August 24, 2007 · Posted in: i Report Features
Boys to (pampered) men
IT’S no secret that in the Philippines, we tend to spoil our men. But it seems all that babying is not doing the Filipino male any good. Indeed, the supposed favored status that boys enjoy while they are growing up seems to work against them years later.
For instance, recent data show that women have been outpacing the men in the workplace. According to the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, women big bosses now outnumber their male counterparts. Official data also show that males have higher unemployment rates than women.
Some observers say that can be traced partly to the fact that when the men were young, they had less tasks and responsibilities at home compared to their sisters. If they were given any chores at all, these were probably short-term and requiring little focus.
In contrast, girls are assigned a list of tasks, many of which require patience and more than a bit of diligence. As a result, many girls grow up to be masters at multi-tasking and more adept at handling the requirements of the modern workplace.
Mercy Abad, who now heads the marketing and research group TNS-Global, credits her own childhood filled with chores for her professional success. She also says that in today?s workplace, the women “are taking over.”
We hope the piece, the latest in i Report‘s current series on Filipino women, will encourage the parents among your readers to take a second look at the way they are rearing their own children.
Read on at pcij.org.
2 Responses to Boys to (pampered) men
jsuria
August 26th, 2007 at 1:28 am
I regret having skipped my carpentry class back in high school 😛 I’m still learning how to drive a nail straight with a hammer without messing up the job.
I guess the saying “It’s a man’s world after all” doesn’t hold that much water anymore. I definitely hope this statistic doesn’t put down the male population. Get up men, and be men!!
Felipe Barreto
August 28th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Perhaps it is time to change the mindset of mothers who have turned their sons into mama’s boys and spoiled them rotten.
After all, the mothers spend more time with their children than the fathers, so they should have more influence with the children than the fathers.
Can the mothers escape blame if they have turned their sons into spoiled brats?
Those spoiled brats turn into rotten fathers, who, in turn, evade their responsibility to their children — and so on, in a never-ending vicious cycle.
If one wants to change dysfunctional values in a culture, start first with the mothers who are mainly responsible for transmitting those values to the next generation.
If there are many things wrong with how the culture functions — from corruption to indiscipline to inferior performance in a wide range of fields — check how far improper values are responsible.
Women don’t seem to realize the tremendous power they have — and the tremendous responsibility as well — for imparting the proper values to their children.