Raising a Fil-Am with Philippine Beauty Standards | Jay's Philippines

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]My daughter was judged before she could walk.

[00:00:03]There you go. That's faster.

[00:00:04]>> Her color, her nose, her skin tone. She was just days old and someone sent me a text message and asked me if I had a DNA test because she didn't look like me.

[00:00:15]Welcome to the Philippines beauty culture. It's a world built on incredibly rigid specific standards.

[00:00:26]And because my daughter is growing up here, I need to talk about it honestly today.

[00:00:33]>> I need to decide right now how I'm going to prepare her for what's coming.

[00:00:40]>> Ma, like and subscribe and give a heart at a comment.

[00:00:44]>> Time three.

[00:00:47]>> 300 * 3. Oh, that's a I know. 900 >> 900 >> In America, the country stops for the NBA finals, Super Bowls, college basketball championships.

[00:01:08]In the Philippines, it stops for Miss Universe. Beauty pageantss here aren't just entertainment. They are a national obsession. And that pressure starts early.

[00:01:20]Children as young as six are enrolled in pageant training. Talent matters, but beauty comes first. This is just the honest reality of the culture.

[00:01:35]The standard is unforgivingly specific.

[00:01:39]Skin color. The lighter the better. It's a multi-million dollar industry of soaps, creams, and injections designed to erase the sun.

[00:01:49]Next is the nose. A higher, more western bridge is considered the ultimate prize, prompting many to seek surgery just to change how they face the world.

[00:02:01]This isn't just on television. It's woven into daily life.

[00:02:08]In elementary school, classrooms elect a muse alongside a president.

[00:02:16]In adulthood, job applications openly look for pleasing personality.

[00:02:22]That is coded phrase. It means you are being weighed and measured on your appearance before you even open your mouth to speak.

[00:02:30]Now, let me tell you how this dynamic actually came into our household from the very beginning. Well, when I met Adeline, she was 33 years old. I was 44.

[00:02:37]Both of us getting ready to turn a year older very soon. To me, I didn't think anything about the age. It was a fine age gap, 11 years difference basically.

[00:02:45]But even in the Philippines at that time that I was openly laughed at by several of the people that I was seeing before I met Idolan. It took me a bit to quite understand what they were really saying.

[00:02:54]They were telling me the woman I was dating and going to eventually marry and you know had her daughter with was old at 33 years old. Expats didn't come to the Philippines to meet old women. And I came there in my first trip and was dating such an old woman. According to them, you see here in America, if I was dating a 33-year-old woman when I was 44, nobody would have thought nothing of it. They would have been fine. than normal. In fact, it might have been considered she's a little young for me.

[00:03:17]In the Philippines, she was literally considered much too old for me.

[00:03:42]And that was just the beginning of learning some cultural differences. I can't pretend the laughing didn't get me thinking cuz honestly I never had thought like that before. Going to the Philippines, I really did not know what I was coming for other than escape and they had lots of islands with lots of beaches. That was pretty much the end of it. Meeting people was obvious too. I started getting friend requests from people in the Philippines cuz I was liking things in the Philippines islands. I was liking things in comment sections on YouTube and stuff. So I did have a little base of meeting people before I got there. so to speak, talking to him online a little bit. So, I knew it was going to be interesting once I got there, but it never occurred to me the ages. So, when Adeline got pregnant and we realized we were going to have to make a big decision, be together, get married, and raise his daughter together, I didn't ever think about like, man, she's 33 years old. Never occurred to me to think like that. It was the other girls that I was dating before I met Idelyn that kind of took offense to it like they were younger than Idol. and they were in their 20s and they thought I was crazy to date a woman that age.

[00:04:44]And it got me thinking, what have I done? Is this really a big deal? 11 years age gap for me in Idland. I thought that was a good Okay, she's not as old as me. Great.

[00:04:56]>> I was saying something.

[00:05:03]>> Hi.

