SHARING MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES: Going Back to School

 

   
I would like to share with you my reactions and coping mechanisms with various life events and crises as a working mother which epitomize the optimism approach that authors on human development espouse to triumph over these critical periods.

GOING BACK TO SCHOOL

        After eight years of playing full-time housewife and mother, all the children were in grade school except Dannah, the youngest and suddenly the noisy war room became a haven of quiet and solitude (as long as the children were in school only).  At last, I tried on some of my best Sunday clothes and thought of going to some places feeling dressy for the first time after years of donning dusters, shorts and over-sized T-shirts.  I panicked.  None of my old clothes fitted my body.  "so that's why my husband does not bring me to parties anymore".  I suggested that we dine out and he said "all right. I have a cocktail party needing some participants; you can come".

        I was so excited, spent days combing shops for dresses, make-up kit, costume jewels, fragrance and for manicure, pedicure and hairstyle.

        The cocktail party proponents were launching some new electrical product line and they needed knowledgeable people in the field.  I do not know anything about electrical products and no matter how I tried, I could not open any conversation with anybody.  All I managed was to smile shyly everytime my husband introduced me to people.  I felt so miserable.  Other cocktails followed and I just retired to a corner of the room and talked to drivers and waiters as my husband did the social rounds.  I cried hours and felt miserable.  

        This gave me the impetus to go back to school, hired a maid for the housework and with whatever savings I could make from my household expenses, managed twelve units per semester while my husband was at work until I graduated with my BSE degree major in English and Science in 1967.  I became an astute household manager avoiding conflicts that might prompt my husband to ask me to stop my studies.  I could not teach at once as high school teaching would take me away the whole day from the house.  As my husband was also busy with his work at the Schmidt and Oberly (he resigned from Meralco), a teaching job at the Mapua Institute of Technology and an MBA course at theAteneo de Manila, I spent my empty hours waiting for him by enrolling  in the graduate school at the University of the Philippines and in 1969, I graduated with the degree of Master of Arts major in Administration and Supervision.  I collected certificates of merits for university and college scholarships in the graduate school.

        I finally convinces my husband that I will go back to work for self-fulfillment as he was earning quite enough for the family.  I grabbed the first offer that came along... from La Consolacion College. 

        I planned everything, the first day I was to leave my child alone to a helper.  I checked supplies of milk, baby food and paraphernalia; arranged pick-up time for the elder children, checked menu and every little details.  I did not feel exhaustion or fatigue.  I taught Principles and Methods of Teaching, Administration and Supervision and  Science subjects in college.  It was a full-time job but I had to stay in school only within my class hours.

        What I failed to include in my plans was my helper's mind.  A day before classes, my baby sitter who was with the family throughout one school year and vacation suddenly asked for permission to go home to Abra as she said she was also going back to school, (apparently, the value of education suddenly gaining high in her priorities).  I had classes from 10:00 to 12:00 MWF and 2:00-4:00 TTHS, signed a one-year contract and cannot possibly miss classes on the first day.  Confused, I even forgot to prevail upon my maid to delay her leaving.

        The first day of my class, as the older children have left in their school buses, I tucked my baby in my arms. lulled her to sleep, put her in the crib, removed all the pillows and left an extra bottle which she could already muster to put in her mouth.  I did not tell my husband about it but asked if I could borrow the car as I had some important things to buy for school - books and clothes, and my husband nodded.  I locked the door of the apartment and left silently and while in class, if I could pull the hours faster, I'd fly.  Fifteen minutes before time, I hurried back home literally "flying too low" and found the baby in hysteria.  We cried together, "I cannot do this anymore".  I asked Mel the same concession with the car and for a week and got it and everyday, I would drive to school with my baby in the car, and in school, parked under a tree and lulled the baby to sleep, left the bottle and a small opening in the car windows.  I finally managed to get a helper after two weeks.  I taught at the La Consolacion College for four years but left because of time constraints.  After a year, I obtained a teaching position at the Far Eastern University as provisional instructor.

