Heart Transplant

      A mother's love for her child is like no other. Any caring mother spends years and years of her life raising her children, but what happens if a loving mother cannot be there to support and love her child when they need her most? This is one of the questions explored in the article "The Nanny Dilemma" by Susan Cheever. Many women from third countries have to migrate overseas to find good work to support their families, leaving millions of children to live in single parents households or households run by their extended families. In the Philippines, 30% of children (about 8 million) are in that very situation.
      These women choose to find work overseas due to the discrepancies between 1st and 3rd world countries. A doctor in the Philippines makes about as much as a maid or nanny in the United States, and so for women with limited education, a salary in the United States can do a great deal for their families. But this comes at a cost. These women are away from home for years at a time, living as foreigners and outsiders often in their employer's homes. They know few people, and work long hours at an often monotonous. As any person would, these women can become overcome with sadness, loneliness and depression, not to mention the fact that many a time they feel guilty for leaving behind their children. And that is the part that struck me most about the article. Because of their guilt, and a whole host of negative emotions, the nannies transplant the love that they wish that they could give and show towards their own children to their employer's children. The loneliness feeds a love for these children. And while I suppose it is good that the nannies truly love and care for the children they are paid to look after, it is sad that this happens because of the hopelessness that these women feel because they cannot raise their own children. In the article Cheever revealed that often the nannies end up loving their employer's children more than their own children. The employer's children are there for the nannies emotional well-being and happiness and then the nannies respond back with love and care. The nannies find solace in loving the children they must care for, as if it rids them of the guilt they feel at not caring for their own children. They know they are doing something positive for a child, regardless of whom the child belongs to.
      While a great service is being done for the women who go out to have careers and hire these nannies, I find it quite sad that the nannies cannot love and care for their own children. The children suffer and the mothers suffer. This article spoke to me and evoked sadness because I wish that something would be done to reunite these families. But there seems to be few possible solutions. The women need to the money to sustain their families, what good is the mother being home if she cannot make enough money to help her children succeed in life?