Filipino Mothers for Export

It's Mother's Day tomorrow. Check out everything that will be written about mothers on Google News, Yahoo! News and Topix.net (news and blogs).

But please consider "Global mamas" by Michael L. Tan (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 13 May 2006) and the report he discusses in his column: Save the Children’s "State of the World’s Mothers 2006" (press release, full report [pdf]). (Note: One big difference between bloggers and newspaper columnists is that the former can provide links that the latter forget or choose not to include.)

According to Tan, "Many Filipinas aren’t just global nannies, they’re now global 'nanay' [mothers], global mamas, often at great cost to their own children back home." Much has been made of the exodus of nurses, doctors and teachers, but what of the mothers among this group? And then there are the domestic helpers, entertainers, etc. They are very likely mothers, too. We haven't just been exporting skilled or unskilled Filipino workers; I'm willing to bet that we've exported more mothers than fathers.

And then there's Salary.com's "What Is Mom's Job Worth?," which quantifies the actual and potential salaries of Working and Stay-at-Home Moms. The figures are in dollars, of course, but it makes me wonder what mothers are really worth, and just how much we really owe them. I'm sure they did it all for love, and that they don't expect anything in return, but quantifying what they've done in pesos and centavos just makes it that much clearer how much we've taken our mothers for granted. Or maybe I should just speak for myself.

Anyway, to all the mothers reading this: Happy Mother's Day!


Categories: Events, Filipina