Thai wife being bullied by family

[Highlandman]

On 7/27/2023 at 3:17 PM, Gecko123 said:

Most of the time it's done out of necessity, not to shirk parenting responsibilities. Rural parents are often forced to migrate to urban centers in search of work and the best (and often only) child care option available is to have the children remain in the village and be cared for by the grandparents or other close relatives.

 

The reason this was not so 100 years ago is because with less mechanization, farming activities were more labor intensive and the whole family unit's labor was needed to operate the farm. With the introduction of labor saving farm equipment, demand for farm labor dropped forcing migration to urban centers. This is the root cause of why the nuclear family in rural Thailand is under stress, which is also a problem in virtually every other developing country.

 

Another reason why this problem is intensifying is because 2 or 3 generations ago, chances are the grandparents or other family members charged with caring for the children had been raised in traditional two-parent households. But because this process has been going on for  many decades, nowadays, chances are that the grandparent or other family member charged with raising the kid were themselves raised in a household where the birth parents were frequently absent. So there's a generational erosion of family values and ability to pass on parenting skills.

Yes exactly. I know. In the past, Thai mothers, like mothers everywhere else in the world, stayed home to raise the children. This has changed now, with many, if not most mothers being in the workforce and thus requiring children be raised by others.

BTW even in rural areas, most Thai toddlers go to childcare and then kindergarten and regular school, the vast majority in fact. This occurs even if there's grandparents available to look after them. The grandparents look after them at night, because the parents live elsewhere and thus the children live with their grandparents. 

[Dan O]

6 hours ago, Highlandman said:

In the past, when mothers didn't have to go out and work, they looked after the children. This has changed to grandparents over the past few decades as social and economic conditions have changed.

 

Look at hill tribes in Laos for instance; the mothers would take their children to the fields and take care of them while they work OR outside the home, if they primarily work from or near their homes. You don't generally see grandparents being the primary caregivers in Lao villages, except in the case of parents who are migrant workers living and working abroad. 

 

Africa is similar. Again, not saying grandparents aren't important caregivers, as they do tend to be there too, but traditionally, mothers raised their children by staying home and tending to household duties. It's different now, but in rural northern Laos, one can still get a glimpse of the past, since the lifestyles of many rural people, especially tribal peoples such as the Hmong, remain relatively unchanged from decades and centuries past. 

Its been like this for quite a long time so its not new. 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 7/20/2023 at 9:15 PM, Gecko123 said:

It's not true to life because, if anything, most family members and villagers are secretly jealous if a village girl's social status suddenly improves, and the village pecking order has to be recalibrated.

LOL. It's the same situation my wife found herself in.

Also, being married to me did not raise her social status in the village.

 

Think again.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 7/27/2023 at 8:17 PM, Gecko123 said:

Most of the time it's done out of necessity, not to shirk parenting responsibilities. Rural parents are often forced to migrate to urban centers in search of work and the best (and often only) child care option available is to have the children remain in the village and be cared for by the grandparents or other close relatives.

You got that one right. My wife's 2 nephews lived with their grandmother ( grandfather was dead ) in the village, while her sister and brother in law worked on road projects around the country.