Sending money home

[Humabdos]

I ran across this post on Mag Groups. I don't agree with her on some of it and my self don't mind helping out the inlaws once in a while, But I have seen some filipinas send most of there pay check home ending up with the inlaws totaly dependent on them.  

Ok here you go:  

                         By Josie

As a Filipina, I feel that: Children should NOT be supporting their
parents financially, because it is the responsibility of a parent to
support the children and not vice versa.

As usual, we as Filipinos are continuing to look for the easy, lazy
way out of our responsibilities. Any Filipina who has had the good
fortune to leave the Philippines and marry a foreigner needs to live
by the standard of their new country. In all Western cultures, any
responsible parent sees it as their duty to ensure that their
children are cared for and advance. Typically, the thinking parent
wants to see their child achieve better status than themselves and
will typically sacrifice financially to ensure their children do
advance.

However, our warped and convoluted culture seems to have perverted
common sense to the point where the parent and quite often the
siblings become an overwhelming burden to the one family member who
has given the chance to leave this crab mentality nation. This state
of affairs is not a deep seated cultural issue but grew out of the
70's era when many Filipinos looked at the wheeling and dealing of
their leadership and saw not a nation determined to succeed but
rather a nation practicing deception, lying, cheating and stealing.
As usual our nation has attempted to take the lazy way out, avoid
responsibility and not be held responsible for their actions. This
mentality is evident throughout everyday life in the Philippines.

It is high time that we expatriate Filipinos took a stance against
this moral cesspool and refused to support our idle families. Of
course there are exceptions to every rule and when our family for
some reason beyond their control are unable to work or support
themselves, we as good human beings must assist. However, the lazy
good for nothing free loaders who demand that their foreign children
support them need to be told the facts of life and have the
phrase "get a job" explained to them.

It is time we overseas children taught our overly demanding families
the meaning of the words NO MORE. Our primary responsibility now is
working with our husbands and raising our new families in an honest
and hard working environment and all our efforts and finances should
be directed towards the next generation and not the corrupt and
tyrannical older generations that we worked so hard to get away from.

This is what I feel about this issue, it is so degrading when I hear
someone say "if you marry a Filipina, you marry the whole family".

Josie

[The Walker]

... in response to Sending money home, posted by Humabdos on Apr 13, 2002

I agree that jobs are very hard to find especially in any city. How often do you see in a Filipina's bio on one of the MOB sites that she has a Bachelor's degree in something and that she is working as a cashier?

Ever notice how pretty the sales ladies and most cashiers are? They have to be. The competition is almost unbelieveable.

What few labor laws that exist in the Philippines are almost totally ignored. My Uncle is looked upon as a very good man to work for. Most other businessmen think he is crazy. The Philippines is a very poor nation and income is very low. Welfare in the USA is much better than average Philippine conditions. For the family to survive it takes all members to work unless you have a good government job. But remember our population. Few good jobs exist. Most Filipinas willingly send home money each month to help the family. Some one in the family probably sent money to help her, whether it was from America or from a better job in a city. Filipinas put up with horrible conditions to work as domestic servants in Hong Kong and Japan. Their children live with her parents and she may not see any of them for two or three years at a time. But she works because if she does not they all die. It is that simple. Think of a job at McDonalds meaning the difference literally between life and death for a woman and her three children here in the USA. Not a pretty thought is it? If she cannot find other work she must turn to the sex trade in some way either bar girl or dancer or other trade. If she is not very pretty she must become a fetish (is that correct?) girl who must put up with vile acts no other sex girl will do. Beatings, rape by many men, strangulation, sex with animals. Or turn to crime but either bad sex or crime usually means she dies very young either from disease, abuse or dying in prison through execution or the horrible conditions in Philippine prisons. Or she is killed making a "snuffed"(?) sex movie. My country is not a gentle place.  In the small villages it is better, there is less population pressure usually and a very little money can keep you. But in Manila it is viscious and cruel.

I know I was very lucky to be born to a family with a good business. I went to the best schools and had food and did not know poverty. But I could see it everywhere. People would kill to get a job with Uncle. Really some of them would. Uncle tries not to fire people in hard times. Called "lay off" here? Any way he does not do it. He hires fewer people and they work very hard and long when there is a lot of work but they do not care because they know he will not fire them if he can help it in lean times.

