New breed of stay-at-home fathers proud of their ‘motherly’ role
TO THEM, it’s a list of home activities that they already love doing every day. They take care of their young children, bathe and feed them, and take them to school. They cook dinner, do the laundry and a ton of household chores.
A group of stay-at-home husbands left behind by wives working abroad proudly refer to themselves as “Na-Tay,” a term combining “Nanay” and “Tatay” as they appreciate and enjoy their new role in a society that traditionally looks at the role of women as family carers and role of fathers as providers.
They’re the new breed of stay-at-home fathers intent to change cultural mindset, raise and guide children to the best of their ability, and encourage other fathers having similar situation to carry the new role as a badge of honor rather than something that makes them feel bad about themselves.
Twelve of them comprise the core group of Ama na Magaling Mag Aruga ng Anak (AMMA), a program initiated in three barangays in Mabalacat, Pampanga in 2013 that provided these fathers with intensive counseling (to raise their selfesteem) and taught them parenting skills, communication skills, and financial management, as well as other skills to help them become competent, nurturing caregivers at home.
According to Rommel Castro, who joined the AMMA program three years ago, he along with other fathers underwent seminars and workshops on a week- ly basis and what they learned contributed greatly to their transformation and new outlook in life.
Castro said they used to resent doing household chores like doing laundry and cooking because of the Filipino machismo thing, but they soon realized doing home chores make them good fathers to their children.
Castro became a stay-athome father 22 years ago when his wife left for Hong Kong to work as a domestic help. He has successfully raised a daughter, who is now 25 years old.
The program changed the fathers in the program for the better, according to Tessibeth Cordova, community relations department manager at Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC), the group responsible for bringing the AMMA program, started by MLAC Institute for Psychosocial Services, Inc., in the three barangays.
“The initial phases of program, which is psycho social in nature, has helped them transform—how they look at themselves and their self worth. It’s a beautiful transformation because they’re now claiming being both a father and a mother. Yung dating haligi ng tahanan eh naging ilaw na din,” said Cordova.
Cordova said a key element of the program is the intensive counseling sessions, where psychologists worked on the personal issues faced by the fathers.
“It started as a psycho social intervention because from the interviews, the fathers gave re- port on their low self-esteem. They felt insulted that they’re the ones at home while their wives are the ones working abroad. They can’t cope with their situation because they’re not used to it. The cultural expectation adds up to their frustration,” said Cordova.
The renewed self-esteem brought about by the counseling sessions has affected how they perceive and value themselves and because of that how they value their children, according to Cordova.
AMMA started as a program conducted by MLAC for husbands and children left behind by OFW mothers to undergo a psycho social training that dealt with self-esteem.
The program is an offshoot from the recommendations in the book published in 2007 “Nawala ang Ilaw ng Tahanan, Case Studies of Families Left Behind by OFW Mothers,” according to Dr. Ma. Lourdes “Honey” Carandang, one of the authors of the book and founder of MLAC.
In the past several years, the majority of OFWs are mothers, said Carandang. Seven out of 10 migrant workers are women, while there’s an estimated 10 million children, representing more than 10 percent of the population, who are growing up without mothers.
“Because of this phenomenon, we thought what is the effect of this on families so we did an in-depth study of families left behind by the mothers. Then we started a big project AMMA, where every Sunday we transform ‘ Tatays’ into ‘Na-Tays.”
According to Cordova, the AMMA program, which was supported by the government of Mabalacat, has evolved into “a psycho social program into a community organization program,” with the psycho social program being handled by MLAC, while the community organization being handled by CIAC.
The CIAC, through its social responsibility program on gender development, is planning to bring the successful program in barangays in Angeles and Tarlac.
“The CIAC contributed to the effort to build this group of fathers left behind by OFW wives and helped become a community of fathers capable na maging ina at ilaw ng tahanan. But come to think of it, the airport was instrumental to the physi- cal separation of the mother and the father. So we address it proactively. This is not a onetime affair. We want to make sure the program becomes sustainable,” said Cordova.
Castro is now the president of the AMMA and the core group of fathers are now holding talks to reach out to similarly situated fathers.
Three years into the launching of AMMA, it has also evolved into an organization and now registered with the Department of Labor and Employment as a workers’ organization.
As an organization, it is also now conducting outreach activities and into starting a canteen livelihood project to support its outreach projects.
“There are many things that I learned from the program. I learned how to treat people, particularly members of my family, the right way. I learned to be more patient and coolheaded. I communicate with my daughter and the bonding between us is more stronger. I also learned how to budget our finances and earn extra money to pay for some of the bills so the money sent by my wife would be part of our savings,” said Castro.