This sad situation has created also another kind of job in the Philippines : mothers taking care of children of mothers who go abroad to take care of other people’s children.
One of the outstanding entries in the this year’s Philippine Expat/OFW Blog awards was Niña Simon’s “My Mom’s Quasi-orphanage” . It won the Nokia award for Philippine-based blogs that also deal with overseas Filipino workers.
Simon’s blog is http://pinaywriteroraldiarrhea2.blogspot.com.
Here’s her winning article which PEBA has allowed me to reprint here:
My mother has never been out of the country.
She has never been on an airplane.
But she has been a surrogate mother to so many children of OFWs that it seems her burden has been heavier than those who have left their kids.
My Tita Loida is a domestic helper in Hong Kong. She left her young daughters in my mother’s care.
My Tito Pako is in Italy. He met his wife, a Bulaceña in Italy. They have two kids. My mother constantly checks on their children who are in Bulacan.
My Tita Clemen is in Dubai. My uncle died while she was away. She left her two sons in my mother’s care.
Batangueños are known for being extremely clannish. This is true for most Filipinos here and abroad. In the beginning, poverty was the reason why people left the country. Now, they can’t seem to find a reason to come back. I fear that some of them have forgotten why they left in the first place.
People like my mother bridge the gap between those who are left behind and those who are in another land.
For the longest time I have heard about and seen relatives leave Batangas, Isabela, and Laguna to try their luck in earning more money for their families. In the beginning it was the men. They braved the desert, the haughty Europeans, and the discrimination that came with doing manual labor. This was considered the right thing to do for men since they needed to be the provider for their families. People perceived that the fathers were doing their paternal duty in leaving their wives and kids in the Philippines.
Then came waves and waves of mothers leaving their toddlers. I suddenly had two female cousins living in our house most of the time. People didn’t like this new trend. Fathers that were left behind could barely function with work and housework in their hands. Somehow it was the woman’s fault if the family didn’t survive this change. She ruined everything for leaving them behind.Even if their husbands were the ones who didn’t keep his vows, somehow people chewed out the woman instead of the man. ‘He was lonely’, they would say. I couldn’t help but shake my head when I heard that.
My mom raised us alongside my ‘adoptive’ sisters. I often hear her roll call for the people who needed to be at our table for meals and it often included the girls. If that wasn’t the case, she would check up on them to make sure that they had eaten. When their father went home later and later into the night, they had to sleep over at our house from time to time.
They grew up with toys, pictures of their mother in Hongkong, and my mother’s constant nagging. I think she took it personally when the eldest girl ended up repeating her mother’s situation, having a child while she was still young. She felt like she failed to raise her well. In our family, the welfare of the daughters, their mistakes, and their triumphs are perceived to be based on the alpha female in their lives. I saw how hard it was for my mother that she had not done a good enough job in instilling traditional values into my cousin’s heads. As her eldest daughter, I had to suffer the nagging and the suspicious looks. I think I managed to dodge it jokingly, enough to ease her fears.
My mother’s youngest brother had been conned by a trusted family friend before his wife managed to get a chance to go to Qatar. While she was there, my uncle died in his sleep.We would later find out that he had a legitimate job offer in Canada. She went home for the funeral but had to go back abroad so she could earn enough for their two sons’ education. Once again, after the blow that hit her when my cousin got pregnant, my mother was a surrogate mother again.
Because my cousin’s were in the same bed as their dad when he died, the kids didn’t want to sleep in their old room. My younger cousin who couldn’t sleep unless he had his hand on his dad’s ear clung to my mom more, to my little sister’s chagrin. They slept in our second floor room with my father, mother and sister. It was a good thing that by that time I was in Makati, my younger brother was in Diliman, and the youngest son was in Los Baños. When we all go home from our separate locations one had to take dibs on a bed or end up sleeping on the couch. The legitimate kids ended up feeling like we were the guests in our own home. But I didn’t care, at least not all that much, because my mom told me, ‘Who else would take care of them?’
My mom doesn’t mind disciplining, feeding, and loving my cousins. What I have seen as an adult that I missed when I was still a kid, was that my mom hated it when the parents thought that she was not giving their kids the money that they sent over. My mother had a mantra, ‘Never spend other people’s money.’ Both my parents believed that so much that their bosses trusted them with money matters completely. I started realizing that my mother was slowly becoming the victim in the situation. She didn’t want to look like the enemy, but there was a time that she had to tell the boys the awful truth. Their mother, my aunt, had found someone new, she didn’t have a job and there was no money coming in.
