Educating Our Children! ( With Culture In Mind & We Can't Change It)

[Steve & Myrlita]

I think they call it the "Crab Mentality".

[Tukaram (Tim)]

I can no longer have kids, thank science, and my wife has no kids...  but I had already decided if I met a woman with kids they would be raised here, as Filipinos.  Not foreigner kids.  I am retired and living over here - having kids would not send me back to the US, and i cannot afford private school (yes, my kids in the US did go to private school, but that was a different life).  I would pretty much let their mom raise them Filipino with a regular Filipino education.

 

I would be involved, certainly.  I would call BS on any kind of aswang stories ha ha... and if they ask me why I do not go to church I would tell them.   I would also be strict about no littering. That is a pet peeve of mine. Always has been.  But yeah, for the most part I would let the family raise them.  It would be the best way for them to fit in here.  The main thing I would teach them is to stand up for themselves, and question authority (within limits).

[davewe]

There's a difference between disagreeing with a cultural norm or tradition and disrespecting it. I wonder whether some of us have difficulty in defining that line - at least sometimes. IOW, we have Catholics here in the US and while I might disagree with their tenants (or even attending church in general) I would never insist on my opinion as the only correct one. That doesn't mean that I won't weigh in with my opinions to my kids if they ask (and even if they don't) - but that's what they will be - my opinions. I expect that just as in most households, their mother's opinion will be at least as important and probably more so.

 

I don't think my opinion is based on thinking that the Philippines is wonderful and perfect, though I do like it. Nor is it based on hating my own culture, which I don't. But I still live here and find myself chuckling often at some of the cultural complaints that some of you (and even my wife) throw out about the Philippines.

 

I won't get into a laundry list (I could but I won't) but I suspect that we remember fondly (and falsely) what it was like in our home countries when we were kids. Even if it was that way 50 years ago when I was a kid, it ain't that way anymore.

 

So I am looking forward to the differences and I am looking forward to teaching my kids to respect the culture, even when there are specific aspects of it I don't personally adhere to. OTOH, I may find I take up a few of those cultural changes. As I get older and the bladder gets weaker, pissing in the street doesn't sound so bad :)

Edited November 2, 2015 by davewe

[sonjack2847]

One thing we should remember is that we don`t like it when we get people who move to our countries and will not fit in.Do we have any right to try to change anything. I think that if we teach our kids good values it should be left at that. JMHO

[MikeB]

It would be interesting to hear from people who are actually raising children here. I won’t comment directly on the quality of education but this is my take: If your child is going to stay and work in the Philippines then raising them here makes sense. They can be exploited by unregulated, unscrupulous employers who offer dead-end jobs at insanely low salaries, 6 month contracts (so they can’t receive paltry benefits) then discarded like trash for another human wave of applicants. They can answer job ads that specify “not over 25” and “nice figure-not chubby”. If you aspire for your child to have a life in the first world it makes no sense to educate them in a 3rd. There’s a very good reason they all want to get out of here.