Reading discussion facilitation assignment - Essay Example

ies such as crime and violence due to lack of parental guidance. In addition, the Philippine media also inclined to infer that the absence of motherly care can be liken to abandonment (Parrenas et al. 44), which could give rise to the supposition that all children, deficient of familiar reinforcement, will become social burdens (44). In The Care Crisis in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy, Parrenas et al. describes how the existing society view women migration.

They contend that the modern day standpoint on the migration of women workers, that is, to create a significant emotional hardship to the children in transnational households and the postulated solution that is to call for the migration of the women workers to return to nuclear family do not sufficiently address the problem. Parrenas et al. argues that there are other factors that threaten the well-being of children i.e. domestic violence and male infidelity (53); and it should not exclusively be cast on the migration of women workers.

The prevalent gender ideology that is commonly accepted in most civilizations retains the importance of the role of the mothers in the welfare of the children. And while many people believe that fathers too have the responsibility to provide care of their children, primary care is almost entirely linked to women. Therefore, this predating ideology on gender strains the recent development in the labour force, that is, more and more women are taking the roles of men as provider. Particularly, in the Philippines, “care is now the country’s primary export” (41); and since women are deemed to be the primary care provider, many Filipina workers are migrating every year to other countries to work as domestic helpers and nannies, sacrificing their children, in order to afford them with better opportunities in life.

They care for other people’s children while leaving their own children to kinship care. Whether it is a culturally-shaped societal stance on gender ideology, migration of women has been always criticized by the media because it jeopardizes the conventional structure of a nuclear family. Transnational household arrangements are often viewed by critics as focal point for the proliferation of juvenile delinquency and the increase of social liabilities for the government. However, in a survey conducted by Parrenas, it has been found out that not all children belonging to a transnational family develop the feeling of resentment more than indebtedness toward their mothers.

Most of them, if not all of them, places more importance on the “outcome” of the sacrifice rather than the care that they are supposed to receive from their mothers. Seen this way, it can somehow be inferred that migration of women workers does not necessarily equate to emotional burden among children in transnational families; although, it does not also mean that they do not feel any negative feelings at all. Personally, there is an element of inevitability to feeling negatively towards the