...once I had to fly coach all the way to the States. It was awful......my missing homework? Didn't you get it? I had my driver drop it off outside the classroom...
...don't you hate having to sit in the VIP boxes at stuff like the Olympics and the Hong Kong Sevens?
...can I use the phone? I remembered I don't like the school lunch today and I want to have my ayi cook me something else and deliver it to me...
...my missing homework? In my bag? I dunno...my ayi/grandmother/mother packs my bag. I guess she forgot it...I don't really know about that...
...how come when I google your dad, he's the 6th or 7th one on the list? My dad's number two...
...I think I'm going to Europe this summer. We went to Brazil, Thailand, and Switzerland already...
...ooooh, I love that hotel. The last time we were there we had our own butler guy!...
PS. I work at an elementary school.
To be fair, there are a few of those comments that do grate on me...it drives me nuts when kids have no idea where anything is because an ayi or grandmother is doing everything for the kids. In fact, in an expat magazine a month or so ago, a teacher bemoaned the fact that one of her students was having trouble with the whole toilet routine and the mother wanted to know what time she should send the ayi in to take care of that for the little tyke. Seriously. We do have ayis that will sit the entire lunch hour Every. Single. Day watching a 3rd or 4th grader eating and then playing. They bring his/her lunch, then collect it at the end so they don't have to carry a lunch box. I mean, honestly. That is completely ridiculous.
On the other hand, it generally humorous to listen to 10 year old bemoan flying coach. I do hope their parents are instilling values such as humility and a grateful heart for those things they have in their lives that are completely not of their own doing. I don't fault them at all for lives that are so different from mine and my own. Believe me, if I could fly business or first class and stay at the kind of hotel that would net me my own butler, I don't know that you'd see me turning it down for a cold water room with a squattie at the end of the hall! Compared to how Mark and I grew up, the trips that we have taken have been luxurious--not just in the locations, but the amenities. We are definitely aware of how blessed we are--and our children are as well (despite having an eye sometimes on what their friends are doing).
On the other (third?) hand, Mark took Cameron and his friends hiking on the Great Wall for his birthday. Another friend organized relay games in the street in front of his house. We took Noah and his friends bowling, then handed out light sabers and turned 'em loose. Every child in every case said that those were the best parties they had ever been to. And we're stacking those against a party Ava's friend went to (the birthday child was in kindergarden) where the parents rented a ballroom at a hotel and had petting animals, clowns, magicians, etc. We definitely know what works best for us and our family!
(but if I ever win the Powerball, I'm kissing coach goodbye)
3 comments:
In London,I met a this ex-pat lady from the U.S., friend of a friend, who owns a six story house on the street Margaret Thatcher lived on. She flew in two designers from NYC to redesign the 6-story house and it took them about 6 months to get it up to par. They have five kids and they do all those fancy trips. Most recently they rented a villa in Italy to house themselves plus some extended family--29 people. They hired a tour guide from Rome (probably 15 grand) and a cook. My friend asked her how things worked out with the cook, and the lady said the food was excellent, but complained that there were four courses for every meal. "It was just so MUCH," she said, rolling her eyes.
For me, that's too much. There is such a thing. Is it likely her children will be able to have this same standard of living when they're on their own? Probably only if subsidized by mom and dad. I wouldn't want my kids to grow up with those kind of expectations.
For the most part I don't mingle with ex-pats. In general I find them petty and in lack of any depth. However, I now have a number of like minded friends who still are down to earth and we meet every week. We often talk about how to deal with this. I am not really an ex-pat so my kids are pretty down to earth but still there are times that I have to sigh.
The international schools here have a program where kids need to do so many hours of service to finish school but it means nothing to kids with everything.
Hummm....Kind of a switch from Arusha.
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