1 day ago
12
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
Rappler’s People section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.
Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in three continents, he has been training with Dr. Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.
Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.
Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,
I never thought I would write you a letter like this. I do not want my older son, aged 41, to leave me. He is the only one I count on among my children, though I have two others. He is the one who handles the business. I have not taught him all he should learn about the business.
I do not want him to get big ideas and start his own company after learning all he has to learn from me. I have seen this misfortune fall on many parents who trusted their children foolishly.
I am not a bad mother. I am just looking after myself in my old age. I raised him to be a God-fearing son.
He used to be that way. Now he has a girlfriend. A Filipina. We Chinese families want our sons and daughters to marry within the Chinese community, especially our sons who will carry our names and the names of their fathers.
This is not to control him. This is to protect myself. This is to make sure he does not leave me once he has a thriving business (all learned from his parents) and is surrounded by this Filipina’s family.
He complains about my not trusting him enough, and about my no longer trusting him to continue being the loving son I raised him to be, now that he has this girlfriend. He reassures me he will never leave me to fend for myself. But I have seen this happening many times.
– Elen
Dear Elen,
You seem to be facing two familiar issues: the desire of a minority group to preserve its identity and the desire of a parent to choose the path that they believe best for their children.
There is a basic human need to want to belong to a group and to be wary of those from outside in order to protect themselves from potential threats. Immigrants are generally a minority group and as a result have a strong desire to preserve key factors such as identity, culture, and language in the face of a majority that they perceive as a threat to the continuity of their way of life.
It is therefore understandable that you should want your son to marry within your community in order to preserve your and his heritage. This is after all a very common desire and not confined to minorities.
To this end, you have taken steps to ensure the success of your strategy by involving him in your family business yet at the same time withholding unspecified but vital information so that he remains beholden to you and the company.
Doubtless you have also schooled him since birth in the belief of the merits of his culture and the demerits of other cultures. But by doing this, you have set up a conflict between preserving your culture and business on the one hand and fulfilling your role as a mother which arguably is to nurture your son, teach him values and morals, including kindness and charity, and lead by example so that he can develop into a responsible and independent adult.
If you shackle your son to the family business and do everything you can to prevent him from having a viable relationship with his non-Chinese girlfriend, can you honestly say you are acting in his best interests?
If a mother’s love is supposed to be unconditional, what kind of love is yours? It is frankly a love devoid of trust, both in terms of family and business, which demonstrably and consistently puts your own interests ahead of his.
Furthermore, your strategy is bound to fail, at least commercially. You will inevitably have to allow your son to take over the business when the ravages of time creep up on you. If you genuinely wish its continuing success you will then need to fill in whatever gaps you have deliberately left in his training.
As for your interference in his romantic life, he is already complaining about your meddling. How long will it be until he finally defies you and chooses his own path?
Perhaps it is time to stop expecting him to live your dreams and instead allow him his.
Best wishes,
– JAF Baer
Dear Elen,
Thank you for your letter. In my opinion, Mr Baer has put your problem in perspective, both from a global, and also from an extremely personal, point of view. He has given you the WHAT about your problem. He has also shared the WHY; especially why you might be feeling so strongly about this. Sadly and understandably, this is something many widows feel.
I feel the best way I can help is by giving you a HOW. Or perhaps, a how NOT.
Would it be fair to say the anxiety you feel is mainly about the fact that, even if your son has a girlfriend (which I imagine that, at 41, you are somewhat relieved by), you are unhappy because his girlfriend is Filipina?
I have had clients who have had the same problem, some even trying more actively to end their child’s relationship; and some even succeeding to do so.
The “evidence” for their concern is usually because of someone’s experience when their child — usually a daughter — marries a Filipino. Alas, many times, these experiences ARE negative. The Filipino husband hits his Chinese wife, often more than once; the Filipino husband is lazy, relying on his Chinese wife’s money.
But that does not happen all the time. There are many Filipino men who are exemplary husbands to their Chinese wives and wonderful fathers to their half-Chinese, half-Filipina children.
It is not in my remit to tell you what category fits your son’s girlfriend (let’s call her Rose). In my view, neither is it your son’s. It is you who has to decide whether his and Rose’s relationship is good/healthy for you.
Never mind if it is good/healthy for either or both of them — hopefully they can decide this for themselves without fear or favor. You too should be able to decide these things for yourself.
Whatever your decision, your son will more likely take your fears and anxiety regarding your future seriously if you, at very least, take the time and effort to know her.
This means not trying to convince your son he should drop her simply because she is Filipina. It also means not expecting him to judge her as harshly as those who have anecdotal “evidence” and shout it from the rooftops.
The Chinese (of which I am proudly 50%) have a saying: “Before you can conquer a beast, you must first make it beautiful.”
The beast is not Rose, but rather your anxiety that she might change your son to the extent that he will no longer feel responsible for you.
You have to find out if Rose is that kind of woman who insists the vow of forsaking all others is not limited simply to other women but includes his family. You have to decide if your son is really so weak he would something he has never done before, to a woman who has raised him from birth and will be defenseless if he leaves her.
One way to conquer this anxious beast is not to be so overwhelmed that your immediate reaction is to vanquish whatever ratchets it up. This is something you seem to have tried earlier, to no avail.
What might be better is encouraging you to sit with this anxiety and try to “befriend” it if you can. What is it trying to tell you? What is it telling you to take care of? Perhaps, it is telling you not to believe in generalizations like “Any Chinese woman, even if her temperament and motives are unknown, is better for my son than Rose”; or “A Filipina will be a terrible wife for him under all circumstances.”
These beliefs are what only overwhelming anxiety would tell you. That is because that sort of extreme anxiety cannot relax and is thus unable to translate any meaningful clues.
But, if you befriend your anxiety and listen to its messages, it is likely to whisper the truth and not shout lies. It is likely to show you the way of understanding the possible joys of intercultural messages and understand the beauty of a young girl who seems to have done nothing more than love him and allow you son to love her.
All the best,
– MG Holmes
– Rappler.com
