Childrearing Filipina Style

The Filipino attitude to children is quite different from ours in North America. I am able to observe this closely, as my wife is Filipina. There is less romanticism about a gulf between childhood and adulthood. Children are small adults, just as I have heard they were in Europe before the Romantic period.

Remember this when you next read about "child labour" in the Third World. Cultural bias: it seems obviously the right thing in most such countries. It would probably be seen as a violation of children's rights to prohibit them from working.

My wife treats our three-year-old son roughly as an equal. He has his responsibilities: he is expected to fetch and do errands. But he also has a say. They have arguments, and big fights, but it is like two kids or two adults arguing with each other; there is no patronizing. Frankie gets to talk back. There is no "because I said so," or "because I'm your mother." He even gets away with slugging her.

But this is not a matter of pampering or spoiling. I think she is even too hard on him. Rights and responsibility, asap--what better training for real life?

First I get a chance, I'm sending him down the mines.