My mom loves to tell stories about her girls…to anyone who will listen. One of her favorites is about my first plane ride home from her native Peru. At age 6, as I sat in the window seat watching Lima fade away beneath us, I turned to her and said (with wisdom far beyond my years my mum will add) “the trouble with Peru is that the Peruvians don’t take good care of it.”
Admittedly it is one of her less embarrassing stories, better by far than the one that has me passing most of a Greek holiday with a potty on my head. And lately, as my son gets older, I’ve been thinking more about it.
By the time we leave Morocco this fall, he will not quite be three. Throughout our time here, that fact made me sad. There is likely little if anything that he will remember about our year in Morocco and our travels in North Africa. But now, this has also made me slightly grateful.
I have started to see the cogs turning in his little head when we pass the women begging on the street, with toddlers his age strapped to their backs. I see him watching the kids selling cartons of tissues at the stop lights as I guiltily roll up the window.
When he asks me about these babies on their mothers backs, or the ones selling on streets, what do I say? Moreover, how do you explain your own role in the perpetuation of this inequality. How do I explain that being asked for the 19th time in one day to spare just 1 dirham irritates me more and more in spite of the fact that had I given one each time, I would now be short only $2? How would I explain that the shoes he’s wearing would cover our gardeners weekly salary?
I am a big believer in my own and my son’s capacity to save the world. I take part in fundraising campaigns, donate to charity and volunteer. I will always encourage him to live a life of tolerance, patience and understanding. But when you live in the midst of an unequal society – to what extent are you compromising your principles by continuing to live in the manner to which you are accustomed?
So while I doubt that I will ever come up with any Nobel Peace prize winning solutions to global income inequality myself, I would at the very least time to come up with a way of explaining poverty to my son. I would like to be able to explain to him that he is lucky without teaching him conceit or entitlement. I would like to teach him that our relative wealth comes with a responsibility to those less fortunate in such a way that empowers and doesn’t leave me stinking of rank hypocrisy when I look away from the outstretched hands on the street.
How do you teach your children about income inequality when you are living on the “have” side of an unequal society?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our contributor, Natalia Rankine-Galloway, who writes at The Culture Mum Chronicles. She is now writing from the U.S. Embassy in Morocco.
Photo credit to the author.
I’ve lived in South Africa since the age of 8. I can tell you with absolute honesty that EVERYTHING is relative and charity MUST start at home.
My father started and bankrupted more businesses than I care to remember. When business was good we literally had champagne and caviar in our fridge, but when it was bad we got to eat whatever was in the dented tins without labels. Strangely I remember enjoying our “mystery” dinners more than the caviar days!
As a young married couple (and later when we added 2 children to our household) my husband and I also went through “lean” times, but we somehow always managed to keep a roof over our head and food in our stomachs. Even so, a large part of the local population perceived us as being “rich”!
We have always considered honesty to be the best policy when dealing with all our kids’ questions. When I told my young son that I couldn’t buy what he wanted because I didn’t have enough money, he asked me why I didn’t simply go draw some from the ATM! I explained to him that the ATM wasn’t “magic” and that in order for me to get money out of it, I had to first put money in! My experience is that kids understand way more than we give them credit for!
I guess my kids learnt about “income inequality” by living it! No matter how much or how little money you have, there will ALWAYS be people who have more than you and people who have less than you!
Once you’ve taken care of your family’s needs, you can help out the less fortunate. The best way to do that, is to support NGOs that help people help themselves!
I just know that I am going to be giving a lot more money to homeless people when my son starts to notice them. Mind you, we hardly ever see them where we live. The homeless of Vancouver all pretty much live on a couple blocks in downtown Vancouver, so you pass through a horde of them driving into town.
There’s a deli in that district that sells tokens you can give, and any homeless person bringing in a token is given a hearty sandwich. Maybe I’ll buy a bunch of those so my son can give them out…
I totally love that token idea!
Great post. I teach my kids about inequity by getting them involved in gift buying for underprivileged kids locally over the holidays, by getting them involved in Shot@Life parties and telling them lots of stories about kids I met in Uganda. They have a lot if questions!!
I really like talking about this with other moms. I feel like teaching compassion is something we all are doing in our own special ways around the globe!
