I was having a long chat with a wise old friend. When topic turned to the influence of TV over children, I discovered for the first time that he and his wife brought up four children in the nation's affluent capital with no television in the house. I have great respect for families who could resist the idiot box.
We talked about passing down values to our next generation. At which point I told him about an eight year old girl who talks about nothing except luxuries and expensive flashy things in the home. Since there is nothing wrong with being rich enough to live in a well equipped and decorated comfortably big house, how can such parents avoid bringing up children who are too money faced?
He said that the parents of this child must have subtly passed on what I have seen in the child. Examples are like changing cars every two years, each time for a more expensive model. There is really no real need to change a car until it reaches four or five years. Perhaps the lady of the house changes her curtains every year, even before the curtains have a chance to age...
It turned out that he was right. The next time I saw the girl, she was showing off by telling another person that she has many hand phones. Now, pray tell me why a mother needs to buy more than two hand phones for one child? Unless each time dad and mum changes hand phone, the girl collected them all. If the girl attends a government school, she is not allowed to bring hand phones to school anyway. Even in a private school, hand phones are kept in a locked box during class room hours. It is ok to work hard and build up wealth. There is nothing wrong to enjoy one's wealth. But if a person worships either the wealth or the luxuries that wealth brings, it is inevitable that they may beget children like my show-off girl.
No comments:
Post a Comment