What have we done to our Children?

A few months back, I watched the UK parliament as Prime Minister Cameron faced the MPs for the first time the publication of the Panama Papers.  Earlier over the weekend the PM had said that he ‘could have and should have handled’ the row that resulted from the revelation that his father had held some off-shore accounts ‘better’.  If he thought that the statement would dampen the mood a bit and spare him the wrath from the house, he quickly found out how wrong he had been on resuming his eat.  MP after MP from the opposition Labour party stood up and attacked him for failing to grasp the widespread rage felt across the UK.

During his statement the PM defended his past investments in offshore holdings and also defended the practice of avoiding inheritance tax whereby parents give money to their children before they die – and I think he was within his right to do so.   What baffled me however, is the way his colleagues rounded up on those who demanded for an explanation calling them ‘envious’.  Sir Alan Duncan, the conservative MP for Rutland & Merton even took it a notch higher calling them ‘low achievers’.  Basically those who were demanding an explanation were nothing but a bunch of ‘envious low achievers’

In a way, Sir Alan’s outburst struck me as a very important one that we should not just sweep under the carpet.  It may come back to haunt him but let us not miss the real point as our minds become shrouded in the mist of anger engulfing us for being labeled ‘low achievers’.  Depending on how you look at it, the MP may be right or highly snobbish.  I also believe that the majority of us who usually question the wealthy of those richer than us, always do it from a point of ‘how possibly can he do that unless he is stealing or evading tax etc – envy is written all over our concerns.

Where I disagree with the MP is using wealth as the only yardstick for achievement.  And that’s the problem that we seem to be all facing these days - people obsessing with wealth as the only achievement.  I grew up in the 70s in a village on the suburbs of Kampala that did not have many educated or rich/wealthy people.  People like my father who were not really educated but considered rich (my father was among the few who owned a car) were always respected but not highly regarded.  On the other hand, teachers, priests and doctors whose means of transport was no bigger than a bicycle were highly regarded as achievers and respected even by my father.  Those were considered to be people of high integrity in society.   That explains why as a primary school going child in the 70s, I did not aspire to become my father who owned a car but rather looked to becoming a teacher – of course this changed as I grew up and found what teachers were earning.

Our children are no longer inspired to become teachers, priests or doctors and I don’t blame them.  How can they, when their rich parents can walk into a school and dress down a teacher in front of the entire school.  Why respect the doctor at the community surgery when your parents constantly question his qualifications and publicly declare that they can never let him touch you his family.  A child who is aware that their father provides for the priest from food to transport and the priest gives them selective treatment because you their father’s kids can hardly aspire to become a priest.  Kids grasp these things very fast.  They see priests, teachers and other people in the community compromising their positions because of their father’s deep pockets.  It becomes clear that whoever you are in society you will always be at the mercy of the wealthy.  They immediately get to understand that amassing wealth is the most important thing, integrity and honesty counts for nothing.  A teacher is no longer offered the front seat in church or at a function, instead a snobbish member of the community who is rumoured to have illegally acquired his wealthy or a suspiciously stinking rich public official are revered and pampered.  Unwittingly, we are teaching our kids that respect and admiration can only be achieved if you are rich.  It does not matter how you got your wealth.  In fact those who try to bring up the subject should be dismissed as envious low achievers.