Kids Rule....

..... out of the mouths of babes, the world around us is shaped. Kinda ring true in our present, huh? Look at the marketing trend now. Advert companies unleash adverts targeted at the young, and the adults buy it all in too. My bone to pick remains the telcos, for the seemingly cheap packages they keep coming up to allow kids to spend ceaselessly on texts and calls. I had a most interesting conversation with an old friend during CNY. Her experience was the same as mine when he was at that age that her kid now is... her kid felt too that 3000 smses a month is not a lot!

Kids rule... parents lavish their children with the things they wanted but could not have when they were young. Toys, gadgets, cars creep in by and by. A whole new marketing dimension is actually now targeted at the young. Parents may not spend on themselves but they are willing to spend on their kids. We figure, what's the harm of giving them the best that our money can buy... even if it means not training them to lift a finger at home - that's were the 'Kakak' (maid) comes in. These days, many well-to-do families have maids to answer to their kids every bidding. Another friend shared that one day her maid cooked 3 simple dishes.. but when her newly minted teenage boy sat down to have dinner, he asked what was for dinner... Apparently 3 simple dishes of one fried fish, one simple soup and one veg ( I think that was what she said) didn't count as food... We teased her mercilessly that dinner at her home must be made up of 10 courses! LOL!!!

Kid rule... what the kids say goes. Even sitcoms make parents look goofy these days. Kids seem the wiser ones. What kids say carry as much if not more weight than their parents. Amy Chua in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, also made a passing comment on this... I get the impression that we've elevated kids to feel that they're wise beyond their years... that parents can be 'hentam-ed' to look silly.

And parents contribute to this 'kids rule' thing. Many parents create a furore if their children are caned at school. We get indignant if our children are 'mistreated'. I remember my mom telling me that if the teacher canes me, she will gift another cane to the teacher so that he/she won't forget to cane me again when I misbehave. These days kids are smug in the knowledge that their parents will go after their teachers.... for one wrong move!

Parents feel guilty for various reasons... busy, no time, etc, etc. So they placate themselves by being 'generous to a fault' with their kids... no time but got material things to replace all those time not spent. So kids rule again...

But kids rule too cos today's kids feel that their parents are out of sync with their world... (which is quite true sometimes) but generally I think kids don't realize that their parents have gone down their paths before and actually do understand... same experience but different setting... Same old problem but these days, kids tend to rule unlike the days when I was growing up....