3 million Thai kids living with caregivers

[gchurch259]

In a way I am erie about jumping into this one, but here goes. My Wife is a good example. she had a baby at 15 and only has 6 years education. She had to go to work and support her self because, as typical, the Thai father of her child was a ":Butterfly" and landed on another girl, so bye bye ! She had to leave her son with her Mother for a while. Her Mother is a very nice lady and keeps a clean house, but she can not even read or write Thai, so how is she going to teach a child ? I ask my wife to bring her son to live with us and go to school in BKK. After ten years hs has now completed 2 years toward an Electrical Engineering Degree. HIs children should have a better life because of his educational advantage.

Thai has a rich culture, but has never been a colony, so it lacks the circumspect or advance of seeing another way. They also will watch Thai Soap Operas rather than any thing in English or other foreign language. If they do watch a foreign film they use the Thai language version. They believe and live by Que Sera, Sera.

The key to advancement of any country is a strong educational system, for both girls and boys. There is a school in Bangkok for women only, Goodwill Group School, 69/1 Soi Ruamrudee where the Bar and Street Girls can get free education in English, Math and Computer Skills. Their theory is "Teach the woman of the house and she will teach the others". I did some volunteer teaching there.

Jerry

[daveAustin]

UNICEF does not understan Thailand.

I think you are so wrong! It is common practise in Thailand for a couple or single mother to dump their children on their parents and leave to another city to work. This does not make it right simply because it is done on large scale here.

Leavin a child behind to an elder prevents a child from learning anything except what was learned 50 years ago. It may well be the reason Thais are not creative or imaginative.

It does however leave the child with someone who is already lacking in developmental skills. Although I am not sure about the communicative skills being affected. I do think that emotional growth can be dererred. How can a baby understand the absence of a mother they bonded with at birth or a family they only see on weekends?

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You not unders'tan Thailaaand.

[noitom]

One of the real problems with this story is the elderly Thai man in the photo, presumably great grandpa, as well as his spouse in the sea blue shirt. The gentleman is a tragically typical elder Thai among the everyday Thais. No teeth, undernourished, no education, and totally incapable and lacking any understanding of the concept of parenting, example or guidance. The Thai system for generations doesn't care about these people. The Thai establishment has ignored them and repressed them deep in to its pecking order, exclusion, and marginalizing them, The 3 million and the supposed grandparent or eldest daughter holding the child in the photo are merely extensions of the problem.

The Thai establishment doesn't educate these country people, doesn't provide adequate health care and of course no education. Inside that aluminum siding shack is a 52" flat panel TV and it's a certainty that a brand new Toyota truck is in view of the shack. Just because the baby and the grandmother look well fed, doesn't mean that they are healthy. The baby and the grandmother will look like the great grandparents in 30 years and 50 years respectively. It's a dark depressing photograph that captures the cycle of Thainess and exclusion beautifully. The Thai elite business class establishment should take note that this is Thailand and they are there.

[seajae]

one thing that does surprise me here is the lack of responsibility some people show. If you cant afford to support/have kids then dont have them there is no excuse these days with all the contraception available. The other side is how do you reconcile leaving.giving your kids to others while you p*ss off and rarely see them just so you can live your lifestyle, maybe if thais started to take responsibility for what they do this might not be as bad. I see the same with their pets, they have dogs but dont play with them, take them for walks, wash them at all and rarely feed them instead letting them run wild and rip into everyone elses rubbish, again no responsibility. Doing all the same things your grandparents did is no excuse, they need to accept change and move with it instead of simply repeatrng the same old adage. This has nothing to do with thainess but simply laziness and lack of caring in a lot of cases. The sooner people accept they have a responsibility to their kids the better, might stop a lot of the crap we continually read about.

[ratcatcher]

Maybe Angelina can drop by this family's residence and find out why the man in the background is so skeletally thin.

Is his daughter, presumably the child's grandmother, eating all the rice?

[gchurch259]

Why have children if you're not going to care for them yourself? Human parenthood is about the enjoyment of raising your own offspring. These absent parents are no more than sperm and egg donors.

A lot of the children are a product of "Occupational Hazard" for the working girls, "Ladies" and the sooner they have them and leave with Mama the sooner they get back to work. Having said that some of the Mothers do try to give them a better chance in life by sending money home for the child and grandparents.

Jerry

[Borzandy]

..."the national ratio of 21 per cent of children who live with caregivers, such as their grandparents, has alarmed experts from overseas."

