i’ve always wondered how the term “breadwinner” came to be.
why bread? why winner? what’s the connection between the two? and more importantly, what exactly is there to win?
i keep thinking about what bambi said in at the breadwinner is: “sabi nila breadwinner ako, pero bakit talunan ako ngayon?”
according to etymonline, the word itself has been around since the early 1800s. originally, a breadwinner simply meant the person who earned the money that put bread on the family’s table. it sounds simple enough. practical, even. but now, the word became heavier than its definition. it stopped being just about providing food. it became about carrying entire families. carrying expectations. carrying futures. carrying burdens that were never meant for one person alone, especially in a third world country like the philippines.
sometimes i wonder if we’ve become so used to celebrating breadwinners that we’ve stopped asking what it costs them to keep winning.
i found myself asking that question again last june 27.
last saturday, june 27 to be exact, i went to south trading post at g studios alabang. it’s one of my favorite communal spaces. i love going there and always look forward to buying clothes from one of their booths. and last june 27, i finally bought a piece that i’d been wanting for so long. it’s a cute skirt that really screams my style, and i couldn’t let the chance to wear it slip away, so i bought it.
it wasn’t extravagant, and irresponsible. i had enough money for it, and i had spent the last few days convincing myself that i deserved it. but the moment i got home, i did what i always do: i opened my money tracker app and started doing the math. i thought about how it could help cover the groceries. i thought about the electricity bill. i thought about the next emergency that hadn’t happened yet but eventually would. before i could even enjoy what i had bought, guilt had already arrived before i did. it’s such a cycle that is so hard to break free.
and i don’t think people realize how much becoming a breadwinner changes your relationship with wanting.
when i was a college student, i became an esl tutor. i still remember how happy i was to finally earn my own money. for the first time, i could provide not only for myself but also, in little ways, for my family. i remember my very first big purchase: an office chair. i have scoliosis, and after months of teaching while sitting on a monoblock chair, this felt like a luxury.
for the first few months of earning, i happily bought myself the things i had deprived myself of for so long. an easel. a canvas. new paint brushes. paints. organizers. little things that made me feel more like myself and helped me nurture the passions i had put on hold. i even went through a phase of collecting taylor swift cds because i had been a swiftie for years and wanted to give myself something that made me genuinely happy. i was also able to buy food for my family.
but as i started earning more, the expenses of being a college student also started piling up. i felt the need to step in. i wanted to ease the burden of the people who had worked so hard to help me get through school. sometimes, i would cover my own school expenses. there were days i wouldn’t even ask for allowance. those days slowly turned into months, and before i realized it, i wasn’t saving anything anymore.
i understood the weight of being a student, but i also learned the weight of becoming someone other people could rely on. little by little, i stopped doing some of the things i loved so i could do the things that were necessary. i started taking on more side quests. i edited videos for other people. i accepted creative commissions whenever i could. there was always this urge to earn more because earning more meant i could help more.
i spent the last few years of college studying, working, and funding part of my own education. it was exhausting. then, just months after graduation, i immediately started working because my family needed me to. it felt soul-crushing to realize that after years of working while studying, adulthood wasn’t going to give me a break either. i went straight from being a working student to becoming a working adult, carrying the same responsibilities with a different job title.
when i got my first full-time job, i immediately became one of the people providing for my family. it wasn’t a conversation. it simply became my responsibility. looking back now, i don’t think i’ve ever really caught a break.
for years, i kept telling myself that there would be time later. later to rest. later to buy the things i wanted. later to travel. later to pursue the hobbies i had quietly set aside. sometimes, the only thing keeping me going was allowing myself to eat my favorite meal or buy my favorite drink, even if it meant spending my last two hundred pesos.
because at the end of every payday, almost everything i worked for had already found somewhere else to go.
i’ve spent years learning how to survive by making myself smaller. years convincing myself that wanting less was maturity, that delaying joy was responsibility, that sacrifice was simply what love looked like.
maybe that’s why buying a skirt still feels heavier than it should.
ever since, i’ve stopped experiencing desire as something simple. every purchase becomes a negotiation with my conscience. every reward, i feel like i have to defend myself. i work the usual days and even juggle multiple side quests, and still feel like buying something for myself requires a stronger justification than paying for everyone else’s needs.
i’ve started to notice that i never ask myself whether i can afford something. i ask whether someone else needs that money more than i do.
those are two completely different questions.
ambition asks you to imagine a future for yourself. breadwinning asks you to protect everyone else’s first. somewhere between those two responsibilities, you begin to feel suspicious of your own dreams, as if every desire carries a hidden cost that someone you love will eventually have to pay. the strange thing is that nobody explicitly teaches you this in the philippines. in our country, there isn’t a day when our family sits you down and tells you that your happiness should always come second (they don’t say it exactly as it is but i’m sure you know what i’m talking about!) one postponed purchase becomes a habit. one sacrificed opportunity becomes another. and it will always be one year of saying “maybe next time” that turns into a life built around waiting for permission to finally choose yourself. it’s a cycle, and it eventually feels like a sin to want more for yourself.
people love talking about filipino resilience. we wear it like a badge of honor. we celebrate breadwinners as if they are proof that our family values remain intact. haven’t you noticed? we always admire the eldest child who pays for tuition, the daughter who sends money home every payday, and the son who delays his own plans because there are more urgent things to pay for.
and for so long, i’ve been thinking a lot about why we admire these stories so much.
i wonder if it’s because they’re genuinely inspiring, or because they’ve become so common that we’ve stopped seeing the tragedy in them.
we filipinos have normalized the idea that one person’s youth should be spent cushioning everyone else from a country that keeps failing them. low wages become a family problem. expensive healthcare becomes a family problem. an absent pension system becomes a family problem. the rising cost of living becomes a family problem. everything becomes a family problem, and the burden, the weight, crushes a single person. the government steps back, and the filipino family quietly steps forward. then we call that love. we call it resilience. we even call it culture (that i don’t claim).
i don’t think we’ve talked enough about the cost. the emotional cost. we’ve been ignoring this for so long.
the cost where the version of yourself that slowly disappears because every decision has to pass through the filter of responsibility. the side quest you take because it pays better, not because it fulfills you. the risks you never take because failure is a luxury when people depend on your paycheck. heck, i even envy those people who can immediately resign because they have a safety net. there’s this constant feeling that your life has to remain useful before it can become meaningful when you’re ambitious and a breadwinner.
i’m sure that every breadwinner loves their family. like me, i love my family. deeply. nothing in this writing is an attempt to blame them for the life i’ve built. if anything, loving them is exactly why this guilt exists. but love and guilt have become so intertwined that i sometimes struggle to tell where one ends and the other begins.
i don’t think it’s normal that buying myself something i’ve dreamed about for months feels heavier than paying for everyone else’s needs.
i don’t think it’s normal that i instinctively apologize to myself whenever i choose joy.
and i definitely don’t think it’s normal that so many young filipinos will read this and think, “i thought i was the only one.”
maybe that’s what breaks my heart the most.
not that there are breadwinners.
but that there are so many of us.
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I think it has cost us more than we would like to admit, especially having that mindset that family comes first. I still do believe that but not to the extent that we over-compromise our own dreams and boundaries. And yet it happens, because partly, and probably most of the time, there’s no other better options. Please go get that something you’ve always wanted, without feeling guilty. Thank you for sharing this. 💛
I deeply resonate with you! Sometimes, naiisip ko kung pangarap ko ba talaga to o pangarap lang to ng pamilya ko. Hayss ang hirap maging mahirap, pati pangarap mo na se-set aside.