In today’s materialistic world, the class system has made it difficult for a large section of society even to maintain a respectable standard of living. At the same time, capitalism, through media and advertising, relentlessly promotes consumerism, placing constant pressure on families to make their lifestyles appear more luxurious, attractive and successful.
The display of wealth and material possessions has become so closely tied to social status and importance that perhaps never before have appearances played such a powerful role in determining how people are valued. Genuine human qualities such as tolerance, dignity, honesty, forbearance, decency and compassion are gradually losing their importance, while people are increasingly judged by how they look, what they own and the lifestyle they display.
In such circumstances, one of the greatest challenges for families is this: amid shrinking incomes and the constant pressure to consume more, how do we protect our own sense of self-worth and, more importantly, that of our children?
When Money Becomes the Measure of Human Worth
In a society where a person’s worth becomes associated with the abundance of money, where people are measured by expensive clothes, cars, large and beautiful houses and luxurious lifestyles, and where personal qualities become secondary, an extremely important question arises: how do we protect the morals, dignity and mental well-being of our children?
In a class-based society built upon injustice, exploitation of labour and the destruction of merit, even extraordinary effort, hard work and ability cannot guarantee that you will be able to build a secure future for yourself and your family.
Prosperity aside, despite continuous and exhausting struggle, even obtaining basic human necessities has become difficult for the overwhelming majority of households in Pakistan today.
Prosperity, Justice and Human Dignity
In our religion, the concept of prosperity is connected with justice. Quranic teachings recognise that the blessings available on earth are meant for humanity collectively. Therefore, whatever constitutes a reasonable standard of living in a particular age, Islam considers access to at least a basic standard of that life necessary for all human beings without discrimination.
Imam Al-Ghazali, in his discussion of the objectives of Shariah, also identifies access to fundamental human necessities as central to its purpose. Food, clothing, healthcare, education, shelter, the ability to establish and raise a family, and access to employment that makes these things possible are not only requirements of Shariah, but rights that civilised human societies have also continued to advocate.
Unfortunately, these rights remain distant for many. Despite tremendous struggle, a large proportion of our population manages to obtain only some of these basic necessities, and even those only partially.
On the other side stands a privileged class with such abundant resources that it remains occupied with finding ever newer ways of displaying luxury and extravagance.
The culture created by this capitalist and class-based society fills ordinary people, and particularly our children, with an extraordinary sense of deprivation and inaccessibility.
These ideas poison their consciousness with feelings of inferiority and insignificance. Their ego and sense of self are wounded in ways that can leave lasting effects on young minds.
Such an environment can influence an entire generation until material possessions and advantages become so important that children may eventually become willing to compromise even their conscience and humanity in pursuit of them.
What Can Parents Do?
For most parents, this is naturally unacceptable.
The permanent solution would be to replace a system that drives people towards crime and moral compromise with one based upon justice and fairness. But until that happens, it is essential to understand what can be done within our own families to shape our children’s psychology in such a way that they do not become fuel for this unnatural competition and endless race for material possessions.
Parents Must First Reject the Worship of Wealth
The first requirement is for parents themselves to reject a society built around the centrality of wealth.
Parents should completely reject the pursuit of material advantage at the cost of their human qualities and moral principles, and instead practise contentment.
It is true that under present conditions, even basic necessities may not always be obtainable through hard work and honesty alone. Still, as far as possible, we should try to keep our means of earning free from the exploitation of others.
The pressures of society may make complete success impossible, but enough humanity should remain within our conscience that we never entirely forget another person’s needs and rights.
Initially, choosing contentment may create pressure regarding the needs of your children and family. But when those same children grow up in such an environment and become mature adults, your importance in their eyes may become even greater.
The principles their parents lived by will become a guiding light for them, and through their own conduct they may become a source of continuing goodness for you.
Choose Your Child’s Environment Carefully
The second important factor is the environment in which your children grow up.
This includes your home, their school and the relationships within it, as well as your relatives and circle of friends.
Managing this environment and keeping it safe for your child’s psychological and emotional well-being is extremely important.
There are several steps that can be helpful.
Do Not Choose a School Simply for Its Status
As far as possible, try to educate your children in a school where the monthly incomes of most parents are reasonably similar to your own.
Do not place an excessive financial burden upon yourself merely to send your child to a school where the financial circumstances of most families are considerably better than yours.
Doing so can place children, from a very early age, in an unfamiliar environment where their immature minds become trapped in constant psychological comparison.
You may also find yourself struggling to provide all the additional facilities and possessions available to other children, a race you may never be able to win.
Young children do not understand the price of the things other children possess. They simply understand that if another child can have something, they should be able to have it too.
Human nature does not instinctively understand social classes.
Therefore, experiencing major differences in material facilities among peers at a young age may produce unnecessary anger and frustration in children. Eventually, this begins affecting both the parents and the atmosphere of the home.
School-level education does not determine a child’s entire professional future. Expensive schools in Pakistan are not teaching something so extraordinary that simply attending one guarantees a level of professional ability impossible for a child attending an ordinary or middle-income school.
It is far better for a child’s mental well-being to remain protected among children whose circumstances are relatively similar.
With YouTube and other inexpensive online educational resources, children can now improve their academic abilities at home as well.
Accept that even with an ordinary school, if you give your child appropriate attention, protect their self-respect, personally participate in their educational development and do not consider education to be the school’s responsibility alone, your child can still grow into a highly capable and talented individual.