        While teaching at FEU, I had to pick up my son from school and brought him with me to wait for two hours while I taught.  Unable to stand the agony of waiting, the boy ran outside the room, played and loitered in the corridors.  Afraid he might go out of the gate, I made him stay in the faculty room and asked him to check the objective items of my Sociology class' testpapers.  He enjoyed the job and admiration of my co-teachers but when I was alone, a faculty swooped down on me "the Dean should know about this, imagine a ten-year old boy checking test papers of college students".  "But the test items are objective and I could always check again!"  I answered.

        "No, you should not do that and if you cannot keep your boy at home, you do not have business teaching!".

        It became a pattern.  After my classes, I drive home to supervise cooking, cleaning and doing the children's homework while dong my homework as well.  There were occasions when the family was already gathered for dinner, the prayer was recited when Mel noticed one boy was missing, Arnold!  He was not with the regular bus schedule because assigned cleaner after school, I was supposed to pick him up but forgot.  I immediately got up and drive to St. Paul Makati Catholic School, found my son in a dark corner crying.  I cried too as I embraced him.

        To solve the problems on delays in children coming home, we put all the children in one school at St. Martin Technical Institute, Pasig.  I brought them all together in the morning and fetch them after classes.  Once I was late because of a school convocation where I was the emcee.  When I finally arrived in St. Martin, the children went home on their own.  I retraced what their paths would have been but they obviously made shortcuts or pass on areas where vehicles were not allowed.  I did it three times till we found each other at home.

PARENTAL CONSENT IN MARRIAGE

In case either or both of the contracting parties, not having been emancipated by a previous marriage, are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, they shall, in addition to the preceding articles:

      Exhibit to the local registrar, the consent of their marriage of their father, mother, surviving parent or guardian, or persons having legal charge of them, in the order mentioned.  Such consent shall be manifested in writing by the interested party, who personally appears before the proper local civil registrar, or in the form of an affidavit made in the presence of two authorized by law to administer oaths.  The personal manifestation shall be recorded in both applications for marriage license, and the affidavit, if one is executed instead, shall be attached to said application (61a, Article 14).

Any contracting party  between the age of twenty-one and twenty-five shall be obliged to ask their parents or guardian for advice upon the intended marriage.

      If they do not obtain such advice,or if it be unfavorable, the marriage license shall not be issued till after three months following the completion of the publication of the application therefore.  A sworn statement by the contracting parties to the effect that such advice has been sought, together with the written advice given, if any, shall be attached to the application for marriage license.  Should the parents or guardian refuse to give any advice, this fact shall be stated in the sworn statement (62a, Article 15).

In case where parental consent or parental advice is needed, the party or parties concerned shall, in addition to the requirements of the preceding articles, attach a certificate issued by a priest, imam or minister authorized to solemnize marriage under Article 7 of the Code or a marriage counselor duly accredited by the proper government agency to the effect that the contracting parties have undergone marriage counselling.

      Failure to attach said certificate of marriage counselling shall suspend the issuance of the marriage license for a period of three months from the completion of the publication of the application,  Issuance of the marriage license within the prohibited period shall subject the issuing officer to administrative sanctions but shall not affect the validity of the marriage.

      Should only one of the contracting parties need parental consent or parental advice, the other party must be present at the counselling referred to in the preceding paragraph (Article 16).

THE MARRIAGE LICENSE

The Marriage License

                

      One of the most important documents of marriage is the marriage license.  This license is issued by the local registrar of of the city or municipality where either contracting party habitually resides, except in marriages where no license is required such as those covered by Chapter 2, Title 1:

      

                a) In case either or both parties are at the point if death; (Article 27).

                b) If the residence of either party is so located that there is no means of transportation to enable such party to appear personally before the local civil registrar (Article 28).

                c) Execution by the solemnizing officer of an affidavit before the local civil registrar that the marriage was performed in articulo mortis or the residence of the contracting parties is so located that there is no means of transportation (Article 29).

                d) The original of the affidavit together with the legible copy of the marriage contract, shall be sent by the person solemnizing the marriage of the local civil registrar of the municipality where it was performed within the period of thirty days after performance of the marriage.

Marriage License Requirements

                 

      In obtaining a marriage license, each of the contracting parties shall file separately a sworn application for such license with the following information.

