I had a conversation with a teenager today and she talked about about how she spent some of her holidays in Dubai. According to her, she said that during most of their return trips back home, her dad will book four seats, all on first class ticket as they come back to Nigeria. During one of such trips, her dad needed to come back to Nigeria urgently and he was not able to secure first class tickets as usual. Her dad, to her disappointment, bought one first class ticket for himself, one business class ticket for the mom and 2 economy class tickets for her and her sister. I further inquired from her why she does not like economy class tickets and surprisingly, she said that most people on economy class snore so badly when they are asleep.

I have been troubled many times over about the excessive exposure of children to uncontrolled affluence and wealth in recent times. While it is worthy to note that poverty is not acceptable and neither is it a means to Godliness. On the other hand, excessive exposure of children and young adults to affluence is annoying, disturbing and unnecessary.

In some countries like Japan, India and China where the culture of hardwork is cherished, children and teenagers are made to undergo very rigorous work at school. They are also made to acquire skills in ICT, robotics and other fields of human endeavour. It is quite amazing to watch these children and young adults engage themselves in displaying amazing skills they have learnt. In our country, we need to remind our young ones that hardwork pays. They need to learn consistently that they do not have to depend on the wealth of their parents to succeed. While it is acceptable for their parents to give them quality education and also expose them to a meaningful standard of living, they must also be careful not to allow their children gain access to uncontrolled wealth and exposure beyond their maturity level as this will make these young ones lose basic values of self-control, respect, hardwork and fairness.

It is acceptable for children to enjoy the best of times with their parents and other family members but parents and guardians need to be careful about the legacy they live for their children. When a child realises that he/she does not have to study or work hard to be successful, it ultimately has a terrible impact on the society.

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Nice post