So sending a few dollars to the family back home is not a bad thing. If they quit the jobs they already have then it is bad and shameful. As Don said it is easy for them to get the idea that Americans are all rich. But remember that as little as $20 USA dollars a month is a great help to many families. If your wife works let her send money home. It will make her feel better. If she can send only $50 USA dollars a month it will help her family a great deal. Most Americans spend more than that for two cartons of cigarettes. Besides it will look good when you must face Saint Peter.

I also agree that no native Filipina wrote that letter. Even I would not write such a letter and I am wealthy by Philippine standards. Many in the Philippines would consider me to be a wealthy snob like Don says the Kennedys are. He doesn't like the Kennedys for some reason. But I am not a snob and I did and do try to help the poor as a good daughter of The Church must do.

But I still do not believe that was written by a Filipina who moved to the USA after she was married. Ugh.

PS: I am up late going to call mother. Don is not keeping me awake over cows. He is fast asleep in front of the TV he will not go to bed without me. I love him.

-VICKY

[BrianN]

... in response to Re: Sending money home, posted by The Walker on Apr 17, 2002

[Jay]

... in response to Sending money home, posted by Humabdos on Apr 13, 2002

This woman sounds to me like she forgot where she came from. A real judge of character, in my opinion.

"Get a job"??. You can hardly BUY a job in the Philippines! Giving the parent's a little money is not a big deal. It's the right thing to do. She sound's very cold and ungrateful to me.

Just my thoughts..
Jay

[Dave H]

... in response to Re: Sending money home, posted by Jay on Apr 15, 2002

Hi Jay,

"You can hardly BUY a job in the Philippines!" You're sure right about that! In my wife's hometown (POP. 267,000), it is very difficult to get even a small job. It doesn't matter if you have a Bachelor's Degree and are willing to work for free. The manager of the hotel where I stayed, was a Medical Doctor.

Dave H.

[SJ]

... in response to "Get a job"??, posted by Dave H on Apr 15, 2002


I still doubt this piece (of c#%P) was written by a filipina. Maybe an American born and raised AM/FIL or a vengeful kano, but not anyone who knows the reality of life in the Phils.
  To make a statement "However, the lazy good for nothing free loaders who demand that their foreign children support them need to be told the facts of life and have the phrase "get a job" explained to them" shows to me, they never lived in the Phils. or perhaps they lived in Hollywood Hills, Cebu.
   

[Dave H]

... in response to Re: "Get a job"??, posted by SJ on Apr 16, 2002

Hi SJ,

Either that or a bad case of amnesia!

My wife recently told me about a neighbor who wanted to become a school teacher. She loved children, was kind, and intelligent. She however was born with one leg shorter than the other and walked with a slight limp. She was told that she could never be a teacher and her application was turned down by several colleges. Finally she was accepted into an accounting program. My wife lost out on several good jobs in the Philippines because she was "too short." I wondered why she kept asking me what the height requirement was for a nurse in the US.

Dave H.

[SJ]

... in response to I agree!, posted by Dave H on Apr 16, 2002

I believe my wife when she tells me that although she worked at NEC for 5 years with a perfect attendence, that if she went back, she could not get a job there, because at 25, she is now too old. The "Help Wanted" ads I read there seem to support that. A typical ad would read ...Wanted, female, 18-21, 5'to 5'2", fair complexion, attractive. Must have minimum 2 year degree in accounting or buisness. Apply at Jollybees, or Mc D's, Burgerking, Pizza Hut etc., etc...........
    As my wife also points out, helping the parents and siblings is a cultural thing. The "desire/obligation" to help the family is there whether the son-in-law is a kano or filipino and has been there a loooong time and will still be there even if Fil/Am marraiges stop tomorrow. Somehow this cultural tradition has been turned into a nasty event that only occures in Fil/Foriegner relationships.

[BrianN]

... in response to Re: Sending money home, posted by Jay on Apr 15, 2002

it's just that some, really think it grows on trees here, and will never believe her that it doesn't.  Not all fam's are the same..

