My mother was once very poor until she had to live for several years on the back part of her cousin’s house.
She told me how she had to watch how her cousins had a lot of beautiful shoes that she really wanted while she only got this one pair which she had to fix it with nails whenever the soles were broken.
When I was little, I remembered had quite pairs of leather shoes which models were unique while she had also some pairs with different colors.
She was indeed a strong-willed one, had goals in life and be focused on achieving all of them. I am quite lucky she inherited those traits to me.
Among six, she was the only one who managed to finish her college, went abroad and traveled to many places. She repeated that story continuously, but I considered it just a story that was quite hard to relate since it was totally far from my reality.
After the little girl came, all those words cameback to me. I finally realized how much work had done by previous generations so the current one could enjoy a better start in life.
In raising a child and achieving anything, money makes things easier. But, its function stopped there.
We need time and energy. Without time and energy, money alone won’t take you anywhere.
It became clear how significant the privileges passed from her grandparents could do in raising her.
The privileges here aren’t about money or material possessions.
There are some privileges that parent unconsciously (or intentionally) give to their children like :
No child has the same parents although they come from the same parents. What one child remembered about their parents could be totally different from the others. Thus, the privileges inherited also different.
My mother and her siblings were the real proof. None of her siblings could have half of what she achieved. Among five, only one managed to finish college. The four left don’t live much differently than they have been since many years ago
Been having a conclusion for a while that a child is actually the product of their grandparents parenting, UNLESS, the parents make significant changes, good or bad. This was what my mom did.
She refused to continue living the same way so that was why she planned almost everything in her life to be at the better place than she was before.
There’s also the saying “if you fail to educate your children, you’ll end up raising you grandchildren” which rings true. Her sister up until her old age is busy raising her grandchildren.
The saying from zero to hero back to zero in three generations is not a myth. It might hard to believe when I heard that my mother’s grandfather was one of the richest men in his hometown. By the third generation, not much left. Look what happened to his granddaughter.
Maybe this is why you should talk a lot to your children. You never know where the influence of your words stop. It’s also quite important to learn about your family history. So the past mistakes could be avoided at all cost.
When you inherited good privileges, it’s a strong reason for not being lazy and throw away those hard-earned privileges. It should be passed on to the next generation.
The future life won’t be any easier so there’s no reason to make a child life easy. What they enjoy now is not something that they should take for granted. They might have a completely different reality for their own life later, which we surely want it to be a better one, don’t we?
Thus, there’s no shortcut other than to do the works. It’s truly the parents job to prepare them, for them to be able to live on their own.
Make them work hard, doing daily habit until it becomes part of them that no one couldn’t take, set the standard to do things in life, and many more.
If only we know how little time we have to prepare them for everything to deal with their own life later.
Keep climbing is not an option, it’s an obligation.
An opening post for a self reminder for not being complacent to deal whatever I have to do with little girl.
A line that I regularly tell her :
“Be focused now. Being poor is not an option”.
A Penny for My Pensieve 