Materialistic

Sometimes I wonder, "Ada org baca ke blog aku nihhh....??" :) but then I remember, I write as a way of expressing myself so it doesn't really matter whether it gets read or not...and I know for sure that there is AT LEAST one reader out there and you know who you are!!

As you can see, I lepak quite a lot at CARI.com.my. The forum there can be as enlightening as reading the dailies. Betul! Reading the Gossips board is like reading the Harian Metro free; artis mana mabuk, artis mana kena tangkap basah blabla. Abg prefers the Current Issue board himself, but I think that's too serious especially at the end of a day's work.

Anyway, one of the boards put up a question that I thought was quite interesting. It asked whether parents nowadays are too materialistic for their children's good? Are materialistic parents producing materialistic children? Why is it that more parents are using materials as a substitute for good ol fashioned values?

My parents weren't rich. But we weren't poor either. Sedang2 aje la. We had everything we needed and we were definitely not spoiled. I definitely didn't think my life was lacking anything and I feel that that is because we weren't babysat by the TV. Ma was not the type to put on a Barney cd, well video la,....come to think of it, Barney dah ada ke time tu? Let me put it this way, we had a huge TV in the living room but more times it was off than it was switched on. Plus maybe at that time people didn't advertise as much kot. I was a content kid.

However, when I started primary two at MGS (Methodist Girls' School), I experienced peer pressure. Girls there were rich upper class, english speaking, ballet dancing, piano playing girls. Compared to them, I was a jakun, and like a jakun I did act..:) I gaped at their 5 door pencil cases, their 48 piece color pencils, their collection of furry, sweet smelling stickers and most of all, at their Barbies. Whenever we had afternoon sports practice, these girls would bring their Barbies and play house with the other girls. I remember watching them act out Barbie going out on dates with Ken and admire how beautiful the dolls were.

I can't remember now if I had pestered Ma for one....but I never had my own Barbie. Ma was the type of person who didn't believe that kids should have toys that would cost more than a meal for a small family. Because she came from a poor family, she knew and appreciated the value of having money and she instilled that in us. Ma taught us to work for anything that we wanted.

For instance, I would wash Pa's car on Sundays for 50 sen. See, 50 sen had value at that time. Try telling a boy scout to do a chore for that amount today? Tak pandang punya la..:) I remember when Yaya was a baby, I was given 3 ringgit a week for washing the 'lampin's.....eh, what do you call reusable diapers huh? I would save the money carefully in my cheap wallet and spend it on things I wanted but Ma won't buy. I remember wanting to buy Michael J. Fox's video Bright Lights Big City once, and when I had enough (12 ringgit for a VHS movie - it was the 80s mah), off we went to the supermarket to buy it. I didn't buy it though. When I saw how poor the quality of the picture was, I decided that it wasn't a good enough reason for me to spend my hard-earned 12 ringgit, no matter how much I adored Michael J. Fox.

So, to this day, I can still get very careful with money. Though staying in a temptation-free place like Permaisuri, Setiu does help with building up of the savings. A healthy savings liberates me. I know that if anything happens, I have something to fall back on.

On the other hand, I love spending on people I care about. Nothing gives me more pleasure than taking my family out on dinner, or buying things for my anak buahs or brothers and sisters. Which is kinda weird, kan, because I'm doing the total opposite of what Ma did.....

Tapi, I say to myself, rezeki nie pun datang dari Allah. So it isn't really mine, kan? So, what's wrong in sharing and making people happy in the process?