      

                a) Full name of the contracting parties

                b) Place of birth

                c) Age and date of birth

                d) Civil status

                e) If previously married, how, when and where the previous marriage was dissolved or annulled;

                f) Present residence and citizenship

                g) Degree of relationship of the contracting parties

                h) Full name, residence and citizenship of the father

                g) Full name, residence and citizenship of the mother

            

      Other requirements of the local registrar are the original birth certificates; or in default thereof, the baptismal certificates.  If either parties is unable to produce these certificates, an affidavit will be executed by the contracting parties before a public official authorized to administer oaths where two witnesses will make sworn declaration regarding their birth or a copy of the current residence certificate.

      

      The presentation of the birth or baptismal certificate shall not be required if the parents of the contracting parties appear personally before the local civil registrar concerned and swear to the correctness of the lawful age of said parties, as stated in the application or when the local civil registrar shall, by merely looking at the applicants upon their personal appearance before him, be convinced that either or both of them have the required age.

MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES FOR WOMEN

      Abraham Maslow, (1954) who is noted for his Hierarchy of Needs Theory did not precisely exclude women when he stipulated that "man's needs are arranged in a hierarchy with physiological needs at the base followed by security, belonging, recognition and self-actualization.  And if these needs are in a stairway, then a woman aspiring for true satisfaction in living may not hurry.  You can take it one step at a time.

      For this hierarchy of human needs is not rigid, which means that you need not have to fully satisfy your lower-level needs before higher-level needs can emerge as determinant for your behavior.  You can prioritize different needs at different times.  As partly an animal, you cannot exist without minimum satisfaction of physiological needs such as air, water, food and shelter.  But because you are more than animal, you cannot live fully by bread alone.  You have social, psychological and spiritual needs which have to be met.,  Unless these are met, you cannot develop your characteristically human potential.

      Basic human needs such as air, food and shelter; belonging and "ego" satisfactions (including self-esteem, recognition from others and opportunities for achievement, self actualization and self-development) act as powerful, though often, unconscious motivator of behavior.  Inner motivation can be more decisive for behavior than any external influence (Maslow, 1954).

      Exposed to the economic realities of home due to day-to-day battling with the ever-increasing costs of food, shelter, clothing, education, utilities and luxuries of modern living, you can consider economic and socila upliftment of living condition of prime importance, hence the first step.

      With the cooperation between you and your husband as when a higher family income is achieved, the economic desire becomes satisfied and you may now seek for the next higher level of needs in security which may take the form of savings, investments or a family business.

      This Maslowinian theory of human motivation is not really a "magic wand".  Some have spent their lifetime to transcend even beyond the base level.

      Beyond mere physical existence, you go to the next level:  the need to belong, to give and receive affection and loyalty, to use and develop your powers, and to spend your energies in the service of something you believe in.

   Psychologists are in unison that deep and lasting satisfaction can be achieved only to the extent that high level needs are met.  The higher level of the need, the greater the power to experience enduring satisfaction.  So why stop yourself from achieving such lasting satisfaction by being a mere housewife all your life?

      This yearning to satisfy a higher need is also unstoppable according to Maslow.  The satisfaction of a need such as achievement or self-development does not blunt a person's appetite, but heightens it in search of higher goals.

      Maslow's theory is an interesting departure in explaining women's desire to seek the best of two worlds.  This issue takes paramount importance as we realize that women represent 49.83 per cent of our population today.  This number is a vital factor not only in sociological point of view but also in our national quest for economic development.  This woman power can be a significant force than can be mobilized for people empowerment to attain our present dream to reach a "New Industrialized Country" NIC status for year 2000.

      Had our indigenous history not been interrupted by 300 years of Spanish rule, we would have been so much at home seeing women in equal status with men in all areas of endeavor.  The pre-Spanish women enjoyed equal educational privileges ans social respect as men.  They were allowed to engage in trade, industry and politics.  If she were heiress, she was eligible to head the barangay or community (Salonga, 1988).