I don’t know how hard it is to be far from my homeland. I have heard my friends, my relatives and former lovers talk about how difficult it is to be in a place where there is nothing else that they can do but work, eat, and sleep. I am an advocate that they are heroes in their own right. But let’s not forget that there are those who decided that they can work here, care for the young here and fill in the gaps here in the Philippines.
I believe both deserve our gratitude.
Family life is the casualty in the government’s policy of exporting manpower.
Most of the children OFWs are spoiled with material gifts but lacking in emotional stability. But they have no choice. Kapit sa patalim for most of them.
It’s good we have people like Nina Simon’s mother who fill the vacuum created by OFW parents.
We have a neighbor who also takes care of the children (2) of a friend, a beautician, who went to Dubai. The beautician is separated from the husband so there’s no one that she can leave the children to.
Medyo kawawa ang mga bata. Iba talaga ang nanay.
Ito po si Pinaywriter. ^^ Maraming salamat po sa pagfefeature ng blog ko dito. ^^ I will tell my mom about this. I am sure matutuwa un. ^^
want to say something now but i have Jack Daniels on the left and MacBook on the right…not a good combination. will defer…or Ms Ellen might ban me too! (just kidding Ms Ellen! ;8)) )
Welcome, Nina.
I like your article.You write very well. Do you teach writing?
we have seen the positive results of the OFWs sacrifices and we celebrate them and there were negative results…but we can ask ourselves, what other choices were there if given and offered the opportunity?
Right now, I’m snowbound somewhere in PA looking after the older ones while mom delivering the newest addition to the ever growing members of the clan… and we are wondering, (the parents) what would have been the picture if we, the risk takers some four, 5 decades ago, did not dare? we just never know. but at present, we can see the kids are happy where they are. we experience what most are experiencing now, mostly the feeling of being able to help and that is always good.
This is actually a good case study for social psychology, in the past we had the nuclear family and the extended family, now we have this new and unique family structure developing alongside the OFW phenomenon. Is it a coping or compensation mechanism that developed in response to the challenges of absentee parents in the light of close Filipino family ties? Filipinos are a hardy lot, we have learned to cope with the many challenges that came our way, we change with the times but always manage to adhere to the basic principles of the the “family” unit. It is a strength worth studying, given the circumstances, as a means of managing the impact of the OFW phenomenon.
This is one of the many disadvantages of an OFW family. But don’t come home just yet.
Bear in mind it is the same model that has catapulted the Chinese into the new economic superpower we can only admire if not envy. It took decades to do it.
What will take us in the same dimension (or never) is our different ways of managing our finances. Ours, which more often than not, is spent in “keeping up with the Joneses”. Too much spending for gadgets, luxuries, and generally, a lifestyle that keeps the monthly “padala” almost always lacking. This may be a way to rationalize the “guilt” of long periods of absence, especially with those whose parents are both abroad.
Those who are lucky to land jobs with big salaries have this common priority list: children’s education, a house of their own, some cash to retire with. That’s where the difference lies – the Chinese (and many Indians now) set aside part of the income for self-owned business, whether simultaneously with their overseas jobs, or when they decide to permanently stay home.
For so long, I’ve been advocating government assistance to OFWs who decide to return permanently and try their hand in entrepreneurship. Technology transfer, financial management/accounting, marketing are areas where there needs a lot of work done while those related to quality come mostly from their personal experiences while working abroad. This work must start NOW!
In the long run, home-brewed entrepreneurship is what will save this country, not foreign conglomerates who are out to deplete our resources and exploit our workers to no end. Of the nearly $20 Billion repatriated by OFWs, how much is invested? A pittance.
A mere 5% of the figure or P1 Billion annually will provide the needed jobs, considering the multiplier effect it will induce with the downline industries. More income for government therefore will mean more assistance to homecoming OFWs turning into businessmen.
Until we see the day that the brain drain is finally reversed, the country will never an economic superpower itself and will always be providers of cheap labor for a long, long time.
I agree with TT, unless we see a lot of “made in the philippines” products in the international market, its going to be more of “maid from the philippines.”