Those "experts from overseas" sometimes seem to have a small problem with understanding that they cannot project their values and opinions upon another culture.

Should be interesting to know what are you calling "another culture"

[timewilltell]

"It is the culture here, for some, to pass the kids off to the grandparents to bring up while the parent works to provide what little they can in the way of financial support." timewilltell

What solution do the UNICEF freeloaders provide for the reality of being poor. Would they rather have them starve or stay on the farm or in the village with no chance of improvement in the future.

I am sure they would not want that. Perhaps they want some recognition of the issues and action to start to reduce those problems. Highlighting a problem has to occur before something is done to reduce its effects.

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[catweazle]

Always a great read when western organisations try to force themselves onto Thai culture with their ignorant dogooder activism, not understanding a thing about Thailand and Thais at all.

To tackle this problem would require a long list of changes, starting perhaps with relentless legal action against male "Wai Loon" youngsters (and of course adults) who impregnate underage Thai girls along with an array of special rights given to impregnated girls and parents to sue and put out warrants on the "dads" who - in Thailand - usually flee to another Changwat to dodge responsibility and continue to do what they can do best - do wheelies on their pimped-up Honda Clicks and impregnate underage girls... The girls on the other hand need not only be educated about contraception and STDs, but more than the latter, they need to be taught how to physically fight back and get away from boys who try to push the envelope. Very often in Thailand, first sex between teenagers is more of a statutory rape, rather than an enjoyable experience for the girls. Thai girls - due to their upbringing and the thousands of years old culture of submission towards people who are older, have an elevated status, are richer, or more educated, women towards men, etc. need to be reformed and best put in the trash if this country wants to move forward...

So what happens if 15 year old "Nok" is pregnant? Kid is given to the parents or uncle and aunt back in "Roi Et" and (after the obligatory few months working in a Bkk based factory or outlet) it all goes straight downhill from here to the girlie bars of Thailand. If the girl has a lucky strike, she'll find a nice foreigner who doesn't mind the kid and marries her, but these fairy tales also are on the decrease since the sex industry becomes more and more aggressive and impersonal, what was not the case some 15 years ago.

There would be so much to say regarding the typical downhill spiral of an impregnated girl (and her kids), this stupid submissive behaviour, education and upbringing of children in Thailand, but to change all this to the better will take centuries and sure more than a NGO or other organisation trying to tell Thais what to do. They need to learn and understand it themselves and best - make everything look like it was their own idea. Walking in with the raised index finger and a "teacher who knows better attitude" will achieve nothing!

Edited June 24, 2014 by catweazle

[timewilltell]

In our tambon, we have one village that is 20k away in the hills, almost an hours journey on hill tracks. There's about a dozen kids from this village that have to live with grandparents, relatives nearer the school during term time. So there's another reason why they don't live with their parents. From what I've seen, kids learn much more from their peers than any parental guidance, One girl, for example, is a constant visitor to our immediate neighbour's daughter who is quite bright and computer literate. They spend much time together on the internet - something I'm sure would not be available if she had to live with her parents up in the hills (no internet access for a start). My own wife, before I met her had 2 boys to bring up with her husband disappeared, totally incompatible with her work as a nurse (shift patterns etc), in the city. The 2 boys were brought up by their grandmother, who did an excellent job. Both boys hold degrees now, with the youngest tackling an M.Sc. So some of these generalisations just don't hold up against the 'Western model' - it works in Thailand.

But you cannot overcome the thrust of a generalization by quoting a couple of instances where the generalization is wrong. I think there are far more kids who do not have the same experiences that you describe and there will always be exceptions, that's why it is a generalization.

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[seajae]

Why have children if you're not going to care for them yourself? Human parenthood is about the enjoyment of raising your own offspring. These absent parents are no more than sperm and egg donors.

A lot of the children are a product of "Occupational Hazard" for the working girls, "Ladies" and the sooner they have them and leave with Mama the sooner they get back to work. Having said that some of the Mothers do try to give them a better chance in life by sending money home for the child and grandparents.

Jerry

contraception stops occupational hazards, there is no excuse except laziness. They want to make money by playing hide the sausage with different men they need to take precautions, simple. Pawning off their mistakes on the grandparents and abandoning their kids isnt the answer.

[AGareth2]

better than walking the streets

[antimedia]

The grandparents are to old to work and there is no pension scheme to support them. Most worked on the family farm all their lives and there was never a superannuation plan. Thai are generally family orientated so the children go off to make money to help support their elderly parents and in return the grandparents take care of the grandchildren. Everyone scratching everyones back. Definitely not ideal but if there is no work in the regions what can they do.

