HOW many of us have vowed never to raise our children the way our parents did, but still end up doing similar things—and then doing others differently? For most of us born during the last, more liberal four decades, we have resolved that being a good parent means always putting ourselves in our kid’s shoes. But sometimes, because we’re too economically challenged and burdened by the need to earn money, bring food on the table, and resolve to give our kids a headstart in life, we tend to “lose it.”

This is the finding in a recent study by the McCann Pulse Exploration on the changing Filipino home. Calling the findings as “The Singsons,” a presentation was made in January at Center for Family Ministries located on the Ateneo de Manila University campus in Quezon City.

The study noted significant statistics, such as the rise of the number of working women, from 28 percent in 1994 to 38 percent in 2006. There has also been a rise of homes with an overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) member: from 11 percent in 2005 to a drastic 31 percent in 2006, in terms of remittances in these households. Unemployment rate for males in 2004 was 8 percent versus the 6.8-percent unemployment rate for women. In 1998 35 percent of Filipino teens did not have a complete set of parents but in 2005, the figure rose up to 47 percent.

What do these numbers mean? That we’re now a nation where women are leaving their homes to be breadwinners here and abroad, while their husbands are either copping out from work or getting unlucky in employment opportunities—thus dangerously raising the chances of breakups by nearly 50 percent.

In its exploration, the group focused on dominant segments—nonworking moms, working moms, the OFW spouse and single parents—to uncover the emerging Filipino family dynamics.

Fear factors

IN this generation where it’s normal to see a seven-year-old with her own cell phone, landing in a call center is the “it” job, and where virtual friendships are made on Friendster, our fears and concerns seem to have become magnified than those of our parents’.

Growing up in the ’80s, I remember what my parents and my friends feared the most: it was a toss-up between having a pregnant teen daughter or having their children join political rallies lest the latter gets picked up by the police and detained. But, yes, things have changed. And our social and economic climate has a lot to do with it.

According to the survey, it’s:

1) Getting caught with a sick child and having no money to pay for the medical bills. This fear is said to be prevalent among nonworking wives who only rely on a single income. These stay-at-home moms have no access to extra money and, most likely, prepare for it by saving their husband’s earnings in secret.

2) Early teen pregnancy and/or marriage. Ah, some fears never change.

3) Overaddiction to computer games. How many of us have gotten worried about the vacant look in our teens’ eyes when they refuse to leave the computer to join us for the family meal? Most of the parents in the survey said their children were prone to blowing all their baon at the local Internet café or skipping school to spend hours and hours of playing video games and Counterstrike.

Our fears and concerns play a critical role in how we chose to raise our kids. The study further showed that we tend to “be brutally honest” about life realities, such as our financial burdens, why mom and dad are separating, and so on. At the same time, we also believe that giving them household chores will give them depth of character.

Generally, we tend to paint the picture that “the outside world is bad” to our children. Home, we still want them to believe, is the best place to be.

‘Palo-sapiya’

AND unless they remain good children, it will be the belt for them. Since the idea here is that we don’t want to end up like our parents, we’ve added some 21st-century twists. Some of the parents who shared their palo-sopiya gave the following insights:

1) Use the belt, not your hands. An OFW male spouse confessed that he doesn’t use his hands because it has a “psychological effect” on his kids.

2) Make sure you explain the act after. We set our kids aside to talk about why they deserved to be whacked on the butt.

3) It’s OK to feel bad about yourself. Go ahead, cry after you’ve spanked your kid.

4) Indulge them thereafter. Depending on our guilt level, the problem with making our child feel bad is that we have to treat them to ice cream or fast-food burgers and French fries.

At the same time, we’re also paranoid about our kids turning us in to authorities like the Department of Social Welfare and Development or to Bantay Bata, and especially with the emergence of “NGOs, government agencies and school officials who have become more vigilant against child abuse from family members.” 

The McCann Worldgroup local exploration pointed out that “while instilling discipline and good values in children is central to the agenda of parents, it appears that the growing/emerging segments, like working moms and OFW spouses, are struggling with it more and more.”

And this is the point where parents are provoked to make up for their lack of time with their kids by overcompensating. From small bribes like pasalubong, weekly fast-food treats, to big balikbayan boxes filled with toys, we believe that giving our children “love tokens” will assure them how much we really care for them.

Maternal dad and other observations

IF anything, the changing picture of family setups has given rise to an interesting segment that the McCann study refers to as the “Maternal Dad.” These are the OFW spouses or single dads: “faced to cope with the absence of a female in the home, many dads are learning to do things they normally would have considered feminine. And they are excelling at it, and imbibing distinctly maternal values many moms from the more conventional homes we talked to wished their husbands had.”

Hurrah for the new and improved Filipino male.

What lies ahead

ARE we being forced by financial pressures to be bad parents? It seems, observes the exploration, that with more hours required from us at work, we might be rearing a gratification-driven generation. “As children whose values are formed by an immediate rewards-based discipline, we may be looking at a generation accustomed to getting things easily, and who are driven only by immediate gratification.”

Another notable observation by McCann is on our “extremist approach to values formation”: we either punish or reward our kids, with no middle ground in between. This “black and white” mentality may be especially true for single parents (either through separation or because the spouse works abroad) who are having a difficult time disciplining their children.

With the ready access to cell phones, the Internet and other technologies, there is also a pressing need for us to teach our children the importance of using technology responsibly. And, last, as all these prevailing phenomena point out, “progress has social costs.”

As a parent, I’d like to believe that there’s still hope in finding a better family setup so we could raise good children. The McCann Erickson study is actually a welcome hope. It serves to remind us about what we need to work on as parents.

True, society and media also play a large part in molding our children—but everything begins at home. Today we win some (by gaining more sensitive dads and empowering more mothers in the workplace), and then lose some (family breakups and breakdowns). But whether we’re working or nonworking, here or abroad, it pays to trust our instincts and believe in the importance of support groups. The road to good parenting requires a lot of gut feel, flexibility and standing by our guns (what values, that is, do we want our children have?). What great truth the study shows—but the greater truth is believing that you can go past what you’ve read and gather enough strength and will to do a good job as a parent.

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