Are We Making Our Children Feel Like We Owe Them Things?

When my children were small, my mom and I inadvertently started a tradition of celebrating their birthdays with a party. In the
Dad didn’t think it a good idea at all and said so again and again.
“You could be sending the wrong signal to your kids,” he warned, “that by simply being born they have become entitled to certain things.”
He himself did not mind partying, but only for “real milestones, real accomplishments,” occasions that, for children to reach they definitely will have to have lived a bit longer, he pointed out.
Indeed, feelings of entitlement could arise in children from the most innocent acts, like enrolling them in an exclusive school, thus putting them in contact with children of the very rich, a situation that in fact inspired a summer refrain of privation from my own children: “The beach again? But Mom, my friends are all going to Disneyland!”
Could a simple, common, in fact classless, tradition like a birthday party for a child serve, really, to plant in him or her the seeds of any delusion of entitlement, of being owed something by Mom and Dad, nay by life itself?
Indeed, feelings of entitlement could arise in children from the most innocent acts, like enrolling them in an exclusive school, thus putting them in contact with children of the very rich, a situation that in fact inspired a summer refrain of privation from my own children: “The beach again? But Mom, my friends are all going to Disneyland!”
Being driven to and from school was another inspiration. A nonworking, stay-at-home mom, I scheduled my trips around my own children’s delivery to and collection from school. It never occurred to me to have them take public transport even when most schoolchildren their age did. But how could it have when I myself, again over Dad’s philosophical objections, had been even worse indulged? A second family car not only drove me to St. Theresa’s College and back, but also parked in the churchyard across the street, waiting all day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in case some emergency arose, as my mom, your worst-scenarist, cautioned. For her own trips, she rode with either Dad or her friends.
In contrast, a cousin had exclusive use of her family’s second car, and for a good reason: She was running a business of her own and doing well by it. To be fair, she also practiced tough love. All the same, I couldn’t help feeling uneasy seeing her parked car waiting for her unscheduled use while her children took the bus. It was at her shop where I had myself detoured and dropped off so that my own car wouldn’t be late in picking up a son who could not abide my eating one moment into his sacred schedule.
No doubt, plenty of chances present themselves to straighten out such children, but we parents tend to pass them all up by escaping into our own convenient illusion that, once grown up, they will stop being brats.
Still, I find my situation easier than that of a mother punished by her daughter with absolute pouting silence all through the trip home whenever the car came late for her. She could only be consoled, somewhat, if there was
No doubt, plenty of chances present themselves to straighten out such children, but we parents tend to pass them all up by escaping into our own convenient illusion that, once grown up, they will stop being brats. Which reminds me of my own missed opportunity, or am I rationalizing myself: If only we had stayed longer than our mere five years in the States….
We returned to Manila before the children could develop the habit of helping with house chores or just doing things for themselves. Admittedly it didn’t help that we had brought with us a
I may have concentrated too much on training my help and so neglected allocating time for the same lessons—life’s lessons that choose no learners actually—for my own children. Except for my only daughter, who showed an early interest in baking, the rest of the children were barred from the kitchen. In a feeble attempt to also instill in my boys some sense of home responsibility, their father and I put them in charge of the pets—for the dogs, weekly baths, removal of ticks, visits to the vet; and for the fish, feeding. Essentially still, they may have been led to believe that the good life was theirs as a lifelong entitlement. If they have turned out generally all right, surely it’s been by no one else’s grace but God’s.
But I’ve often wondered about reputedly pampered Chinese boys, those little emperors for whom entitlement is no delusion at all but a bestowal by tradition which revolves around gender, itself a cultural thorn on the side of universal equality. Despite all that, Chinese boys seem able to grow
Indeed, my cousin never missed an opportunity to teach her children the proper attitude toward money. Instead of giving them allowances as a matter of parental duty, she made them earn them. She made them weed the garden, for
I may have concentrated too much on training my help and so neglected allocating time for the same lessons—life’s lessons that choose no learners actually—for my own children.
We also saw no harm in taking our teenage children out to dine at fancy restaurants, as I do with my grandchildren now. The excuse: to teach them lessons in comportment. Again, in the once-in-a-blue-moon that her family ate out, my cousin always picked a modest restaurant, and Max’s, the populist fried-chicken place, almost always won over the others. “Better to wait before exposing them to fancy places,” she advised. Sure enough, if the choice were left to my granddaughter, she’d have us go to a hotel, and I know where that came from. She’s only ten.
As happens in not a few cases, children are indulged out of a sense of guilt, as may be the case with absentee or separated parents, parents waiting precisely for an occasion to compensate. I, with my own first marriage broken, plead guilty. I went over my head, for instance, financing a son’s European
By reinforcing children’s sense of entitlement,
In certain cases gratification comes as it is earned—a job promotion, a proper life partner, rewards for achievement of various sorts. But I suppose a final gratification lies out there for one to claim—and if one lives long enough, to the time when one’s present is one’s future, as in the case of my husband and me—there’s no reason for
But even at this point, certain realities, like age and health, put limitations on self-indulgence, signaling that prudence has no age exemption. So, opportunities pass us by or are passed up unregretted. We have decided, for instance, that for long trips we can now afford to fly business class, but we can’t seem to take off; too many things keep us grounded, which feels at the moment the happier choice. There are times we feel we deserve, as
Thus, without anxiety, without any sense of lack or disfavor, we’re now collecting on our entitlements, confident we’ll get what we deserve.