No one would doubt the importance of money in a country that boasts the highest Per Capita Income in the world and also a large population of migrant workers, here for attractive tax-free salaries. Yes, money does matter here!
Being a teacher in a responsible school (and not a literacy factory), I am aware of four and five year olds in the school being taken to a toy store on a set date with a set amount of money and being allowed to decide what to buy with that portion of their money. They are made aware of the sense of carrying money with them and spending it sensibly as part of curricular activity. Now, purists may question the sagacity of such methods of education, but learning to handle money is, to my mind, as it is the educationists behind the idea, an important life skill and the school (like all schools should) yearns to facilitate the picking up of all essential life skills at school. Children here, in Qatar, discuss money very early in life. Even discussions among ten year old children often hover around gadgets, automobiles or fashionable accessories that often pinch parents’ pockets anaesthetically.
Hence, while I think it a good thing that children talk and think about money responsibly, I also feel it is imperative for us to not lose sight of the flip side. And this flip side is the responsibility of our society, beginning with the child’s family and school.
First is the danger of money’s abundance going to the head. The tendency to splurge on oneself thoughtlessly and the gross unwillingness to part with even a little for others is a dangerous one. Children won’t learn much of value if parents think that giving them money unquestioned and unhindered is the best way to shower love on them. While parents who earmark a reasonable amount of money for their child every month or year are teaching them the value of looking up to money that they can spend sensibly, those who don’t rein in the amount given as cash to their kids are teaching their children to take money for granted. Needless to say, it is often these children, who have lost sight of the value of money that end up taking life for granted too. In the absence of meaningful goals in life, they grow up as parasites on their parents and feel no need to do well themselves in life. Children need to be taught that all money is hard-earned and is not to be spent irresponsibly.
But again, this should not lead to a Scrooge-like inability to share. One should take a leaf or two from the experiences of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and see how becoming rich and contributing to alleviation of suffering are not contradictory. One needn’t look too far to find children flaunting the latest I-Pods and mobiles at social gatherings and yet hesitating to contribute to the ‘Red Crescent’ or ‘Reach Out’ causes at school.
Even the omnipresent tendency to suspect everyone’s intentions is a fall-out of this inability to come to terms with richness. Children can’t believe acts of generosity that they encounter themselves and often ask the question, “What’s in it for me?” before they undertake tasks which are not overtly profitable. As adults, we are to blame for this. The talk that we have at home in the presence of our children centres on the need to accumulate money. The greed for money is picked up by children as a life-long value this way. In this context, one of the ironies of our society is the fact that exhorbitant cash rewards are offered to those who find missing pets and yet causes which need philanthropic deeds have few takers.
The menace of thinking solely about oneself has to be countered and one must begin with the child. Children need to be taught the value of prudence in spending without, at the same time, losing sight of the need to care and share. Even if they learn to treat people who “serve’ them, with respect, the first step is taken. The clichéd idea of money not being our master but our slave is surely not outdated or irrelevant.
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