|
|
|
| Welfare and Spoiled Children |
|---|
| message from SunnyJim on 20 Aug 2001 |
This piece was in the NP on saturday. Reading it kind of suprised me
in that the attitude of spoiled children and welfare recipients (at
least the popular image) is virtually identical.
Replace parents with government and it reads the same.
The salient bits are here:
"It doesn't start with the cars or houses. It starts in a supermarket,
with a toy," she says.
"What kids learn is, 'I don't have to be responsible. I don't have to
save, I don't have to do without anything, I don't have to sacrifice
because if I get into trouble my parents will bail me out.' "
"When you indulge a child, you are doing one of the most unloving
things you can because you are creating weakness instead of strength,"
Parents believe their children will be grateful, but often they are
not. Instead the children never learn to stand on their own feet,
never develop the feeling that they are capable, and eventually learn
to hate their parents for not giving them more, Dr. Nelson says.
The last paragraph (above) says it all.
A generation's cry: Gucci-koochee-koo
Experts emphasize the crux is not what you give, but how
Francine Dubé
National Post
Glenn Lowson, National Post
THE BOOTIES COST $220, THE RATTLE'S A STEAL AT $180: CONSPICUOUS
PARENTING IS REACHING NEW HEIGhts: A Toronto youngster goes gaga over
two tokens of conspicuous parenting, Gucci booties and a Birks
sterling silver rattle.
Lyle Stafford, National Post
Gucci baby booties are flying off the shelves at $220 a pop and
made-to-order Gucci mink coats for the drooling class -- kids aged six
months to one year -- will soon be available in Canada, at $5,500
each. Parents are plunking down $3,500 for diamond tennis bracelets
for teenage daughters, and Mont Blanc pens, once the mark of serious
money, are now popular gifts for pre-teen boys.
Sony is planning a big splashy launch for a new high-end toy in
Canada, a robotic pet that will "grow up," respond to its name, even
learn words, all for the low, low price of $2,300.
Conspicuous consumers since they earned their first paycheques, Baby
Boomers, now in the prime of their working lives, are spending more
money on their progeny than any generation before them. Their progeny,
in turn, are spending profligately on their own children.
There is no end of variously credited experts lining up to denounce
the trend, but not everyone agrees the road to ruin is paved with
designer labels.
Ray Peters, a professor of psychology at Queen's University and an
expert in child development, points out that people are always going
to have different amounts of disposable income to spend on their
children.
"For kids, I don't think it's so much how much they're given, it's how
much they learn to work for what they get," he says. "It's important
for them to learn lessons about doing work and having responsibility."
Nonetheless, the figures are startling, even for a society well versed
in excess.
The owner of Kids at Home, a children's clothing and custom furniture
store in Toronto's The Beach neighbourhood, says one of her customers
recently spent $8,000 to furnish and decorate a nursery.
One of the items in the store is a $1,125 chair shaped like a baseball
glove.
"A lady just basically walked in and said to her son, 'Do you like
it?' He said, 'Yes,' and she said, 'I'll take it,' " owner Snezana
Bacanin says.
Sterling silver baby rattles and cups have long been standard
christening gifts among the crowd that shops at Birks, but lately the
trend has been expanding, says Diane Oliver, vice-president of
marketing for the Montreal-based chain.
Parents are investing in $200 Mont Blanc pens for 12-year-olds;
diamond stud earrings for 13-to-16-year-olds at $650-$1,400; diamond
pendants for $1,200; and for christenings, pearl necklaces for baby at
$750, tiny diamond stud earrings at $350, and diamond pendants at
$550.
"It's no longer only the sterling silver rattle, it's also fairly good
pieces of jewellery," Ms. Oliver says. "It's quite amazing."
The same story is played out in car showrooms.
"Absolutely I'm seeing kids getting their parents to buy them cars,"
says Chris Martens, a salesman at Westgate Volkswagen in the Vancouver
area. Mr. Martens used to work at a Land Rover dealership in Richmond.
"There's been the occasional $100,000 Land Rover for a 16-year-old
kid."