…then again we really need to deal with the potential social problems that may come as a result of the OFW phenomenon. How can the children left behind cope? How can the surrogate parents handle, manage, bring up these children left behind? How do they inculcate values? Do these children need special attention in school perhaps? do they need a school designed specifically for their needs? if its a growing population of children then we cannot presume to deal with it with a “fly by the seat of our pants” approach or as the president says it “widow – widow lang.” This is where our Phds should come in, and even the catholic church with its wealth of wisdom in family matters. We have to recognize the potential impact of a growing number of children with absentee parents and come up with measures to manage this situation before this generation grows up and are expected to take up cudgels of running the country or are they even up to the challenge?
Is there any baseline study on this issue in the first place?
The social cost, as jug notes, is quite alarming, judging from where I see it. Though some kids develop into independent individuals, there are some others, possibly the bigger number, that have gone astray. I have many nephews and nieces whose parents both work abroad. What bothers us particularly are those who can’t stand up to peer pressure their “caregivers” are not trained to handle at all. They become dropouts and live their lives around the materials things provided to them. They revolve around the three G’s – games, gadgets, gimmicks (which includes drugs) shared with the “barkada” are often the sum of their purpose for being and before their parents realize it, it’s too late.
I am also with jug in getting our social scientists digging deep into these matters and searching for the solutions to problematic situations that may have become irreversible already.
We owe it to the country to prepare the next generation of leaders who have been molded in self-secured independence and backed by wisdom in managing the material wherewithal our present generation sorely lacks, this while we continue to hold dear our present core values built around the family and the community.
isang brilliant idea ang hindi ko malimutan na iniwan ni Sen. Raul Roco…
magbuo ng bagong departamento na mangangalaga sa lahat ng aspeto na may kinalaman sa mga OFW…
From Edgardo Jusay:
Ako po ay si Edgardo C. Jusay at kasalukuyang nagtatrabajo sa abroad.
28 taon na po ako sa abroad at sa mga unang tatlong taon ko dito ay di ko agad nakasama ang aking mag iina. Umalis ako sa ating bayan noong 7 Enero 1983 at hanggan sa kasalukuyan ay nasa labas pa rin ako ng ating bayan.
Malungkot po ang buhay sa abroad lalo pa nga na malayo sa mga mahal sa buhay. Marami sa mga kagaya ko ang nasira ang sambahayan dahil sa natutong makisama at magmahal ng iba na nagbunga ng pagkawasak ng familya.
Awa po at tulong ng Panginoong Dios di po nangyari sa amin ang mga nabanggit ko sa itaas nito. At makalipas ang tatlong taon nakasama ko na po sila.
Wala akong naging libangan kung di ang aking gitara at ang paggawa ng awitin sa wika natin at wikang engles. At ito nga pong may pamagat na “Manggagawa” ay ginawa ko noon pang 1992 mahigit ng 10 taon ang nakalilpas. Ito po ang kanyang lyrics.
MANGGAGAWA
(Dedicated to all OFWs)
O kay lungot pala, na mabuhay, na malayo sa minamahal.
Araw at gabi lito ang isipan, laging nag aalal sa kalagayan ng minamahal.
Bilad sa initan, at hirap ang katawan, O aba ang kalagayan.
Ngunit ano ang aking magagawa, narito ang biyaya na wala sa aking bayan.
Chorus:
Kaya lagi kong dalangin na silay pagpalalngin.
Ingatan ng Dios na mahal na lumalang sa atin.
Na ang aming pagpapagal at pagtitiis ay huwag mawalan ng kabuluhan.
Upang maisiguro ang magandang kinabukasan.
Ito ang buhay ng isang manggagawa lalo na kung nasa malayong bansa
Ang hirap at lungkot ay titiisin para sa minamahal.
Upang maisiguro ang magandang kinabukasan.
Adlib:
Ang hirap at lungkot ay btitiisin para sa minamahal
Upang misiguro ang magandang kinabukasan
Noon pong ika 10 ng Disyembre 2010 ay na i upload ko po ito sa tunecore at puede pong mai download sa i tune. I type po lamang ang Edgardo C. Jusay sa I Tune Store at i enter sa keyboard puede pong marinig ang preview.
Sana po ay mailathala ninyo ito upang kung marami ang mag download, ang kikitain po nito ay itutulong ko sa mga batang mahihirap, mga biktima ng kalamidad at sa kawang gawa.
Patnubayan nawa kayo ng Panginoong Dios na makapangyarihan sa lahat ng mahaba, masagana at maliligayang araw sa piling ng inyong mga mahal. Merry Christmass and a prosperous New Year po. Salamat po.