Donita Rose: 'I try to be the cool mom'

TV host and actress Donita Rose tries to engage his son, Joshua Paul or JP, in intelligent conversations. She tries to answer his queries—whether the questions have something to do about religion or school. But nobody could have prepared her when JP began asking questions about sex—in a way only a 9-year-old can.

“One day, he came up to me and asked if his dad and I have sex. Of course I tried to explain how sex is a beautiful thing within the sanctions of marriage. And he says 'eww, you're disgusting',” Donita says, laughing all the time she was recalling the funny story.

The fact that his son asks her these type of things says a lot about how Donita and husband Eric Villarama raise their child. She wants JP to be able to talk to her about anything. Better to know from her than from anyone else.

“I try to be the cool mom,” says Donita, vibrant and full of energy as always, tells the Inquirer. “Growing up, my mom would cut me off every time I try to talk to her about the boys. And so I grew up hiding stuff from her. This time, I want to be best friends with my son—and we are.”

Donita was away from showbiz for quite a while (some two and a half years), spending time with her family in the United States. It is during this time that the TV host got to rekindle her love with her mom, with whom she had a sort of cat-and-dog relationship growing up.

With God's grace, Donita's relationship with her mom is at the best shape it has been in years. The actress gushes at how happy she is that she has fallen completely back in love with her mom.

“There are times when my mom and I would just hang out at home, eat green mango with agamang, with one foot resting on a chair, sometimes with a cup of coffee. Those moments are perfect,” she says.

It is these moments she misses while she's in the Philippines for her new show on GMA 7 called “Basta Everyday Happy.” The variety show, which starts airing Monday at 11am, would feature nuggets of happiness on the lives of ordinary people. She co-stars the show with Gladys Reyes, Allesandra de Rossi, and Chef Boy Logro.

She also misses her son and her husband, who works with one of the most respected photographers in Las Vegas, Peter Lik.

Donita was initially planning on staying for six weeks, but GMA 7 is coaxing her to stay a little bit longer for the show. While she has gone away from her family for six months for work a couple of years back, living apart never gets easy. Fortunately, she gets to talk to her son all the time, thanks to technology.

So the awkward moment-inducing questions from her JP continues.

“I remember one time he was telling me about a classmate of his who brought a smartphone at school. He said his classmate was watching a woman showing her breast. I asked what he did and he told me he closed his eyes,” Donita recalls.

And then JP asks: “But mom, why did I feel like I needed to pee when I saw the naked woman?”

Wearing her I'm-a-cool-mom hat, Donita explains how men are naturally attracted to women. Outside, she is all cool. Inside, she says, she is panicking, looking for the right way to answer JP.

“The questions are getting worse,” Donita says in jest. “But kids are kids. I'm just enjoying being mom to a very loving and bright child.”

*** This story appears on the Mother's Day Special Pages of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 11, 2014. This version has been slightly edited for TWIST. To read the full and unedited story, read the print edition of the Inquirer. ***