Be Mindful of Social Comparisons Within the Extended Family
Similarly, try not to make your children excessively familiar with the household environments of relatives and friends whose standard of living is dramatically higher than yours.
Such exposure can sometimes create unnecessary wants and priorities in children.
When maintaining relationships, also pay attention to whether wealthier relatives repeatedly behave or speak in ways that emphasise the financial difference between themselves and your family.
If they do, then except where maintaining the relationship is genuinely necessary, keeping some distance may be healthier.
This can be extremely helpful in raising your children according to healthier values and protecting them from unnecessary feelings of inferiority.
Children Learn Contentment From Their Parents
Another important thing must be remembered.
Even from a very young age, children deeply absorb their parents’ behaviour and emotional states. Even infants can sense anxiety and distress in their mothers, and this can affect their own emotional state.
Therefore, parents may not possess abundant resources, but if they are happy and content within the limits of their lives, if there is harmony in their relationship, if they refuse to compromise their humanity and if they reject society’s artificial material standards, that confidence gradually passes on to their children.
Children do not need expensive toys and gifts in order to play, experience happiness or develop strong personalities.
Your time, your attention and the confidence you give them can be enough.
When your words and actions teach children that a person’s true worth rests upon character and morality, they gradually learn to judge themselves according to the same standard. They no longer require artificial material supports to feel complete.
Protect Young Children From Consumer Culture
To achieve this, particularly during the early years, children should be kept away from mainstream and social media as much as reasonably possible.
Unfortunately, through advertising and many less obvious techniques, media constantly creates desires in both adults and children that encourage unnecessary spending and consumption.
The attraction and importance of a media hero or heroine is often presented as the result of their clothes, hairstyle, shoes, jewellery and lifestyle.
An idealised person is created whose life appears worthy of imitation. Naturally, the things desired by that idealised figure also become desirable to the person who wishes to look or live like them.
This is one of advertising’s most effective mechanisms.
In the world of neoliberal economics, one of the central purposes of the media and entertainment industries is to create an unlimited appetite and demand for consumer goods, and enormous resources are being used to achieve this.
Protecting children from this concealed psychological manipulation, often presented under the cover of beauty and glamour, is extremely important.
Teach Children the Reality of Financial Limits Without Shame
Remember that if you treat children gently and do not appear distressed because you cannot provide a particular lifestyle or consumer product, children will gradually learn to accept these realities.
Explain your income and spending limitations to them clearly.
Take them mainly to shops, restaurants and marketplaces where you can comfortably afford around seventy percent of what is available.
Do not develop in them the habit of unnecessary window shopping or repeatedly looking at things you cannot afford.
Most importantly, never connect financial weakness with personal worth.
Explain it as an ordinary reality of life. No human being can possess everything available in the world, nor is there any need to do so.
A person can remain complete through good character and morality without possessing those things.
Children gradually learn to understand this.
Your Time Is More Valuable Than Expensive Comforts
It is also important to continue working hard despite difficult circumstances.
Try to increase your resources through legitimate means, but make sure you give time to your family and children.
That time is far more valuable to your children than the comforts purchased with money earned by sacrificing the very moments you could have spent with them.
Research has repeatedly highlighted the importance of parental involvement, attention and time in children’s positive psychological and emotional development.
What your children need most from you is not simply money, but your presence.
This is also important for your own mental and physical well-being.
Do not compromise on it.
Children Are Not Responsible for This Situation
Unfortunately, our children are not responsible for the circumstances in which they are growing up.
Our faith teaches us, and modern understanding of child development also recognises, that children are deeply shaped by their environment and upbringing.
Parents and the atmosphere of the home have a central role in that development.
It is we who have surrendered to artificial standards of living and unrealistic ideas of self-worth.
We have allowed our value to become dependent upon the price tags attached to expensive toys and possessions.
When a child innocently asks for something, we unnecessarily present ourselves as helpless, even though a young child can often be made happy with something costing very little.
If, from the beginning, you become a role model who does not measure yourself or others according to the possessions they have or do not have, your child is likely to follow that mindset while forming their own understanding of the world.
Encourage Physical Play and Real Relationships
Encourage children towards physical games and outdoor activities.
When children become interested in football, cricket and other inexpensive and healthy activities, they not only develop social relationships with children like themselves but also spend less time exposed to the harmful psychological conditioning created through media.
When Even Basic Needs Are Difficult to Meet
Finally, some parents face circumstances in which even fulfilling basic needs is extremely difficult.
Perhaps they cannot afford any school beyond a government school or a modest low-cost school. Perhaps compromises sometimes have to be made even regarding food, clothing, housing or healthcare.
Even then, try to remain hopeful, courageous and emotionally strong in front of your children.
Maintain your self-respect.
Be economical.
Keep your spending priorities clear and avoid debt as far as reasonably possible.
Continue working and looking for opportunities to improve your income.
There is nothing wrong with allowing children to understand that you are working hard or that circumstances are difficult. But never present financial hardship as evidence that you are somehow less worthy as a human being, and never transfer the anger of deprivation onto your children.
Your children can endure heat and cold. They can wear old clothes. They can live without rich and expensive food.
What they may struggle to repair later is the anger, sadness, humiliation and sense of worthlessness transferred to them by their parents.
If you continue facing difficult circumstances with courage and emotional strength, your children will gradually become better prepared to face an unjust and unequal world themselves.
And it is entirely possible that the courage, resilience and lesson of refusing to surrender that you give them today will become the foundation for a better life in their future.