Governments should try and encourage big businesses/manufacturing to set up in these regional areas to provide jobs that way more families would probably stay together. Invest in the countries future.

It is correct what you say but unfortunately that is changing , in my village the parents are now a lot younger who themselves only will work spasmodically when they are not stoned on ya ba or lao khow. What money they do earn, they use to support their habits like phones and drugs. Usually what happens is the Great grandparents who are far from capable, end up looking after the kids while grandparents work to try and support all, which at the end of the day their is only one result, disaster.

On top of this, we live in a rice farming community so things have gone from bad to worse.

Your last paragraph is I believe the answer, there is a lot of state land available, so with the right incentives offered by the government to manufacturing based business there would be a win win situation all round. Back it up with funded community education and involvement and slowly it can be turned around.

[catweazle]

better than walking the streets

While it of course would help to improve the overall situation of kids living with caregivers and increase the chances for Thai mothers to raise their kids themselves, you got a point here!

[Sandman77]

No kid or parents have to make a report where the children live, so where this number of 3 million comes from?

[The Usual Suspect]

"Experts" from overseas are alarmed? Perhaps they should take their studies to America for a little relativity! I try to do my research before I post a comment, and lo and behold, look what I found.

"March 2012) Growing numbers of children in the United States are living with a grandparent. In 2010, about one in 14 U.S. children (7 percent) lived in a household headed by a grandparent—for a total of 5.4 million children, up from 4.7 million in 2005.1 These grandparent-headed households have helped fuel the rise in multi-generational households, a category that includes households with and without minor children.2"

These are old numbers, and it's a pretty good bet that current figures will show an increase. I do realize that these are "per capita" figures, but this is a worldwide problem, not just here in Thailand.

If you would like to peruse the article here's the link, or you can Google it yourself.

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/US-children-grandparents.aspx

[inutil]

ugh. There was an excellent post in this thread about culture. Got lots of likes, well deserved. But try and keep some perspective (not the poster who wrote it). This is just one part of the issue. This whole castigation of Thai women as being utterly irresponsible and sleeping around is ridiculously over the top. You can argue against 'TiT' as an excuse to keep things as they are. But you cant just pretend like there arent specific cultural and social factors that require long term attitudinal and dare i say, cultural changes. The Unicef report will illustrate the harmful effects for child development, and this is right, but what it wont do is suggest that everyone immediately return to their village, pick up their kids and head to bangkok so they can all live in the wonderfully nurturing environment of a tiny overcrowded dorm room (with 6 employees sleeping there before heading to their 12 hour shift for 10,000 baht/month) There are huge social issues that have to also be factored in, including, but in no way restricted to massive rural poverty. There are also strong cultural issues pertaining to childcare, childhood, pregnancy, contraception, education, and family on top of this. These things dont just have a special 'off' switch.

Its fine to say that Thai children are being failed and that something should be done, but its not fine to suggest that every parent of Thai children who leave their children at home while they go to find work to support them are irresponsible bar girls or little prince thai men who treat their children like commodities. Thats pure racist bullshit.

Edited June 24, 2014 by inutil

[scorecard]

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thesetat2013, on 24 Jun 2014 - 07:32, said:thesetat2013, on 24 Jun 2014 - 07:32, said:

daveAustin, on 24 Jun 2014 - 07:21, said:daveAustin, on 24 Jun 2014 - 07:21, said:

UNICEF does not understan Thailand.

I think you are so wrong! It is common practise in Thailand for a couple or single mother to dump their children on their parents and leave to another city to work. This does not make it right simply because it is done on large scale here.
Leavin a child behind to an elder prevents a child from learning anything except what was learned 50 years ago. It may well be the reason Thais are not creative or imaginative.
It does however leave the child with someone who is already lacking in developmental skills. Although I am not sure about the communicative skills being affected. I do think that emotional growth can be dererred. How can a baby understand the absence of a mother they bonded with at birth or a family they only see on weekends?

Sent from my GT-S5310 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Case in point, my Thai adult son works with a Thai guy who sent all of his three kids home to live with grandma in Chaiyapoom within a few weeks of birth.

Ages now about 10, 8, 7.