[00:05:09]You know, we all have our prime in life at some point. You know, my MVP basketball days, I used to have a great head of hair. You know, spiky hair. I loved it. You know, those days were long gone. You know, many, many years gone.

[00:05:22]Not on the same way. In their 30s, and in many ways, some people definitely judge them as they are. You're in your 30s. You've had your best years, especially in the Philippines. The youth and beauty standards in the Philippines definitely doesn't trend towards a 30-ome year old girl. They definitely noticed the younger girls in the 20s and teens.

[00:05:41]When Carrie was born, she was just a tiny brand new baby and those immediate family and online comments started.

[00:05:50]Today she's seven. Her film features are celebrated and the exact same culture that judged her at birth now calls her beautiful.

[00:06:00]That's a wild complexity.

[00:06:14]Wise men say only fools rush in.

[00:06:26]But I can't help.

[00:06:32]Can I smoosh your nose?

[00:06:37]>> It has a dark side that judges a child before she has a face.

[00:06:44]>> But it also has a profound warmth that celebrates her in a way Kentucky never will.

[00:06:49]>> Crossing the line and don't look back.

[00:06:56]Think I was broken.

[00:07:00]I needed some time to clear my head cuz I I've made all the mistakes and I've dealt with the heartbreaks but I think that I found my way.

[00:07:18]Cuz I've been sinking like a stone. Carolina take me home. Nothing's ever really broken. I won't let you go.

[00:07:34]>> At first, I thought people were just complimenting my daughter. But after a while, I realized something.

[00:07:39]>> They weren't just noticing her. They were measuring her, her nose, her features, how foreign she looked. And honestly, the realization hit me hard because suddenly, this wasn't just culture anymore. This was my daughter's future.

[00:07:57]Someone privately suggested I should get DNA test >> and I heard that more than once.

[00:08:05]>> She was only days old.

[00:08:07]These standards begin far earlier than most people think.

[00:08:18]>> Nothing's ever really broken. I won't let you go.

[00:08:25]Now, I'm not going to act like those things make me mad, cuz honestly, they don't. I don't let little things bother me. You know, you're going to hear things when you're online. You're going to hear little slights here and there.

[00:08:33]You're going to hear backhanded compliments. And you're going to get innuendos about your child, even whether you post them online or not. And we got our own reasons for things that we're doing. I definitely don't let little things get to me. Somebody asking I should get a DNA test. I find it kind of a chuckle. I laugh. Those things don't make me mad.

[00:08:53]Whoa, >> you got that one.

[00:08:56]>> That was a good one.

[00:09:06]>> This is just one of the great things about the Philippines. Let me tell you, it's always going to be something. If I was raising a son right now, I wouldn't even be thinking any of these things.

[00:09:13]But because I had a daughter in the Philippines, these are going to be things I'm having to deal with constantly. I'm not going to lie, maybe raising a boy might have been just a little bit easier. Or maybe it would have been hard. I just don't understand what the ways it would have been as hard. Cuz tell you what, thinking about all these things I got to deal with as I get old in the Philippines, especially when she's about 10 years older. Man, I'm going to be 63 in 10 years.

[00:09:35]I'm going to have to keep hitting those weights.

[00:09:51]So, how do I raise a daughter in a culture that worships beauty without letting it define her?

[00:09:58]Simple. I don't care about the beauty pageantss.

[00:10:02]I'm entirely focused on who is she going to be when the window closes because the window closes for everyone.

[00:10:09]Looks fade, titles fade.

[00:10:12]And when your peak window passes, you're either left with something real underneath or you are forgotten.

