Consumers'R'us

In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Kind,

* * *

My kids tried out a hot tub last night.

"Mama, it is going to be so relaxing," parroted my four-almost-five-year old excitedly, nodding her pony-tailed head towards me and her doting grand-father.

We both chuckled at her eagerness and I let my skepticism give way to curiosity.

"Are you going to the hot tub?" exclaimed the younger one, a chubby basket-ball of energy who barely understood what we were saying. She laughed along with us as we readied ourselves to get out onto the deck and duck the cool air as we disappeared into the whirling, rainbow-lit luxury.

As we bubbled away, premium jet streams pushing at muscles I hadn't realized needed pushing, I couldn't help but once again wonder at the standard of living all around me. And my girls. . .what was this teaching them?

* * *

When the artifically-flavoured yogurt "tubes" (specially marketed at a discerning toddler public) run out, saf saf, my two-year-old, never fails in saying, "We'll get some more," speaking with certainty, not just optimism.

When tam tam, the other one, wants something, it is "let's go get it now". And sadly, I find myself going along with all this.

How do we teach children to become more than simple consumers of a world where everything is seemingly at their fingertips if they simply ask, or cry, or beg? I've tried showing them pictures of children whose bellies bulge from malnutrition in Africa. I've pointed out the kids on Arab streets that wonder aimlessly with ripped shirts or torn pants. My daughter came with me to give money to a man who had no legs and was pulling himself along on a thin wooden plank with wheels that required him to be lying flat out on the ground. At least the older one is concsious of the reality of the world -- and sometimes even fearful of becoming like "them", "Mama, we can't give away everything, because we will be like them...." sigh. How to teach generosity in a society that is so me-focused?

* * *

Even I think I'm entitled. When we travel, we are shocked that we are not being treated as we were back home in Canada. This belief that we are somehow deserving of the blessings all around us is extremely problematic and symptomatic of a dominant nation that refuses to give more than 0.28 per cent of its country's wealth to the poorest of the world (Canada's foreign aid ranks as the lowest among G7, as of 2007).

A friend of mine once asked her mighty brood of five (now six, God Bless and Help her!), to toddle around the house, picking up every car, truck, doll, plastic knick knack, ball, etc., and stack them up in some empty boxes.

"We're taking these to the poor kids in our neighbourhoods," she relates telling them. "God wants us to share."

The kids obliged, perhaps not realizing that it meant that her modest two-story house would become almost free of any wheely, cuddly or accident-inducing thing-a-majig, from then on. When we visited a little while later, her two eldest, a shy girl of about five and a confidant boy barreling into his sixth year, blew me away.

When my daughter wanted one of the few toys left in the house, a spiderman flashlight that the boy happened to be in love with (can you blame him?) he very simply handed it over to her.

"Keep it," he lisped and leaped away. I tried not to choke on the food my hostess had brought for us to share in one big plate. And then, her daughter, responding to the tireless requests of the same little lady who is related to me, asked her mother if she could give away the lovely paper-mache flower she had made at school and which currently hung on their simple walls.

My daughter jumped up and down with happiness as the pair lovingly removed the only colour in the otherwise drab room and gave it to her, both smiling at their offering.

"Fatima," I said, not knowing what to do,"say 'thank you'." She did but I wondered how I could ever instill this love of others in the hearts of my daughters.

“You will not attain righteousness till you spend in charity of the things you love.”
——— The Qur’an, Chapter 3, verse 93.