To love and to lavish

CEBU, Philippines - There's no doubt that the materialistic culture that Filipinos once despised about the western societies has already seeped into our local ways. It is becoming more and more noticeable how we now tend to prefer the outward trappings of wealth and power over virtues and good character. Our young are especially an obvious example.

It may not be entirely their fault. It seems that today's parents are more giving, perhaps in an effort to compensate for their own material lack or limitation during their youth. Or maybe today's Moms and Dads are just more capable to provide their kids' demands for frills.

Or maybe yet, it's basically a gesture to make up for the parents' absence from home. We are aware of the exodus of Filipino workers to foreign lands in recent years, most of them parents who want better earnings to be able to provide the needs of the families they leave behind. Unfortunately, when guilt and available money combine, the proper limits are often waived.

And as money comes easy, the desire for things that money can buy grows proportionately. Reckless spending sprouts, too. One example to cite is the way many young people behave with regards to the mobile phone. Nowadays, little kids who are just learning to count their fingers already carry their own phones.

Okay, Mommy says it is necessary for the child's safety, so the little one can easily call for help if there's a problem. Also, it makes it easy for Mommy to trace her little one. "These are dangerous times," she says.

That's a very valid reason. But wait until the little one grows up a little bit and begin to have a little bit more friends. Now he or she needs to keep up with everybody else. His personal phone needs to be as good as his friends'. At this time, changing phone casings everyday becomes a must.

And then the little ones grow some more and become teenagers. Their phone behavior takes on a higher level. It is no longer enough to be changing phone casings every day. They need to be changing their very phone units almost as frequently! 

This looks like a challenge impossible for today's parents to meet. Considering that the teens naturally want to change their phones to newer - thus, more expensive - units. And to think that by this time their phone-load credit needs have already risen more than ten times!

But, lo and behold, we are seeing it happening. We see young students aboard jeepneys brandishing their latest model smartphones. And they are talking on the phone the whole time. You would think they're children of tycoons.

No, neither is Mom some Janet Napoles nor Dad some Davidson Bangayan. Daddy just happens to be working as a pipefitter in the Middle East or Mommy as a domestic helper in Hongkong. They are working so hard so they can send money for their kids back home to spend away.

The unnecessary extravagance that  parents inadvertently encourage by tolerating their children's whims is not the whole of the story. The children develop ugly cravings that they on their own can never satisfy, even as they eventually are able to work in a high-paying call center job. It's common among today's young workers to run into credit card trouble.

Loving parents need to remember that their duty to provide for their children includes providing the young ones with conditions wherein they, the young, can develop self-responsibility and sensible habits. The tendency to lavish the children must be tempered with loving intention to shape them.  (FREEMAN)