[00:10:23]Beauty phase. Everybody's got a small window in time where their beauty might peak. And if that's all she had to really think about, I wouldn't be very happy. So, I'm really going to be trying to raise my daughter on fitness and health. I want her to be strong. Good days, bad days, she's got the strength to get her butt to the gym and take care of herself. Not let society and life take her down. You know, you always got something to fall back on whether you're 20 or you're 40. Learning skills like the piano, the guitar, singing, dance, health and fitness, gym stuff, those are skills you take on for a lifetime. I don't know about this beauty thing. I'm still learning it in the Philippines, although I've been watching it for quite a while now. Having strong self-awareness, understanding the life that's going on all around her, learning what people might judge her like, might think of her, you know, what her expectations of herself is, making sure she's a good person in society, making sure she tries to help people, and she's considerate of other people, manners, little things like that. That goes a long way in this world. And just to be clear, I'm not judging beauty competitions in the Philippines. I think it's great. Nothing wrong with it at all. Besides, this is a Philippine thing. It's not my position to judge it.

[00:11:28]This is their country and they know it better than I ever will. When I look at where the obsession comes from, I kind of understand it better than I used to.

[00:11:35]The Spanish influence, the American influence. For generations, lighter skin has been promoted, popularized in the Philippines, and kids have been raised on it. So, I understand where it comes from.

[00:11:53]And when a Filipino wins Miss Universe, it isn't vanity or something negative.

[00:11:57]It's an underestimated nation standing on a global stage saying, "We are here.

[00:12:01]We matter." I deeply respect that.

[00:12:11]And the Miss Universe obsession, I understand where that comes from, too.

[00:12:15]The Philippines has been looked down on for a long, long time. And when you have something as like the Miss Universe, the Philippines really gets to finally stand up and cheer for something. I remember the Olympics, some powerlters did some good, won some gold medals. I remember watching Pacquiao for years, long before I knew anything about the Philippines.

[00:12:31]Manny Pacquiao was a my favorite fighter, you know, 20 years ago, long before I had even thought about buying a plane ticket to the Philippines. I remember a young Manny Pacquiao. I remember hearing things in the news even when before a whole lot of YouTube stuff was ever out that, you know, the whole Philippines is cheering for, you know, Manny Pacquiao. didn't even realize it was going to be a part of my life. So when I got my daughter raising there, part of the upbringing there is I want her to understand the importance of these significant things in the Philippines. While they could be silly to some people, I understand they're very important to others. The Philippines doesn't always get a lot of acknowledgement for the great things the country offers. You know, it always boils down to some few people talking about the same things over and over again, good or bad. But there's so much more to the Philippines. And raising a daughter there, I want her to understand all that. I don't want her to be an outsider who's living in the Philippines. I want her to embrace it and be a part of it and feel like she's included in it because she spent her life there. She's only been out of the Philippines for a few years at this point and she's getting ready to spend the most of the rest of her life in the Philippines. So, I'm quite confident she'll be embraced and be a part of the normal culture there because she's going to face these standards. She's going to hear these things. It's going to be a part of her culture and she will be compared and she will be judged. That's just a fact of life. I'm 53 and I still get judged.

[00:13:46]My daughter is going to grow up in the Philippines.

[00:13:51]She is going to face these standards.

[00:13:54]She is going to be measured and she is going to be judged and she is going to be ready.

[00:14:01]Not because she fits their mold, but because she knows exactly who she is going to be regardless of it.

[00:14:11]That is the job. That is all of it. On a side note here, log in with a little.

[00:14:27]For me personally, that's why I like making my happy videos. I understand my happy videos really annoy some local expats, but when I make videos, I really do make videos of what I experience.

[00:14:37]When I make happy looking videos, it's cuz I'm happy. When I show things that we're doing having fun, it's because I'm having fun. That's why I don't make videos of things I don't experience.

[00:14:47]There's bad all around my country in the United States. I don't make videos about it. I'm not going to make videos about in the Philippines cuz that's not the life I'm living. I'm not an editorial documentary channel. I'm a guy vlogging his experience in the Philippines.

[00:15:05]>> But I think that I found my way.

[00:15:10]I've been sinking like a stone.

[00:15:13]Carolina, take me home. Nothing's ever really broken. I won't let you go. I'm finding my way right back to you. I'll find my