BACK TO SCHOOL is around the corner. Many parents have spent the last week with their precious angels fitting uniforms, ensuring the books are ready and planning the extra-curricular activities. What a great experience it must be to be a parent.
Parents should be the most important teachers in a child’s life and many of us constantly state that the development and character building of a child starts within the home.
On Thursday, I witnessed a woman who stated that although she does not work and has to constantly be at the court for child support, her daughter was now entering secondary school and needed to have “de latest brand” for a school bag and shoes because “nobody ain laughing at she” as if “she ain nuh nobody”.
After putting up a status on Facebook about my thoughts on this mentality, I was told of a little boy who burst out in tears at a popular affordable shopping department store because he opined that the children at school would tease him because he had a “cheap bag”.
I decided to write this column after being present in a debate where some women were trying to explain to others that quality does not equate to brand name and that the constant obsession we have with brands and propelling them onto our children at very young ages is both tacky and pointless. I would not be surprised if there is a one-year-old who cannot walk but has a pair of $500 shoes but no baby formula.
I hear many parents say they buy brand name because it is quality. How do you know that the goods without the fancy names are not made in the same factory as the ones which are heavily branded? Let me make it clear that I am not against brand name. I appreciate and love my share of brands which I purchase with my own hard earned money.
As a child all during primary and secondary school my parents had four rules: no corncurls, no gameboys, no dolls that did not look like me and absolutely no brand name.
FLAMES (lily white sneakers sold in Woolworth in those days) were the best friend of my two knock kneed feet for many years and I still learnt well. The output of the brain was not dependent on if I wore a Northface bag on my back. My grades were not determined by whether I wore Jordans on my feet.
Actually, as we grow older, it can be proven that children who obsessed over these things always end up with certain flawed personality traits as adults. Whether they steal things to portray a particular lifestyle, have bad spending habits or fail to build on virtues as opposed to building on a glossy social media profile, the list goes on.
We are not doing right by our children when we purchase them a $500 school bag and then have to send them to school without breakfast in their stomachs. We are not doing right by our children when we “scrunt” to get them the latest gear knowing full well that money could be better used saving it for a college fund – especially in an era where UWI fees have increased and the student loan cites issues with repayment.
If parents really want to give children the things they were deprived of as children, they need not give them brand name. They need to give them opportunity and morals. No amount of Northface, Jordans, Nike, Land or Louis Vuitton (all great brands) will ever do that. Happy Sunday xx
Toni Thorne is a young entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Global Shaper who loves global youth culture, a great debate and living in paradise. Email: [email protected]
