Are you financially ready for children?
Starting a family is no easy task especially if you lack the financial means to pull it off so before you start making babies, how about making your finances right first?
A 62-year-old man who makes a living selling drinks by the roadside marries a 20-year-old woman. They decide to start a family with his meagre income. Within the next three years, the woman gives birth to two daughters. However, she falls sick after the second child and becomes blind. With a blind wife and two toddlers, the man struggles to make ends meet. Sadly, some nine years later, he too falls ill, forcing the blind wife to wash other people’s laundry for RM200 a month as the sole breadwinner. Now with two school-going children, a sick husband and a blind wife, the family relies on financial aid from NGOs on a monthly basis.
The above story was taken from a report published in FMT a couple of days back. No doubt, many have been touched by their plight – they may even have heard the strains of a violin playing in the background as they read the report. But let’s push those sentiments aside and allow our common sense to kick-in for a moment.
- Did you think the senior citizen could afford to support himself by selling drinks by the roadside?
- Did you think he could afford to support himself and a bride by selling drinks by the roadside?
- How about supporting himself, his wife and a child by selling drinks by the roadside?
- Now, consider him selling drinks by the roadside to support himself, his wife and two children – did you think he was making a success of it?
Such is life that hundreds of questions must be asked and answered before we decide on doing even the simplest of things.
Like which school to go to, which course to study or which career path to pursue. The same goes if we wish to move out of our parent’s home, buy our first car, pursue a relationship, get married, buy a house or have children.
With all these questions to consider, I wonder what went through the mind of this senior citizen when he decided to marry the young woman or when he chose to have not one but two children with her. Did he seriously think he could manage a household of four on his income?
The most common explanation is that he did not think. He left his fate in God’s hands.
I realise this is an issue many people avoid discussing. Most of us think it is morally wrong to question a couple’s intention to have children even if they have no means to support them. The general rule is, humans are programmed to reproduce. Thus, fulfilling what nature intended for us gives us the right to have children if that is what we want. However, having the right to do something and making that choice does not necessarily mean it is the correct thing to do.
As much as we sympathise with those struggling to make ends meet, it is wrong for us to turn a blind eye to the plight of the innocent children who were brought into this world by parents not capable of even supporting themselves. These children deserve so much more and forcing them to live a life of poverty because of the bad decisions of their parents is a form of abuse.
I believe it is important for people in our community to spread this message so others who might follow down the same path, God forbid, are spared from making the same mistakes.
Respected members of society, political leaders and scholars should start educating members of our community, who believe in the mistaken notion that someone will be there to look out for them. The mindset of parents who pop out half a dozen babies, expecting “rezeki anak” to miraculously pay the bills and put food on the table, has to be reset.
We need to get people thinking before they take the risk of making families out of nothing. People should strive to improve their living conditions first before welcoming children into their lives. Frankly, it’s not rocket science.
As of now, we have many people living on the streets who are actively reproducing. We have people depending on the charity of others for survival while continuing to make babies in the hope that more aid will pour in.
Our country needs people who will be assets to the nation. And if children are our future, parents must have the means to nurture them – teach them right from wrong, put nutritious food in their bodies, discipline them, give them a good education, expose them to knowledge and have their thinking skills challenged.
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While I wish the senior citizen, his wife and two girls well, I do hope that others would stop jumping into parenthood without proper planning. The country needs human assets, not liabilities.