“La Tatay, La Nanay”

By: Ms. Lorelei DT. Salvedia

Grade School Guidance Counselor

Once when my husband and I got home from work, our companion in the house shared to us a line uttered by our two-year old son who at that time was not feeling well.  His words were “La Tatay, La Nanay,   sakit tyan Jeuz.”  According to her, Jeuz said this repeatedly to all the people in the house who expressed amusement at the thought that he was overacting.  When he spoke the same to us, Lito and I laughed too as we regarded this incident as one funny account in his early childhood.

After a while I realized that the words have touched me profoundly as a mother.  The truth is we never leave him; we only depart from him in times of work, yet he perceived us absent just for a time that he was experiencing stomach pain and we were out of touch.

As a counselor, I recalled the sharing and sentiments of the children of OFWs in some of the counseling sessions I had.   It pains to hear boys and girls expressing sadness about daddy and/or mommy away from home.  It hurts to see children trying to cope with various life situations by themselves.  It upsets to know that life is too difficult and parents have to work abroad for family survival.

Indeed, there are a lot of interventions that can be made to help these children get to the bottom of the issue. The LCCM Guidance and Counseling Center for one has proposed a one-day series of interactive sessions with the BED Children of OFWs in November 2006. This event will surely be a get-together of people who ride in the same boat but sail in different directions.