None of them go regularly to school which is about 10 kilometres away from granny's house. Why? Granny (who is illiterate and never been to school for one day) says, 'kids go to school to play, they can play at home, no need to send them to school.' My son asked 'how come to school doesn't insist they come to school every day (as required by Thai law)? Answer. 'Oh I know the headmasters aunty (or something similar) so he doesn't check.'

Granny (not her fault) knows little about nutrition.

The kids see their parents for 1 to 2 days about twice per year. They came to the city a few months ago for 2 days, there is close to zero communication between the parents and the children, in fact they are strangers.

There are lots of reasons / causes etc., sometimes it's pure laziness on the part of the parents, as in the case above. One of the reasons is capitalism.

Family values not in the picture at all.

Thammasat university has done a lot of good research on this subject and the findings are all negative in terms of building and maintaining civil society.

Just one point - kids brought up like this very often become poor parents. Why? Because they have no idea how to be parents / they have no idea of the day to day activities and the broad responsibilities of being parents.

Is this only in Thailand? No.

Very sad.

Edited June 24, 2014 by scorecard

[JoeLing]

I don't see anything debatable on this THAI (not foreign) research
and sure they are not wrong with their findings, I just wonder, how
do our western countries compare? Are there any similar researches
done in the different western countries?

How many western kids grow up with Au-Pairs taking care of them?
How many western kids are send to nursery school at the age of 3
or even younger not because of the parents supporting the whole
family but because both parents work in order to maintain their
consumer habits?

How many western grandparents live at home and can take care
of their grand children and are not just dumped in some horrible
"old people's prison" ?

Not that I would say one is worse or better than the other as it
seams, both approaches have about the same impact on our
future generation.

[Eloelo]

"It is the culture here, for some, to pass the kids off to the grandparents to bring up while the parent works to provide what little they can in the way of financial support." timewilltell

What solution do the UNICEF freeloaders provide for the reality of being poor. Would they rather have them starve or stay on the farm or in the village with no chance of improvement in the future.

Children need both parents around for proper development,Unicef doesn't have the solution as it should be the responsibility of the parents to raise there children, if they cant find decent jobs in the local area then the family needs to pack up and go where there is work and take your children with you! if that concept is so difficult to understand you shouldn't have children to begin with but like a lot of rural Thais they don't have children to raise because they care for them they have them so the children can care for there parents. Maybe it is the culture and maybe that is why so many Thais are in financial difficulty and are constantly looking for farangs to bail them out it is called a total lack of responsibility for themselves and there offspring.and Unicef has rightly pointed this out! The reality of being poor is that you shouldn't bring a child into this world unless you are prepared to take responsibility for the child as in the west if someone outs on a responsibility the governments make sure you do your share.. simple

[cooked]

Well I am a grandparent looking after a little girl, obviously I take education more seriously than most people in the village. What happened: her parents wanted her to go to a good school but couldn't really afford it. After splitting up (as parents often do) one went to work in Srirachah (honestly I might add) and the other has started a business in Lampang. Between them they pay the ฿15 000.- a year school fees, and will soon be sending ฿1000.- a month each into a special bank account that will ensure her further schooling. We of course, pay the transport fees, 100Km drive every day.

There are many children living with grandparents in the village, the fathers and mothers that are still here can't afford anything other than the village school. Unless they 'have a Farang'.

On the whole I would prefer kids to grow up out here than in Bangkok or Pattaya, but it is true that pretty badly educated grandparents in general won't be much help in stimulating kids' imaginations. The son in law is very skilled at everything from farming to building and has a good work ethic but he has passed none of these things on to his kids who are incapable of learning anything, not that they are stupid. So the argument grandparents/parents is a complex one, I wouldn't pull any conclusions at all.

Of course I believe your words well, but your story is not a typical story here, and the OP doesn't talk about your situation, but talks about poor and silly farmer families, just take a look to the picture. I guess they don't use computer and of course don't speak English ...

Well, I sort of indicated that mine was not a typical story. However Thais, even out here in the sticks, are becoming aware that without decent schooling, certain jobs will not be accessible to them.

[SanukJoeII]

From my own experience and observations in rural Isan:

1. My ex MIL raised 4 kids herself (first one at 17, then every 2 year a kid), and after that she brought up 3 kids of her sons, as they worked in Bangkok as taxi driver. The youngest of them, now 12 year old "foster" daughter of mine, never saw her mother as parents divorced 6 months after her birth, she saw her father once a year. She has a brother, 6 years older, who called his grandma "Mae" ( like they all do), and thought until he was 12 years of age, that his grandma was his real mum.... Those are the very negative aspects of young people producing babies and then leave. When I see a 60 year old woman carrying a small kid I think: that kid will never play football with his father, or play at all with a parent. Grandparents are too old to raise a child, so are old (55, 65 or even older) farang that so necessarily need to have a baby with their Thai gf. I play volleyball with my daughter and her friends, I'm 65 and can do it, but with pain as I'm overweight too. But I do it, and anyone not being able to give that to their kids too should not have/care for kids.

