Philippine E-Journals

The purpose of this study is to find out how a husband links with his overseas-based wife and how he relates with his adolescent children. There is a need to elicit his thoughts and perceptions concerning children’s discipline, sibling and peer relations. Hopefully, new knowledge and insights from this study would lead fathers to enrich their relationships with absent-wife and motherless children.

Twenty five (25, 84 % professionals) respondents were chosen through purposive sampling, whose wives were abroad, and whose children were in the secondary level in private non-sectarian schools in Metro Manila. A 2-page structured questionnaire with items answerable with ‘almost always’ to ‘almost never’, equivalent to scores of 5 to 1, was used. Mean ratings for each item were computed.

Results revealed how respondents communicated with their spouse, the topics they discussed, and the reasons why adolescent-children communicated with the respondents.

Findings discuss how respondent-fathers express their social, emotional and financial support and involvement with their children which possibly contributed to the wife’s staying overseas.

In-depth studies exploring the different dimensions of fathering children of various ages, of father-daughter and father-son dyads, employing multiple research approaches, are suggested to further understanding the issues involved.