Ed, really like your thoughts on entitlement as I agree it is a huge problem with our culture (a much more damaging one than the extremism of Crossfit, but that’s another post). The potential outcome of this American attitude that concerns me most is how my children will handle growing up with a silver spoon in their mouth.
My girls won’t be trust fund babies, but Sheila and I are fortunate enough to provide anything for them that they need, and much more. They’ve gone on 1-2 vacations across the US a year, they have trendy clothes, they get toys galore from Mom and Dad and generous family and friends. How in the world to you teach a child that all these gifts are luxuries, not expectations of a normal life.
Now that Sasha is getting older (5), we are starting to talk about chores, an allowance based on work at home, and discuss how she is going to distribute her birthday money. We go to church and learn lessons about the grace of God. We talk about our professional, philanthropic and volunteering activity with her and try to help her understand how many others aren’t as lucky as she is.
In the future we hope to volunteer as a family, Ed to your point providing direct interaction with others less fortunate than our family. We are adamant that our girls will work during college, and will come out of their education with debt. Not because we can’t pay for college, but because we believe that the development of having to juggle work and school and the financial control necessary to manage debt are good life lessons for them to learn while in college.
We have no idea whether or not these are the right answers. I’m hanging my hat on the same idea that I do with most of parenting: if you try hard and are thoughtful you won’t always get it right but you will most of the time and your kids will turn out just fine. We’ll see!
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