I just finished watching NBC's This Is Us, all the 18 episodes of Season 1. Have you watched it? The series revolves around The Pearsons. It's a fresh family drama of a unique composition with the perfect father/husband figure, a struggling mother/housewife and their unique male/female triplets. The family consists of a broken-homed guy trying to get out of his parents' house, a beautiful star-wannabe pub singer housewife, an super-good looking yet underrated actor, an overweight daughter, and the successful interracial adopted child. And most of them share the same birthday.

Just reading the first paragraph above must've given you a headache of how complicated a family situation can be, huh? Well, you just have to watch it to understand, and I'm not going to spoil too much about it. I just wanna say that I enjoy the series so much, tho each episode brings me "waterwork"--as Ana would say it. My BFF / ex-roommate Ana recommended it to me few months ago and we first watched it because we are fans of Gilmore Girls (which first brought us Milo Ventimiglia--read this) and Mandy Moore.



As we all know, there are no such perfect family. Each family has its own situation, problems, flaws, yet goodness in it. At the season finale, Jack Pearson said to Rebecca Malone not to worry because their kids will make good decision, bad decision and even a decision that will surprise people in their future. “We’ve shown them a healthy marriage. This is just gonna be a blip on their radar years from now,” he says. “How they turn out, that’s bigger than us.”

I guess it works the same in every family. Parents are responsible for showing (not just saying) their kids the good things, be the good example for the next generation. But whatever comes out of that is up to the them. Some people worry too much about how their kids would turn out to be. Some are worried that they would die and buried alone. Some other want to have kids so they would have a guaranteed BFF for life.

But then again, sometimes life don't go as smooth as how we planned it. We forget that children are also human being who have their own will, wants, needs, and plans. We cannot force our broken dream or unfulfilled wishes to our child. And most of times our ego and ambition clouded our better judgment for things, including for our own children.

In the past 15 years I've heard so many family problems from people around me and I could make my own conclusion. Of all the reasons, marriage failure or divorce is caused by one single, big reason: the marriage itself. Most people got married for all the wrong reasons that they'd live unhappy and sometimes ended with divorce. Furthermore, it leads to children feeling left behind and broken inside. Many parents don't (or can't) prepare them to stay soft in the harsh world, to stay strong in hard circumstances, and to stay positive in the negative environment.

When I see my friends' marriage cases, most of them (most, not all) got married because they feel unfulfilled in their own family. Lack of mother's attention or father's affection came first on the list. Most of broken-home child friends I have dream of building their own happy little family, promise to give their children everything they have, and most often than not, they focus more on the dream rather than on the most important fact: the person they are marrying.

For three hours few days ago I sat listening to my friend's story, of which I saw the beginning and have to witness how a "wrong marriage" would end after 10 years and 3 kids. For this particular case, I can't judge her for I'd known what made her took the decision to get married. It was not for love. It was the condition. I can't blame her because I was not in her position; all that I can do as a friend is to support her. But I learn a lot from her.

She admitted to me that she didn't listen to all of my theories about life and marriage before because unlike me, she dreamed of getting married young. Unlike me, she yearns for having her own babies, building her own family. Yet, she forgot the quality of the man she's building her home with. She ignored all the compatibility factors, focusing only on the man's willingness on making her his wife and other materialistic/mortal elements.

[I, on the other hand, dream of building my own empire--not home. I'm looking for a qualified king material to rule the world on my side, not a boss or a slave (well the 'world' here may be as absurd as my imaginative fantasy, yet it's still a 'world'). I cannot tolerate "basic" people who are too "physical" and "materialist". I'm not an easy person to handle, so I'm taking my time to see who'll show up and staying for the task. God knows how patient I am.]

In the mean time, when watching This Is Us, I came to notice how different characters people of the same birth date could have. While being the perfect husband/father, Jack doesn't inherit it to his biological kids. Oddly it is Randall who got all of his adopted father's brilliant quality. In the contrary, Kevin and Kate are struggling to gain their own confidence, to get on their own ground, to find their life path. They were knocked down for so long post their super-dad's death that they couldn't stand up on their own feet for over 20 years.

People take grieve on loss differently, I agree. Those who has solid ground could get back up faster than those who doesn't have one. I think this is the importance of parents' role here; to give their kids a solid ground and a vivid dream; to guide their path and light their way; to monitor and not controlling; to advise and not demanding. It takes a lot to be a parent. I hope everyone is aware of this fact and do their job well here because shaping our kids are much easier than to mend broken people.

This Is Us also teach us to be brave, kind, strong, confident, faithful, forgiving, righteous, and love unconditionally. I love all of the drama they are serving because it isn't too much, it's human and happens in our daily lives. Over all, I guess this is my most favorite drama series of all time. Bravo, Dan Fogelman!



P.S. My favorite characters are Jack Pearson and Beth Pearson. Maybe because I've known a person like Jack before, and I just love Beth's hairstyle (and her being a witty and supportive wife.)