Jen 🙂
Actually, inequality is something I find hard to deal with myself. The way I would teach my son about this issue is first to instill in him a heart of gratitude and not take for granted what he is blessed with. I would bring him to do volunteer work too. In addition, I would teach him to respect everyone as equal – being poor is about economic differences but it’s never an issue about a person’s worth.
Oh this is so hard. We can be so insulated from this in the US, but in Kenya it smacks us in the face every day and begs explanation for our very inquisitive 4 year old. We try and help out the people we know but explain it in a way that does not seem patronizing. E.g. “some people are born to parents who don’t have a lot so they need some more help.” Truly, nearly ALL inequality is an accident of birth and the more we can drill that home the better. Somewhere in the American narrative is this idea that the rich are rich solely because they work so much harder than the poor. If we can disabuse him of this fallacy, I’ll be happy.
We also try to be appreciative of what we have (as an accident of our own births to middle class families in a high income country) by saying what we are thankful for each night before dinner. My son might say things like “playing with my friends” but we’ll try and add “having electricity so we can play even when the sun goes down. Not everyone is so lucky.”
Anyway, who knows what’s sinking in, but we try…
I love the tokens idea and pointing out alternate things to be grateful for. I think this is a conversation that can start as early as the questions do. Thanks for your comments ladies!
I think that without evil we would not truly know what good is. Without poverty we would not truly know what it means to be blessed with enough.
Charity, while it might seem like it is more for the receiver, is really for those blessed enough to be able to give.
I am curious as to why you don’t give to people begging if you feel guilty about rolling up the window? (Pure curiosity, no judgement at all as I too do the same at times.)
I live in Abu Dhabi, where off-the-charts wealth is constantly on display; I’ve fielded more questions about money in the two years we’ve lived here than in our entire time in NYC (where income disparity also on display, on a daily basis). All the things that people are pointing out here–showing kids how they can contribute in whatever small ways (hopefully leading to change-the-world ways later in life), talking about social structures, about gratitude and compassion–that’s all good. What helps, in a weird way, here, is that precisely because there are so many people here who have WAY more than we will ever have, and people with way less, my kids are (I hope) gaining some perspective. I will say, though, that this set of questions took me completely by surprise; it’s the aspect of being an expat here that I’d not really thought about or planned for.
This is such a terrific topic. I actually carry around granola bars in my bag, so that when I see someone begging on the street I give them one. In NYC, there is such a disparity in wealth, but it is not always easily seen. Hopefully the kids “register” this somewhere in their brains and learn from it. Last year, when my son was 5, I actually had him watch a news program with me about homeless children, and how they are growing up. I specifically wanted him to understand that there is an entire other world out there, and he is very lucky to have all that he needs, and more, even if he doesn’t necessarily have as much as some of his friends. 🙂
What an important topic you raise. I am working with my seven year old in dividing his weekly allowance into saving, spending, and giving piles. He just made his first donation to the Red Cross in the wake of the tornado disaster we had here in the states, but I am thinking on how to educate him on poverty around the world and our role to help with our time and donations. I also try to always get library books that talk about other ways of life around the world so he can see that people live very differently from us and talk about our ability to help one another.
Susie – good question! No judgement received 🙂 Well one reason is that there are so many. I keep a little pile of coins (1Dirham coins equals roughly .12 cents. But you have to tip parking attendants 2 DH every time you leave a lot so I frequently run out. I tend to give to mothers with babies (since, as intended, they pull on my heartstrings). But after a while there are just too many hard luck cases to give to them all.
I really love the ideas here about working with kids on setting aside allowance for giving, engaging them with documentaries and the news. Thanks for all the input!
Very important topic, I think it’s an occasion to explain that there are very poor people in life and that we have to share with them what we have. It can be a great opportunity to teach them about gratitude and being thankful for what we have in addition to sharing and giving a part of our possessions to others.
Usually I don’t give children who are begging because in my country I know that gangsters use the children to collect money for them and they stay in specific places, I give only old people who I feel they are really in need and I explain that to my children. Otherwise I send regular money to charities and I believe that real poor go to charities and specific associations which provide support for needy people.
That’s what i believe and i live according to and teach my children.
I liked your post 🙂
I love what Kim said about almost all inequality being an accident of birth: that’s pretty much the approach we take with our boys.
I am a great believer that charity begins at home…so we focus on raising awareness of poverty and inequality in New Zealand.