[The Walker]

... in response to Sending money home, posted by Humabdos on Apr 13, 2002

I am lucky that way. Vicky's family doesn't need our support. I do agree that this is very unusual, though.  Vicky knows a lot more Filipinas than I do, naturally and she says this is common enough. Filipinos are still a tribal culture when you get right down to it, and Asian tribal to boot. Tribal cultures have a share the wealth mindset even in the US.  Asians as a group revere the elderly in the extreme. Combine the two and this is what you get. The elders of a family are like the tribal elders. All in the family are like a tribe and they contribute for the tribal good. Conservation of wealth/resources and the protection of children are the basic reasons for the family, after all. Our frontier ancestors were much the same way in the early days of America, and almost all the great families of wealth are based upon this theme; like the Kennedys, the Rockerfellers and such. They still operate in this way today, with modifications.

Not that it is all Asian or Filipino in scope or even ancient American history.  If any of you happened to hit a powerball lottery of say, $200 million US dollars, I am sure many of your American parents may very well up and quit the jobs at McDonalds that they took to supplement their social security; and that your own sainted mothers would probably kick their pimply-faced, little weasel supervisors in the gonads on their way out. And that they would look to you to take up the slack on medicare deductables and prescription drug costs. Heck, they'd even splurge and order a new pair of glasses and a new set of dentures on the news.

For most Filipinas and their families, marrying an American of stable income is a lottery. Look at the facts. For one of us to make $3,000/month, take-home after taxes is no big thing. Many of us here make considerable over that mark. Convert that to Pesos and apply that to the standard of living in a small village on Leyte and that family would be the local robber barons. They'd have people going around kissing their rings with violins playing the theme from "The Godfather" in the background. The average US household income is as far removed from a small village in Leyte as I am from the Kennedys. So it is easy to see where they get the attitude. Didn't you know that the streets in America are paved with gold and everyone there is a milllionaire? You didn't? Well, you must not watch much television or see many movies. We all drive luxury cars, have thirteen affairs a month, all own our own businesses or else we are all high-level executives in Fortune 500 companies. We all have plastic surgery and personal fitness trainers and platinum cards. All our children graduate Magna Cum Laude from Harvard or Cal Tech or MIT and the boys all serve a hitch in the army and become generals and win wars single-handedly before becoming venture capitalists at the age of 30. Our only problems are obesity because of too much rich food and not enough work to do and not killing terrorists fast enough.

Easy to see where poor, untraveled, unsophisticated people can get these crazy ideas. Shucks, every family that was lucky enough to marry a daughter off to a rich Yankee is living on easy street. Just ask them, they'll tell you.

-Don

[Bear]

... in response to Sending money home, posted by Humabdos on Apr 13, 2002

but I think I am the most surprised at Honey's.  

I readily agreed before marriage that I wold help to an agreed extent.  I would help her siblings get a college degree and do what I could to retire there and help her family by letting them stay with us when that occurred.  

But I was amazed at the excessive abuse Honey received because of her marriage to me in the period that came while waiting for her papers.  I had made the mistake of telling her father in the "interview" that I intended to send her P10000/mo to sustain her till she immigrated here.  With that money she paid the rent, electricity, water, her food, college, transporation and her brothers.  I even sugested that she give her parents some money once or twice.  This cause her family to completely cease working and decide that I was now taking care of them all.  When they decided they had a need they yelled screemed and threaten to beat Honey in an attempt to get it from her - never once just asking for help.  She had long since told me that P10000 was way to much and that she would take only what she had to have to pay her obligations.  Many times taking nothing out of the account for over a month.

Now that she is here and I am making a substantial amount less that I was a year ago she cries when she thinks our sending money to her family is causing her to be a burden on us.  She always ecourages me to send them money last if any at all.

Bear and Honey

[BrianN]

... in response to Most of you know my point of view..., posted by Bear on Apr 14, 2002

That's a tough one.  At least you've got some objectivity, (reasonable), on the other side....

Do the best you can.

bd.

[joemc]

... in response to Sending money home, posted by Humabdos on Apr 13, 2002

For a filipina, Josie has a strong statement.
     A parent can be demanding on a child either
     overseas or in the P.I.  I myself am a expert
     on this issue. But something about me I will not
     hang any of my dirty  laundry on this board.

[SJ]

... in response to Sending money home, posted by Humabdos on Apr 13, 2002

than a filipina expressing her views. Interesting choice of words and phrases for a filipina, unless she grew up here.

[Humabdos]

... in response to Sounds more like a PO'd Kano, posted by SJ on Apr 14, 2002

She is a well known filipina poster on  Maganak Yahoo Groups.