      The Spaniards' propensity to "machoism" imposed the conservative, half-educated and subservient-to-man woman as the model of the times.  What's worse was the seeming life-long subjugation as the woman passed from her parent's authority to her husband's authority when she married.  Her status in law was equated with that of infants, idiots and lunatics (Romero, 1988).

      We Filipino women should be a bit thankful to the Americans who feeling that women's subjugation should not include their minds accorded us equal access to the free public school and freed us from mental darkness.

      A great chain that bound women's rights was broken in 1907 with the suffragette movement that made itself felt all over the world as different countries started granting their women the right to vote.  The Filipino women's newly acquired literacy emboldened them to form a local suffrage movement until finally, the 1935 Constitution granted them the right to vote, a right we cherish and enjoy today.  

      This access to education and freedom of suffrage failed to erode the rocks of male superiority over women in Philippine society.  Up to the present, the entrenched traditional, cultural religious attitudes still prevail relegating women to secondary roles.  This tendency prevails in the practice of employers of giving low priority in hiring women and in the negative attention given to women's concerns by national government planners and policy makers (Romero, 1983).

      Two of the most important pieces of legislation that greatly changed the status of Filipino women are the new Civil Code and the new Family Code.  The new Civil Code allows a woman to transact business without the prior consent of her husband and to dispose of property which she brought into the marriage.  The Family Code grants her the right to pursue a career and seek annulment of a miserable marriage.

      But what is important now is for us to rise from negative perceptions and be partners of our husbands in our quest for a better world.  Living the best of two worlds as my mother have envisioned should not obliterate that male desire for superiority over females but for us to capitalize on it by becoming their inspiration in the fulfillment of their aspirations for the betterment of the family and the nation, by rocking the cradle to produce leaders of the world and by growing and fulfilling ourselves in the process of discovering and using our potentials for a more productive world.

      "Remember this.  You look at the skyscraper, a monolith structure, a monumental edifice 40 storeys high.  There is a small stone or dust of cement as part of a big block that rises at the highest point.  And you're not a stone nor a cement dust.  You're a human being.  You're not an ordinary mortal, you're a woman.  So why not reach the zenith!"


 

SEX AND ROMANCE

      The marital union promises a new dimension of relationship that is filled with excitement and ecstasy incomparable to other events in a couple's separate lives prior to marriage.  This is attained through the consummation of marriage in the ultimate union: the sex act or intercourse.  But doing the sex act is merely the physical activity.  The satisfaction and ecstasy are predicated on a knowledge of the elements of romance:  The roles of kissing, caressing, foreplay and other erotic stimulations, of right timing ND ambience and most important, of selflessness in meeting each other's unique and peculiar sex needs and expectations.  The happiness evoked by each romantic relations have enabled many men and women to really feel that "love is a many splendored thing; an April rose that only grows in the early spring, and as nature's way of giving and a reason to believing.

      One of the myths that have marred many marriages is that romance lapses after the coming of the children or after each one has gone back to work.  Actually, romance is still the expected reward that each one longs to receive from each other after a hard day's work.  And if this need is met, a happy marital relationship persists through the years as this ultimate expression of love serves as a tonic for daily living.

INSPIRING WOMEN IN NATION-BUILDING

    

 

      This blog aims to inspire women to do their share in contributing to the country's national development and quest for a new industrialized country status by the first quarter of the 21st century by harnessing their best in two significant roles in society: marriage and career.  Women's growing number can no longer be ignored as population figures from the NCSO reveals a population distribution of 49% males and 50.3% females in 1990 as compared to 52.6% males and 49,4% females in 1980.  Women power should be harnessed as never before but the initiative to be partners of men in nation building by engaging in gainful occupations in addition to their traditional biological roles should come from them.  It seeks to expand women's choices by sensitizing them to their multi-potentialities as human beings and the unlimited chances of honing and using them for national development.

      People empowerment is envisioned as the concepe to obliterate or diminish poverty in the country.  Data on the incidence of poverty by region in 1985 and 1988 show that all over the country, poverty is still a stark reality, a cruel choice among the majority.  Poverty incidence in various regions:  National Capital Region (NCR: 31.8%); Ilocos (47.5%); Cagayan Valley (48.9%); Central Luzon (39.6%); Southern Tagalog (49.3%); Bicol (65.3%); Western Visayas (61.8%); Central Visayas (54.6%); Eastern Visayas (60.5%); Western Mindanao (52.0%); Northern Mindanao (51.5%); Southern Mindanao(52.2%); and Central Mindanao (47.1%).