2. IMO one of the main reasons for this behaviour is the blatant arrogant attitude of Thai men. They marry young, make a baby or two, see another girl and leave the "old" (16-18) girl with the words: "You can keep the baby, bye". They never pay a single baht for their offspring, and even if the law would be changed in that a biological father has to pay for his kids' education until they are 18, they will pretend to not have the money to do so.

I mentioned married young. Another source of problems. They marry here easily at the age of 15, 16, have a baby when 17, divorce when 18. As the girl stopped her education because of being pregnant, she cannot be independent and have a job easily. She sticks to her mother who might tell her after a while (if she does not find another husband) that she should go out and get income, the way to do that is for many girls to go Pattaya and the like, and sell their bodies, at the same time exploring possibilities to find a farang husband.

So concluding, they should not marry that young, not have babies that young, men should take responsibility for their kids, and girls should put more pressure on themselves to keep on studying and make themselves independent from any man at all.

Although I agree that "foreign experts" have no clue about Thailand, it is good that this subject is raised now, it has to change!

[inutil]

Total opposite is true. The reality in the west is that if you dont do your share, there is a network of support to help you. With childcare, education, free school meals, breakfast clubs, child benefits, tax breaks, welfare benefits when the work dried up, top up credits, family tax credits, rent support, social work/care workers, counselling, free healthcare, sex education, free contraception, access to foster care, abortions, medicine and oh my god everything else.

[Kudel]

Yes guys, these are are pretty true. BUT have you ever heard about these nationwide poor people's economical compulsion?

The round:

They can't get normal (good money) salary at home nationwide (mostly Isaan).

They come to Bkk to work, but their salary here is not enough also for take care of children in Bkk, cause both of them have to work. Mostly they are employed in factories in 2 or 3 shifts.

The one and only solution if their parents take care of their kids and they send monthly 2-3000 B which is enough for basic expenses.

So this won't be changed during the next 10 years.

But when visiting isaan i see nothing else then top of the notch pick up trucks ,flat screen tv's and tablets and i-phones and football stadiums and race tracks so i guess something must have changed in twenty years of visiting said part of Thailand.....poor isaan ,i don't think so.........

[inutil]

Never heard of conspicuous consumption? Never thought that people might be driven by the projection of status much like everywhere else on the planet with access to a consumer society and an advertising/marketing network?

[Kudel]

Never heard of conspicuous consumption? Never thought that people might be driven by the projection of status much like everywhere else on the planet with access to a consumer society and an advertising/marketing network?

So whats your point?I think you also came from said consumer society in the west ,maybe a baby boomer generation who's pension will last longer in said country for now intill shit hits the fan.........

[Bakseeda]

and its for the benefit of all us single Farangs.... all those bar-girls would not be here if they had to baby-sit... all salute to the grandparents for taking care....

[inutil]

My point is that these things arent indicative of wealth. In poor areas in particular, theyre often indicative of debt.

Edited June 24, 2014 by inutil

[JoeLing]

Always a great read when western organisations try to force themselves onto Thai culture with their ignorant dogooder activism, not understanding a thing about Thailand and Thais at all.

Please could you elaborate which western organisations that would be?

[canuckamuck]

This is not just a problem arising from knocked up teenagers. In this country it is simply more acceptable to have someone else raise your child, the reason why, I do not know.

I have quite a number of friends involved with NGO's and charities. Many of them run children's homes that are supposed to be for kids that have no other options. But there are a tremendous amount of requests to take kids from married parents as well as from unmarried women. Usually they have a lie already in place, that the mom is dead or in prison or they are just too poor. But through due diligence it is quite often discovered that the story is false and they just want someone else to raise the kid until they can be an earner. I have personally driven kids back to their natural families after they have left a children's home. And seen that the family they left is not only whole, but relatively prosperous.

I can't get my head around it, I hate to be apart from my kids for a day, and I cringe when they are in the care of some of our relatives. It is another part of Thainess that I am never going to understand.

Edited June 24, 2014 by canuckamuck