The occasional Porsche, too. A dealership in Toronto reports that last
month a father wrote a cheque for a $140,000 Porsche 911 Cabriolet for
his son, who called in the order by phone. The father never even set
foot inside the dealership.
Toronto Volkswagen salesman Luson Leung says the sporty Golf, Jetta
and even the more expensive Cabriolet are popular among parents who
want to reward their children.
"One of my customers, it was a birthday gift. Normally it's a
graduation present," he says.
In Calgary at PurpleSaurus, owner Esther Loo-Sy says many of her
customers don't even look at price tags when they shop for clothes,
and they sometimes outfit their children specifically for vacations.
"I have a number of clients who will buy an outfit for their kid for
the plane," Ms. Loo-Sy says.
Christine Shaikin owns Justine's, an exclusive clothing store in
Ottawa.
"Girls come in with an average budget of between $300 and $400 for a
prom dress,"she says. "But this year, I've noticed that they've spent
$1,200 to $1,500 without blinking an eye. Before they would hesitate,
and say 'No, we'll have it made.' "
At Canada's Prada boutique in Toronto, a line of $250 shoes for
children vanished almost as soon as it hit the shelves. The $900 Prada
black diaper bag is another hot seller.
Part of the binge is due to the growing emphasis on individuality, she
says. People want to stand out from the crowd, they don't want to be
caught wearing the same clothes to a party as someone else, and
they're willing to pay a high price for that uniqueness.
Ms. Shaikin in fact, pleads guilty to being an indulgent parent
herself. She admits she gives her 23-year-old son golf money and gas
money and pays the insurance on his car.
"For his prom, I would have bought him an Armani suit. It just so
happened he wanted to wear a vintage tuxedo, so I was lucky."
Real estate is another area where parents are investing heavily on
behalf of their children, says Elli Davis, a Toronto real estate agent
with 18 years of experience. Instead of paying their children's rent,
parents may give them $50,000 as a down payment on a house or, more
typically, a condominium. Mom and dad usually come in just to OK the
purchase.
"If you're going to give your kid a Ferrari, yeah, I think that's
ridiculous," says Ms. Davis, a Royal LePage agent. "But if you're
going to give them a down payment, I think it's a smart place to put
money. I mean, where's the money going to go anyway?"
The trend began about seven or eight years ago, and has been building
ever since, she says.
"I think it's just demographics. Parents who are in their 50s, 60s,
have more money than our parents did 20, 30 years ago. When I was 20,
my dad didn't have $50,000 just to give me."
Cheryl Bauer-Hyde, a financial planner with Oehler and Associates in
Regina and chairwoman of the Canadian Association of Financial
Planners, says she has seen parents invest so heavily in their
children that it jeopardizes their retirement.
One couple in their 40s spent so much money on hockey equipment and
travel to games for their two sons that they brought themselves to the
verge of bankruptcy, despite a combined annual income of $80,000.
Another couple was financially strapped because they insisted on
sending their children to private schools.
One of her clients has been unable to retire, after a lifetime of
well-paid employment and a handsome buyout package, because she is
still supporting her adult son.
"She says she feels responsible even though she knows she shouldn't
be," Ms. Bauer-Hyde says.
Indulging children can create extended dependency, says Warren
Baldwin, regional vice-president in the Toronto office of T.E.
Financial Consultants. "The first financial institution they turn to
is the family. It should be a matter of last resort, not a God-given
right."
There is some evidence to suggest the trend has peaked. Toys 'R' Us
has just announced a profit slump. American analysts have even
identified a "youth recession." They say the youth market is
shrinking, partly because parents are cutting or stopping pocket
money, partly because the Baby Boomers are approaching the end of
their child-bearing years.
However, concern about the phenomenon is building. Next month Dan
Kindlon, co-author of the bestselling book, Raising Cain, will publish
Too Much of a Good Thing. Research carried out by the Harvard
psychologist has found that half of American parents say they are less
strict than their parents were. And a poll carried out for Time
magazine found that 80% of Americans think their own children are more
spoiled than children were a decade ago.
