I’ve been toying with the idea of resigning from my job so I could stay at home and be with my kids.  It’s not because I find work tiring.  Although it does drive you to exhaustion, it has been a very valuable learning and growing experience for me.  It’s just that when I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to  “have time for my kids.” And my job doesn’t allow that much.  I have a regular 8-5 job but the pay isn’t much so when I get home, I do some e-tailing and often I meet buyers intersted in whatever product or service I’m selling for the month…  which leaves me with just a wee bit of time to enjoy with my 2 little angels.

A few weeks back, I sat in a talk by Ma. Victoriua Q. Caparas, PhD, on New Trends in Work-Life Balance. The first question she asked the audience was, what is the difference between work-life balance and work-family balance.  Right then and there, I knew I was in the right place.  You see, here in the Philippines, when you ask someone how life is, he’d automatically talk about his family.  Family=Life, Life=Family.  It is unusual to find a successful family man who would equate life with something else.

 Here were some interesting tidbits she shared with us: In China, well-being is equal to being a married man with kids.  In Hong Kong, family-friendly policies are ineffective vis-a-vis the culture of reciprocity.  In Hapan, Karoshi is common – telling you that employees doe not need reduced work hours.  In Korea, day care centers are inefffective as they are in the Philippines coz people don’t trust leaving their kids to just anyone.  Mainly, in Asia, the career curve of women follows an M-curve where women lie-low and stay at home when the kids are young while pursuing successful careers awaiting babies and after a brief haitus, pursuing them again once the kids are old enough.  Did you know that everywhere in the world men work longer hours?  But in the Philippines, women work longer hours…  only here!  Why?  Becuase women are pressured to be good mothers & great providers.  Men don’t understand shared parenting here as much, but gladly, the younger dads show promise moving towards that trend. 

Although most Pinoy families enjoy the extra hands from the household help, the increasing number leaving for abroad for better pay (including engineers, lawyers and doctors) as domestic help, is really decreasing the supply of competent help.  So much for that… 

Many mothers face ask the same questions I ask.  Should I quit?  or the more harmless What should I do to balance my life?  I guess whatever your decision is, we should always remember that the basic nucleus of society is the family.  It is great to hear though that big corporations have seen the importance of family life for their employees and have taken an active stance in ensuring a family supportive culture.  I should work for one…