March 27, 2008

Nitpicking

This is nitpicking, I know. But I came across this birth certificate proclaiming that the kid's father was/is "unknown". And the occupation of the kid's 19-year-old (obviously single) mother? "Housewife."

The thing is, how can you be a housewife when you are technically not a wife?

The girl at the office told me that they are instructed to put "housewife" in the slot for "occupation" when the mother has no job.

Right. As if being a housewife is not a full-time job.

6 comments:

buday said...

Can't they simply write "unemployed"? And to think house"wives" put in longer hours of UNPAID work than those who work outside the home. Ipa-seminar nga natin yang nag-utos na yan sa Dalai Lama para ma-enlighten, hehe.

feng said...

hi Ana! alam mo, napaisip ako dyan ah.

naalala ko tuloy yung isang birth certificate din na nabasa ko. married naman yung mother, sa katunayan, yung husband nya ay tricycle driver. pero what caught my eye was the mother's occupation, nakalagay housekeeper. don't know if it was written purposely or nawala lang sa isip nung gumawa ng birth certificate na dapat housewife ang nakalagay.

Anna said...

hi feng! naku, kailangan talagang bantayan ang mga important records like birth and marriage certificates. i have a friend who was born in taiwan and kahit she was born to a filipino father ang nationality nya is taiwanese. yung husband naman nya is filipino. when their kid secured a copy of their marriage certificate lumabas na yung husband na ang taiwanese and yung friend ko na yung filipino. grabe tuloy ang perwisyo just to set the records straight.

Anna said...

boods, basta walang trabaho na babae housewife daw. e kung ang lalaki kaya ang jobless: househusband kaya?

Swipe said...

Hi, got here through abaniko. I think this qualifies for Readers' Digests' "All in a days's work."

Some women now write Full-Time mother as their occupation instead of housewife which I think is highly appropriate.

Anna said...

hi swipe. thanks for dropping by. really, there ought to be a law officially proclaiming "full-time mother" as an occupation instead of the statistics people generically coding stay-at-home moms as "housewives."