Are you Really your Parents’ Insurance Plan?

We hear time and time again, that children should not be their parents’ insurance plan. As the eldest child of a Filipino household, I had confusing emotions about this issue. As a breadwinner, I learned at a young age that taking care of my family is my duty. However, it is so much more than that.

The Surface

I completely understand that “children not being an insurance plan” is a criticism of those that have children for all of the wrong reasons. Traditional Filipino parents think that having children is about having someone that would take care of them when they’re older. Children that would help their professional frustrations into reality. In these terms, I agree, children do not have the responsibility of bearing the weight of being their parents’ pension plans.

The Other Side

However, we have to look at the other side of the coin. What about those parents who have poured out their efforts, savings, and lives for the education of their children?

My parents, for example, have lived their entire lives for my education. They were not able to avail private insurance plan because all of their money and earnings were being put into my future. Does this mean that after I start to build my own future, I should not take them with me?

The Issue here is Insurance Plans

I think that this narrative has some truth. It is true that viewing one’s children as investment opportunities are traditional toxic Filipino traits that we have to deconstruct and unlearn.

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However, I also think that this narrative is distracting us from seeing the true problem. The true issue here is the lack of sufficient wages in the country that makes it impossible for parents to afford to support their children while paying annual premiums for insurance plans.

Only 4% of Filipinos have insurance coverage. The lack of financial literacy in the country is a major part of this problem. So maybe, instead of blaming our parents for making us their insurance plans, we should blame the system for giving our parents no other choice.

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insurance plan

Precious Paronable

Precious' only desire for the future is to be more human. The world we live in has shackled us in the limitations of practicality that we are taught that to be human is to be weak. She wants to change that narrative and attempt to prove that the best way to progress and equality is by amplifying our humanity. Believe it or not- she absurdly believes that this could be done through writing. On a more formal and boring note she has a journalism degree with plans to pursue legal studies in the future.