Jane Nelson, a Utah-based family therapist who has a PhD in
educational psychology and is co-author of Parents who Love Too Much,
believes indulging children makes them weak.
"It doesn't start with the cars or houses. It starts in a supermarket,
with a toy," she says.
"What kids learn is, 'I don't have to be responsible. I don't have to
save, I don't have to do without anything, I don't have to sacrifice
because if I get into trouble my parents will bail me out.' "
The result, she says, is children who dig themselves into serious debt
as adults because they never learn how to manage money.
"When you indulge a child, you are doing one of the most unloving
things you can because you are creating weakness instead of strength,"
Parents believe their children will be grateful, but often they are
not. Instead the children never learn to stand on their own feet,
never develop the feeling that they are capable, and eventually learn
to hate their parents for not giving them more, Dr. Nelson says.
She thinks parents should develop responsibility in children by asking
them to contribute to the purchase, by paying half. Often that alone
is enough to dissuade a child, she says -- they forget about the toy
as soon as they leave the store.
Dr. Betty Frain, a PhD in human development and author of Becoming a
Wise Parent to Your Adult Child, says parents often fund their
children in order to maintain a measure of control over their lives,
but eventually tire of it. "After a while they think, 'Oh, what have I
done here, I've created a monster,' " she says.
Cassie Poley, a 16-year-old high school student in Keswick, Ont., has
enough consumer goods that she might seem spoiled to an outsider, says
her mother, Lynn Haines-Poley, a professor of early childhood
education at Centennial College in Toronto.
The teenager has a 15-foot Zodiac boat, the latest and best in ski
equipment, and she travels across North America with her parents on
ski holidays. But Ms. Haines-Poley believes her daughter has learned
responsibility through ownership of the boat, and her daughter's
interest in skiing has led her to be a ski instructor.
"Do I think it can make or break a child, I'm not sure? There's so
many other factors involved," Ms. Haines-Poley says.
In fact, says Dr. Susan Bradley, senior psychiatrist at The Hospital
for Sick Children, professor at the University of Toronto and academic
co-chairman of The Parenting Alliance, material indulgence doesn't
necessarily have a deleterious psychological impact on children.
And it is in fact normal for affluent parents to provide their
children with the same luxuries and advantages they themselves enjoy.
"That multi-millionaire father who bought his son a Porsche is likely
going to leave his children with the means to live in that way," she
says. "Is that a crime?"
Problems arise when parents substitute material goods for the time
they should be spending with their children, she says. Stressed-out
and overextended, they may try to assuage their guilt by buying gifts.
Their children develop a sense of entitlement, and that's where the
problems begin.
"Parents haven't learned they can say no. Often they get hung up on
their own guilt and try to buy things."
In the end, Dr. Bradley says, what matters is whether you give your
children the tools to grow and manage and become constructive
citizens.
"It doesn't matter how much you spend on your kids if you're teaching
them to fend for themselves."
|
| Stephen H. Kawamoto replied to SunnyJim on 30 Aug 2001 |
Hash: SHA1
Those of you who know of my posts, I could recommend a book on how to
raise good citizens from children, but I am not in the right
newsgroup to mention the book title.
However, I recommend my website at http://sage_b.hobbiton.org/ (this
URL may or may not work, depending on how soon Hobbiton's ISP clues
in about the massive CISCO router DDOS going on right now.)
Overgrow the State!
White hat hackers: keeping the worldwide web secure...
- --
"SunnyJim" <sunny...@wiggly.com> wrote in message
news:3b812e8a.422984409@news.gv.shawcable.net...
[something about comparing apples with oranges i.e. spoiled children
with the few irresponsible welfare recipients, which do not outnumber
the deserving poor, and leads this respondent to wonder if SunnyJim
has ever been destitute, which is similar to wondering the same about
Bill Gates]
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system http://www.grisoft.com .
Version: 6.0.268 / Virus Database: 140 - Release Date: 2001-08-08
|
|