Wazzup Pilipinas!
We all know how the saying goes right? ‘Magasawa ka kapag may trabaho ka na!’ or simply put, get a job then get married. But in reality, this isn’t the exact case.
Here in the Philippines, we all know for a fact that the numbers of jobless people are far greater than those with proper jobs who earn enough for their families. Now, let’s start with that thought; A large number of jobless people are married and have a lot of kids. Just the thought of providing for a large family with around P500 worth of everyday budget isn’t enough. That alone could say that we should get a career first, or get a decent paying job, before ever thinking of marriage. A blunter way of saying it is ‘Make yourself useful and productive before claiming your girlfriend/boyfriend in the altar’. Kinda harsh in my opinion, but that’s how some would put it. Of course, there are even more reasons to this.
Let’s look at a futuristic sense, shall we?
Imagine, when you get married, after honeymoon what do normal newlyweds want to have? If you answered ‘A Baby’, then you’re spot on! Marriage, though considered a spiritual and physical union (to us Filipinos), is actually the starting line of reproduction, or in simpler terms, is the start of a family. Imagine that! So, if Marriage is the starting line of having a family, then how could you support your kids? ‘Tis not an easy task to support a family, ask the parents; they’ve been through a lot to support their kids, and they do a lot of sacrifice just to budget things with the amount of pay they received. This brings us back to square one; Pursue Career First before getting Married if you don’t want your family to suffer. Period.
Now, I’m pretty sure some are wondering why a lot of youths in our time have children at such young ages, from fourteen year old girls to sixteen year old teens. Because of this, they even disregard the “Churchly union” of Marriage and are fine with the “Physical Union”. They just proclaim the young couple husband and wife because they have a kid, and this is a misconception; a husband is married to his wife by legal documents, heavenly union or both. Why’s it that some of the youth are now married without anything to back it up but a child inside the girl’s stomach? We can point this out to certain factors but for this topic, let’s just focus on two major, and often overlooked topics that can be blandly noticed and pointed out, but changes don’t seem to take place.
Now, I’m pretty sure some are wondering why a lot of youths in our time have children at such young ages, from fourteen year old girls to sixteen year old teens. Because of this, they even disregard the “Churchly union” of Marriage and are fine with the “Physical Union”. They just proclaim the young couple husband and wife because they have a kid, and this is a misconception; a husband is married to his wife by legal documents, heavenly union or both. Why’s it that some of the youth are now married without anything to back it up but a child inside the girl’s stomach? We can point this out to certain factors but for this topic, let’s just focus on two major, and often overlooked topics that can be blandly noticed and pointed out, but changes don’t seem to take place.
First: Lack of Proper Explanation
Okay, we all know that parents don’t like their kids questioning them and their authorities but sometimes, they tend to underestimate their own kids. For example, when asking for marriage advice, we often go to our parents, am I correct? Now, take a young child, who is curious about love and things about the birds and the bees, to his parents and let him ask the same question. What is the usual response? Parents, you’d have to agree with me on this, ‘You’re too young for that’. Sounds familiar? We hear it all the time. Though true, kids should at least have decent knowledge on the consequences of this as well as the reason for Mama and Papa to say ‘Get a job before you get a wife’. The lack of proper explanation more or less leads to them exploring on their own and before they know it, they have no choice but to atone for the budding life they’re responsible for. Parents, as a last note, I understand your reasons for this but still, an explanation is much appreciated. As for you kids, just because this is a reason doesn’t make it an excuse for you to blame your parents. Doing stuff like that is still your fault.
Okay, we all know that parents don’t like their kids questioning them and their authorities but sometimes, they tend to underestimate their own kids. For example, when asking for marriage advice, we often go to our parents, am I correct? Now, take a young child, who is curious about love and things about the birds and the bees, to his parents and let him ask the same question. What is the usual response? Parents, you’d have to agree with me on this, ‘You’re too young for that’. Sounds familiar? We hear it all the time. Though true, kids should at least have decent knowledge on the consequences of this as well as the reason for Mama and Papa to say ‘Get a job before you get a wife’. The lack of proper explanation more or less leads to them exploring on their own and before they know it, they have no choice but to atone for the budding life they’re responsible for. Parents, as a last note, I understand your reasons for this but still, an explanation is much appreciated. As for you kids, just because this is a reason doesn’t make it an excuse for you to blame your parents. Doing stuff like that is still your fault.
Second: Underestimating Marriage
Marriage is apowerful thing; it is a binding, Holy union. Teens and Pre-teens, we will all experience and know this. More than naught, we make crude jokes about sex, marriage, having thirty babies and so on; but think about it, are we really taking the Career before Marriage thing seriously? Most would say they are but there are reasons why I wouldn’t agree. The fact that some media tends to corrode our view of things makes us overconfident about these topics. It’s not that we tend to lean towards negative stuff but we don’t put every thought under scrutiny. I mean, we don’t take it seriously enough to know the consequences of our actions. Do some critical thinking about the topic! Also, we tend to blame the parents for not telling us every detail 100%. That’s just wrong. Though parents usually hold this information from us because of the fear of us exploring it to further experience, but guess what? Curiosity won over and underestimated the essence of marriage! Whoo to the Hoo! Now we know that curiosity helped kill the cat!
Marriage is apowerful thing; it is a binding, Holy union. Teens and Pre-teens, we will all experience and know this. More than naught, we make crude jokes about sex, marriage, having thirty babies and so on; but think about it, are we really taking the Career before Marriage thing seriously? Most would say they are but there are reasons why I wouldn’t agree. The fact that some media tends to corrode our view of things makes us overconfident about these topics. It’s not that we tend to lean towards negative stuff but we don’t put every thought under scrutiny. I mean, we don’t take it seriously enough to know the consequences of our actions. Do some critical thinking about the topic! Also, we tend to blame the parents for not telling us every detail 100%. That’s just wrong. Though parents usually hold this information from us because of the fear of us exploring it to further experience, but guess what? Curiosity won over and underestimated the essence of marriage! Whoo to the Hoo! Now we know that curiosity helped kill the cat!
Last, Marriage is a Holy thing produced by love between two individuals. We often hear words like “I love him/her, so I’m going to marry him/her!”. Hold your horses, kid, pursue your career, then if the time’s finally right, marry the person. Now, parents, I’m not saying this to make you look bad in front of your kids; all I’m saying is, you could do better, and explain the importance of marriage and career more to your kids. Explain the reason to pursue Career first then chase after Marriage later. Stress on it, emphasize it, repeat it; this is critical information and the fact that it is brushed aside is alarming. Teens, on our part we should heed this warning, because our decisions on Career and Marriage greatly affect the generations yet to come.
Contributed by Jeanine Paola J. Tamayo
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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