have absolutely no tolerance for periodic whines and complaints, you will learn to accept it. So you see, the stress not only comes from the production work that grinds every week (we book, shoot, direct, write and edit our own pieces), but from the character transformation that takes place within us. It's enough to drive anyone crazy…and maybe we are, because we're still here. But you know what? We're all the better for it.

At the age of fourteen, the kids have to "graduate" from the show. By this time, they are full-grown teen-agers, and like every kid at this age, they are suddenly pre-occupied with growing up. The pre-teen audiences may not be able to relate to them anymore, and in fairness to our reporters, we give them the chance to experience adolescence without the multiplied pressure of constantly trying to make a good impression. It's hard enough trying to live through adolescence convincing yourself you're all right, and here you are trying to convince the whole country on national television that you are.

Yes, after being together for 2, 3, 4, or even 5 years, you wake up one morning and they're gone. Empty nest stage. Separation anxiety. Unmarried twentysomethings experiencing what their own parents are just recently trying to deal with. Depression sets in. Yasmin, our supervising producer, commented, we're worse than their mothers, because though we aren't even related to them, the attachment is so deep that we find it difficult to let go. Can you believe that if one reporter leaves the office and forgets to hug a producer goodbye, the pouting producer feels hurt and left out!

Letting the kids go is the most difficult part of our job. The weekly responsibilities of airing a TV show feels like playtime in a sandbox compared to the single, tortuous moment when you realize you have reached the end of your journeys together. You know that the show was the reason why you came to know and love them, and you know it's also the reason you are saying goodbye. The worst part of it? You are the one who is always left behind. They grow up, and you wonder if the memories you had with them would be buried in the trillions of other memories they are sure to accumulate. Memories, that are perhaps more fun, less stressful, more meaningful.

The good-byes affect us all differently: some of us cry, others withdraw; a usually rowdy producer suddenly turns pensive. But we all share one common symptom: we listen to our musical scores over and over and reminisce. Then we sigh. And this goes on for not less than a couple of months until the cycle begins again the following year when another kid has to graduate.

Lest we be accused of psychologically torturing the kids, I assure you their resilience is amazing. They bounce back quickly, the way all kids do. And we producers, well, we stand back and watch them grow up. This is the one thing we will not be able to do together even though we've been through everything else and shared so many unique experiences. This is what drives us crazy. But this is also what keeps us going.

I think it is our quest to let kids--Filipino kids especially--know that they are special. That there is so much they can do. That the world is theirs to discover and conquer. And the seeds of this concept take root at the age when we meet them-nine, ten years old. We want them to grow up with the power to dream and make it come true: imagine travelling abroad, without your parents, at twelve years old. Imagine selling sampaguita with vendors on the street. Imagine communing with different cultural communities, with children in jail, with cancer patients. Imagine meeting your idol. Imagine becoming a licensed scuba diver and feeding the fishes under water. Imagine flying through the air on a motorized sofa with wings. Impossible? The kids will tell you they aren't. They've got the stories.

It's an exhilarating thought when you realize you were a part of that quest. It's more than a job for most of us. It's like a mission. That's probably the same reason why the kids are more than just our talents: they're our brothers, our sisters, our best friends. A lot of times, they are our idols.

At this point I take a deep breath…and sigh. I still can't describe the process of breathing. And I am not sure I have explained these thoughts well. At the very least, I hope I have done my co-producers and the reporters a bit of justice. It is quite difficult to articulate the unexplainable.

Like trying to define love.

And like breathing, you have to be doing it to know what it really is all about.