(30) Children from rich families

My good friend has three sisters. All the three sisters received sizable inheritance from their parents. On top of that, sister number 1 worked at a successful business with her husband. Sister number 2 is enterprising, she has further accumulated wealth on her own. Sister number three and her husband both work at high paying jobs.

All three sisters have grown children. The interesting point is that none of the children of these three families are married. The ages of the children range from 35 to 21, there are equal number of boys and girls. One day my good friend was wondering aloud why her three nieces from her second sister are still unmarried. The nieces are aged 33, 29 and 27 respectively. At that time, another niece from her third sister answered,"Well! They live in a house with amenities that are better than those offered by a 5 star hotel, why should they get married and move out? There is no way they can afford to buy a house up to the standard that they are accustomed to." That was the opinion of a 23 year old.

Today I visited a childhood friend whose husband has done exceedingly well financially. Her house costs her husband about $3 million. I look at the size, the decoration, the lighting fixture, the air-conditioners in every room, the furniture, the curtains... and I have to agree that to live in such a house is more comfortable than in any hotel I have been to. Co-incidentally there are four daughters and three sons who are still single. The youngest off spring is 24 years old. Is there some truth in what the 23 year old girl said? Right at this point I have to bring in the traditional Chinese belief that a Chinese man is an utter failure in life if he does not propagate his blood lines, no matter how rich and successful in life he is.

When I told my husband about what I observed, he told me that 80% of the world's resources is in the hands of 20% of the population. The rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. As we have famine in Africa, even people in my country are spending hundreds of thousands in slimming. He is reading about The Tear Fund, they raise fund for poverty eradication programs and well digging in dirt poor communities. For every pound they raised, the country receiving it is repaying three pounds in loans bearing high interest to another richer country. The world's economic system is shaped in such a way that there are in built injustice. Contrasting to the rich people I have tried to describe above, the poor have many children. Isn't it funny? Those who can afford to may choose to be childless. And those who cannot even feed the children from one day to the next continue to have one baby after another.