      My mother's all encompassing concern for the diminution or eradication of poverty has been fired by her own immersion to an early life of penury and destitution.

      Her whole life presents paradoxes that accord human beings the classic example that there is hope even on the darkest despair.  In her early life, she always found herself in the bottom rung of the economic ladder but happy that she was almost always up in the intellectual charts.  She grappled with extreme oddities in life and suffered the constant ignominy of poverty but her later life was filled with opportunities for a better economic status that enabled her to be an enterpreneur, a fortune she believed was endowed by God to her and Dad as a couple.  She considers this phenomenon a triumph of the human will.

      She saw herself as a gem first covered in dirt of poverty.  Gradually, the dirt was scraped by her patience and determination; the gem came out hard and sparkling.  Even at an early age, her motivation for higher status was never dampened by extreme vicissitudes she suffered in life.  It was her own path to empowerment.

      My mother aimed to enlighten women of their significant roles in infusing life and meaning to this concept of people empowerment while rearing their children which is the process of drawing up an individual's inner drive and personal initiative to develop and improve oneself.

      She hoped to motivate women to be a real partner of our men in nation building by holding on to marriage and career.  In marriage, they participate in the miracle of procreation by bearing and rearing children to become leaders of tomorrow, and inspire and help their husbands to achieve and work hard to attain national development goals and in their careers they contribute directly to development.

      This blog is impregnated with advices on how to hold on to marriage and career without sacrificing any one through time-tested techniques from respondents who have succeeded in living both worlds on time, income, food, and human relations management.  It also reveals ways of protecting women from inequities, temptations and hazards of the world of work and of approaches to be a living partner to a husband despite demands of career.

      Her conceptual framework is hinged on the view that for a married woman to succeed in a career outside the home, she should strive to first set up a strong foundation for her marriage by coping up with the adjustment period through enhanching compatibility, developing healthful and pleasant attitudes on sex relations, crises and life events, mutual fidelity and mid-life sex transitions and systematizing child-rearing practices, strengthening relations with extended families and helpers, by knowing how to choose a career and progress in it and by balancing demands of marriage and career by adopting scientific as well as common sense approaches in time and income management, household management, food management and burnout syndromes.

      The wealth of information on these internalizes aspects in a woman's life in marriage and career is a conglomeration of my mother's readings, researches, personal experiences and insights as well as the opinions and views of women who have succeeded in living the best of two worlds of marriage and career. 

     

MARRIAGE - A WOMAN'S FIRST BEST WORLD

     Physical attraction, mutual admiration of intelligence and other traits, geographical propinquity, parental suggestions, uncontrolled circumstances, a romantic night with a full moon above.  a novel atmosphere, chance meetings, love match-making and  other traditional or modern, simple or sophisticated strategies bring about that exquisite attraction between a man and a woman to a point that mutual desires for life-sharing result.  From casual meetings, love blossoms during a period of courtship where one stimulates the other to sexual activities such as holding hands, kissing, petting and other amorous acts with sexual intercourse as the ultimate.  And then, the trap is set by any of the parties and when the bait works, the ultimate union results - marriage.

      "Marriage is a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life.  It is the foundation of the family and an inviolable social institution whose nature, consequences and incidents are governed by law and not subject to stipulations, except that marriage settlements may fix the property relations during the marriage within the limits provided by the Family Code (529, 1987)."

      Marriage has certain requisites which must always be present, to be valid.  These essential requisites are:
      
      -legal capacity of the contracting parties (they must be male and female)
      - consent freely given in the presence of a solemnizing officer.
      
      The formal requisites are:
      a) authority of the solemnizing officer
      b) a valid marriage license
      c) a marriage ceremony which takes place with the appearance of the contracting parties before a solemnizing officer and their personal declarations that they take each other as husband or wife in the presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age.