Raising a half-American child in the Philippines

[OnMyWay]

22 hours ago, MikeB said:

If the birth date of the child is less than the 9 months of marriage or if you’re not married you can expect extra scrutiny and possibly the DNA test.

Mike, nice to hear from you!  Hope all is well!

In our case, we were not married for the first CRBA, but had good relationship records for about three years including photos of us together in the U.S. and our upcoming marriage arrangements.  It is worth the time to try and get all the stuff they suggest having, even though they might not use all of it.

On our second, the girl doing the pre-screening remembered us from the first!  From there on it was just taking care of the formalities with the official embassy guy, and that went smoothly.

It helps a lot if your kids are fair skinned and look like you!

  

[MikeB]

2 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Good to see your input Mike.  Hope you have found your peace moving back to the US of A.

Thanks, Dave, good to hear from you. Well, I no longer have to shove earplugs in my ears in a vain attempt to muffle 10ft speakers and I haven't heard one note of karaoke in almost a year so there is some peace in that. But I came back for the wife and child, if not for them I would have stayed and died there, no doubt.  

[MikeB]

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

Mike, nice to hear from you!  Hope all is well!

In our case, we were not married for the first CRBA, but had good relationship records for about three years including photos of us together in the U.S. and our upcoming marriage arrangements.  It is worth the time to try and get all the stuff they suggest having, even though they might not use all of it.

On our second, the girl doing the pre-screening remembered us from the first!  From there on it was just taking care of the formalities with the official embassy guy, and that went smoothly.

It helps a lot if your kids are fair skinned and look like you!

  

Nice to hear from you as well. Glad things worked out. Our child looks 100% Caucasian, in a million years you would not think he was half Filipino, which caused my wife a lot of grief over there being constantly asked, "Who's baby is that"? She kept quiet but our helper would curse at them and tell them to mind their own business. They're not known for subtlety. All the best to you.

[MikeB]

On 7/18/2017 at 3:37 AM, Gary D said:

I think with the question of where to educate a child you need to do one or the other, mixing there education could be messy. If you start your child in the Philippines I can see them struggling to reach a suitable western university entry level, unless a lot of extra work is put in. Going in the other direction they are likely to be far ahead of their peers at any given time as western education tend to start earlier.

You would think so but I have read many accounts on forums of parents relocating their children after several years of Philippines' schooling to first world countries and having them excel there. I guess it depends on the school (and the parents) and it's hard to know what's true because parents tend to boast of their child's accomplishments and downplay failures.

At least they’re going to the K-12 curriculum. Sending the typical 16 year old to college is insane.

[robert k]

23 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Mike, nice to hear from you!  Hope all is well!

In our case, we were not married for the first CRBA, but had good relationship records for about three years including photos of us together in the U.S. and our upcoming marriage arrangements.  It is worth the time to try and get all the stuff they suggest having, even though they might not use all of it.

On our second, the girl doing the pre-screening remembered us from the first!  From there on it was just taking care of the formalities with the official embassy guy, and that went smoothly.

It helps a lot if your kids are fair skinned and look like you!

  

You mean "Kalbo"?

[OnMyWay]

2 minutes ago, robert k said:

You mean "Kalbo"?

My two young daughters were/are kalbo but luckly I don't have this problem!

 

[robert k]

I don't see a great deal of harm raising a kid in the Philippines if the school is decent and you keep an eye on things and do a little homeschooling and maybe a little online schooling. Your little American citizen can do a couple of years community college to blow any rust off before you send them off to party central. I'd like to have an oil and gas lawyer in the family and I plan to tell any child of mine that they can be anything they want to be but I'm paying for law school.

[Gary D]

23 minutes ago, MikeB said:

You would think so but I have read many accounts on forums of parents relocating their children after several years of Philippines' schooling to first world countries and having them excel there. I guess it depends on the school (and the parents) and it's hard to know what's true because parents tend to boast of their child's accomplishments and downplay failures.

At least they’re going to the K-12 curriculum. Sending the typical 16 year old to college is insane.

We start school at 5 in the UK so they are still a year behind. Also in a lot of cases adding the extra 2 years doesn't add to their leaving they are often just rehashing previous work to fill the time.

[MikeB]

One of the most frequent criticisms I have heard of the schooling there is that the emphasis is on rote memorization, “don’t question, memorize”. Logic and critical thinking skills are not developed at a young age which means probably not at all. That translates into “following orders” that often make no sense and a lack of being able to think independently and lack of decision-making skills. I don’t know if that’s true but based on my many interactions it would seem so.

[Gary D]

41 minutes ago, MikeB said:

One of the most frequent criticisms I have heard of the schooling there is that the emphasis is on rote memorization, “don’t question, memorize”. Logic and critical thinking skills are not developed at a young age which means probably not at all. That translates into “following orders” that often make no sense and a lack of being able to think independently and lack of decision-making skills. I don’t know if that’s true but based on my many interactions it would seem so.

'rote memorization' teacher is then never wrong, or at least questioned when they often are.