It is trying to cope with economic, political and social stresses

MANILA, Philippines?Any significant event that happens in society has an impact on the family. The family is known as the ?burden carrier of the social order.? It is the backbone of the nation. How children absorb and experience these societal or ?extra-familial? stresses that impact on the family depends on how the parents and other older members deal with them. The children almost always take the cue from the adults, especially the parents.

In the recent months and last few years, many significant changes have happened in our country and in the world. These changes have put our families at risk. How is the Filipino family handling these changes?

Changing role of women

Let us take a look at them now:

First is the changing role of women both at home and in the workplace. Most women now hold jobs outside the home either to supplement the husbands? earnings or to be the main and, sometimes, the only breadwinner in the family. This has led to the phenomenon of ?househusbands.? How are the men taking on this role, which challenges their male identity and triggers issues of self-esteem and power? A lot of adjustment needs to be done, not just in the roles they both play, the task and functions within these roles, but also in their feelings and sense of self.

When the adjustment does not go well, women become overloaded and fatigued in trying to fulfill their duties as breadwinners working outside the homes and as housewives still taking care of the household.

How can adjustment in the parental roles be done so that women do not become overburdened and burnt out? What social systems can be of help?

Political instability

Then, there?s the political crises. The instability in the government that has led to insecurity. This uncertainty and unpredictability has led to anxiety and a feeling of being unsafe. People don?t know what?s going to happen next. We can no longer trust the government institutions. And in a country where systems do not work and people cannot rely in the institutions for support, they turn to their families. Studies show that in the Philippines, people feel that they can only depend on ?God, my family, and myself.?

Another important factor that is related to this political crisis is the moral degradation resulting from pervasive corruption at all levels of government.

Children see that the adults in high positions, whom they are supposed to respect and look up to as role models, do wrong but are not punished. In fact, they don?t even admit that they are wrong. They show no remorse and they deny their wrongdoing. Wrongdoers are not punished but are even rewarded at times! This has made young people become disillusioned and cynical when what they need are good role models to emulate. How can children learn right from wrong?

Children witness adults lying

Children witness adults lying blatantly on TV every day. It is such a common occurrence that they are getting the message that lying is normal. It is a way of life.

Children are natural truth-tellers until we teach them to lie or they learn to lie because everybody is doing it. How can we preserve their innate truth-telling in a society where lying is a way of life? Again, it is the family that we can count on to preserve children?s truth-telling.

We will look at the resilience in creative coping of our children later on in the segment, and maybe learn from them!

Violence

Another major factor is the increasing violence in the streets and in the home. Family violence or domestic violence cases have been brought to our attention by the media and this has led to the greater awareness of abuse. It is a good thing that abuse against children and women is now being discussed and ways of preventing and stopping these are being done by many NGOs and the DSWD.

In the streets, ?road rage? where people are shot in traffic altercations have recently caught our attention. Too much stress due to traffic; pollution, over-crowdedness in the big cities and other stresses have upped the stress level such that suppressed anger can be triggered by simple road altercations that lead to senseless loss of lives.

Power of media

Then there is the tremendous power of media. Many children are traumatized just by watching TV. How can media be regulated? Or better still, how can one make positive use of media in educating children and society and instilling core values of truth-telling and integrity? Here again, we need to help our families on how to make use of media and to instill values in our children.

A very strong factor that has had tremendous impact and has changed our lives is the advances in technology.

Advances in technology

Cell phone and computers have resulted in easier and faster communication, especially texting. While they have given us a lot of benefits, popular computer games and the use of Internet have had some detrimental effects on the lifestyle of our young people. Very obvious is the lack of physical exercise, exposure to aggression and violence and information overload. Addiction to computer games, which are mostly violent, is now common among adolescents.

These are some of the changes that have had impact on our families today which make us realize how we need to harness outside resources and help families cope with these changes before they truly break down.

OFW families

Having put the Filipino family in the context of the larger society, let us now focus on a most major change that has become an urgent concern and that has directly changed the family?s structure and identity?the OFW phenomenon.

Perhaps the most major change that has the most direct impact on the family is the global migration?the significant increase in the number of OFWs or overseas Filipino workers. This has resulted in the change in the structure and composition of our families. There are now more single-parent families, mother-headed, father-headed and child-headed, blended families and many others. The definition of family is changing. For both parents working abroad, the children have become ?seasonal orphans.? This phenomenon has a clear and direct impact on child-rearing practices and on how our children are growing up. What do families do to cope with this?

Labor migration is not a new phenomenon in the Philippines. We had hundreds of men leaving for work in the pineapple fields of Hawaii a hundred years ago.

The number dramatically increased in the 1970s with the petroleum boom, when the Middle East became a major destination for Philippine migrant workers.

These OFWs, mostly males, went into heavy production and construction work. Since the 1980s, however, female OFWs have joined the exodus in big numbers, migrating to other destinations like Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Italy, which have a great demand for work.

At present 7 out of 10 migrant workers are women. With such a big number, it?s estimated that about 10 million children (more than 10 percent of the total population) are growing up without a mother.

For Dr. Liane Alampay, a developmental psychologist, ?In the Filipino context, when you take the mother away from the family, it is BIZARRE.?

In our forthcoming book on OFW families titled ?Nawala ang Ilaw ng Tahanan: Case Studies of OFW Families Left Behind by the Migrant Mother? (written by M.L.A. Carandang, Aileen Sison and C.F.A. Carandang and to be published by Anvil Publishing), we write about an in-depth study where we explored the innermost feelings and thoughts of family members left behind by the mother.

Questions, findings

We start with the questions: What goes on inside the family when the mother leaves for a long period of time? How does the family seek a new balance or equilibrium? What do the children think and feel about their family situation? What happens to their worldview and their values? How about the father? How does he cope?

From their own responses, we cull insights and support programs and activities in the home and school community that can answer their expressed needs and enable them to lead happier lives.

Here are some excerpts from the forthcoming book:

?OFWs send $14 billion to the country. They are a major force in our economy.?

?They have kept us afloat over the last few years and are thus a central leg of our economy.?

?They are modern heroes; let us honor them.?

Don?t romanticize OFWs to minimize social cost.

Many Filipinos are faced with a cruel choice: Raise your kids in grinding poverty or offer them a bright future by leaving them for a job abroad.

?RP maids leave broken-hearted children.?

The above statements taken from the media give a glimpse of the phenomenon of global migration and its impact on our country and our families.

But they do not tell us what is really happening with families left behind?how they live, how they cope with family separation, what their needs and frustrations are, how they make sense of their situation, their vulnerabilities and their resilience and strength. They hold up the economy and keep it from collapsing, but what kind of assistance do they get in return?

Let us look at the inner lives of three families.